News

NEW YORK (JTA) — Being an American Jew, more than anything else, means remembering the Holocaust. That’s what nearly three quarters of Jewish Americans said, according to the Pew Research Center’s landmark 2013 study on American Jewry. Asked to pick attributes “essential” to being Jewish, more Jews said Holocaust remembrance than leading an ethical… Read more »

  BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) – When Shoshana Dembitz and Abigail Grafton first met, they spent several long moments gazing into each others’ eyes. But this wasn’t a love-at-first-sight occurrence. Rather, the two were attending a Shabbat service in which participants were split into pairs to look into each others’… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Three months after Israel’s Chief Rabbinate rejected his authority to perform conversions, one of America’s most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis joined with Natan Sharansky to advance a message: The rabbinate needs to become more open. But not too much more. A widely respected rabbi in New York’s… Read more »

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) – Growing up in Namibia, Dan Craven would bicycle long distances upon the only two paved roads in his hometown of Omaruru — 80 miles heading north to Otjiwarongo and 45 miles south to Karibib. Cycling on what he calls the “tar roads” is how he fell… Read more »

(JTA) — The Claims Conference, which manages aid to Holocaust survivors, has negotiated a budget increase through 2018, including the largest one-time increase in homecare funding the organization has ever secured. In talks with the German government, the Claims Conference secured nearly $312 million in homecare funding for survivors… Read more »

Sharon Arkin, Ph.D., was honored as the Tucson Jewish Community Center Volunteer of the Year for her Elder Rehab program for those with mild to moderate memory impairment. The Fall 2016 semester of Elder Rehab begins the week of Sept. 19. Participants, who should be over age 50, are… Read more »

Author and publisher Arthur Naiman has no time for those without humor or creativity. The Chicago-born Tucson transplant by way of New York, Paris and the Bay Area has published more than 30 nonfiction books and started two publishing companies. A philosophy major at Brandeis University, he had no… Read more »

Love of the written word and a desire to understand and help others are the forces that have driven Joan Belzer throughout her life, and, over time, she has found a way to combine them. After discovering the power of graphology, also known as handwriting analysis, Belzer was empowered… Read more »

At 90 years young, Mort Kranitz still has a song in his heart and a spring to his step. The pacemaker he got in June inspired him to take life easier and he now gets into his office at Mort’s Auto Brokerage a little later in the day. Yes,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) –  “I am proud to be a Vlach,” says Yiannis Boutaris, the mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. Ostensibly, we’re here at the Washington Hilton to discuss Boutaris’ bid to put the Jewish back in Thessaloniki, a city — perhaps best known as Salonika —once home to the largest… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — For two years, in her travels around the English capital, Natalie Pitimson has toted a library bag emblazoned with a word in Yiddish. “The word ‘schlep’ written on the side perfectly describes my regular hour-long trek through central London,” Pitimson, a senior sociology lecturer at the University… Read more »

EDINBURGH, Scotland (JTA) — The last time that Scotland voted on whether to become independent from the United Kingdom, most of its 7,000 Jews thought doing so was a bad idea. Worried that Scottish independence would encourage nationalism and embolden an already aggressive anti-Israel movement with deep roots in the… Read more »

  (JTA) — Most people know Elie Wiesel as the author of “Night,” one of the first published autobiographical accounts of what life was like inside Nazi concentration camps. The book, which helped shape the American understanding of the effects of the Holocaust, has since become a staple on high… Read more »

Every graveyard tells its own story, says Tucsonan Richard Rosen, former owner of the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish Cemetery, located about 100 yards from the U.S.-Mexico border. Regardless of its current condition, the land still radiates a strong spiritual energy, says Rosen. “There’s something right about it, and there’s also something… Read more »

The Southwest Torah Institute’s Dr. Paul W. Hoffert Spirit Program begins Monday, July 25. The two-week free learning program, “A Tree of Life for Those Who Grasp It,” which takes its title from Proverbs, runs through Sunday, Aug. 7. Now in its 16th year, the program is for Jewish… Read more »

Update July 8: This event has been postponed due to a bereavement.  JFCS hopes to reschedule on a date in August.  Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona will hold a free ethical wills workshop for the Jewish community on Thursday, July 14, from 1-3 p.m. at Handmaker… Read more »

Mitzvah Magic, a joint program of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy and Jewish Family & Children’s Services, is seeking new volunteers. “As a staple program for local Jewish families in need, Mitzvah Magic continues to need your help,” says Danielle Larcom, director of Women’s Philanthropy. Three… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who became a leading icon of Holocaust remembrance and a global symbol of conscience, died on Saturday at 87. His death was the result of natural causes, the World Jewish Congress said in a statement. A philosopher, professor… Read more »

(JTA) — The 13-year-old Israeli girl killed in her West Bank bedroom on Thursday also was an American citizen. A State Department spokesman confirmed at a news briefing that Hallel Yaffa Ariel of Kiryat Arba, a Jewish settlement near Hebron, was a U.S. citizen, several media outlets reported. Muhammad… Read more »

  (JTA) — Last week Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said that if Hillary Clinton asked him to be her running mate, he’d take the job. “If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, ‘Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,’ I would… Read more »