Vida and Eliot Barron outside the Jewish Federation Northwest office (Anne Lowe)
Vida and Eliot Barron have not wasted a minute since they started coming to Tucson 19 winters ago in 1998. Motivated by all of the blessings they have had in their 57 years of marriage, the bottom line for them is to share good things with people who need… Read more »
Mel Cohen Volunteering to lead Shabbat and holiday services for the residents of Handmaker began as a way for Mel Cohen to give back to the assisted living facility where his father was a resident, but 22 years later, Cohen continues to lead services as a way to connect to Jewish… Read more »
Marlee Matlin
Marlee Matlin made history in 1987 when she won an Academy Award for “Children of a Lesser God,” becoming the only deaf person to win an Oscar and, at 21, the youngest recipient of the Best Actress award. She owes much of that record-breaking achievement to her Jewish upbringing,… Read more »
Amid reports of repeated security failures, many Belgian Jews feel their government is leaving them vulnerable. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
ANTWERP (JTA) – The hundreds of rifle-toting police and soldiers who patrol Isaac Michaeli’s neighborhood have done little to improve his sense of safety. “When the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, the soldiers might as well be cardboard cutouts,” he said. A jeweler in his… Read more »
Lillian Pinkus, AIPAC's first female president in a decade, speaking at the organization's conference in Washington, D.C., March 21, 2016. (Screenshot from YouTube)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Hear out Donald Trump. Ignore Donald Trump. There were two distinct approaches to the Trump moment this week at AIPAC’s annual conference here, and there were mutual warnings that one or the other side would get burned. The burn came fast, and it came to those… Read more »
AIPAC's annual Policy Conference, held March 20-22, 2016, sprawled
across Washington's downtown convention center, above, and its nearby
basketball arena. (JTA)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — I am trying to imagine a conversation between Donald Trump’s people and a delegation of Reform rabbis and lay leaders. Rabbi Jonah Pesner, the Reform movement’s man in Washington, told me that Trump’s people have agreed to a “staff-to-staff” meeting to discuss Jewish concerns about Trump’s… Read more »
The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and the University of Arizona School of Dance will present “An Evening with Yaniv Abraham & Guy Shomroni” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 31 at the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre, 1737 E. University Blvd. The event is free and open to the… Read more »
Stray dogs roaming the Babi Yar monument in Kiev, March 14, 2016. Nazis and local collaborators murdered 30,000 Jews at the site in 1941. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) – On a muddy path in Babi Yar Park, Vladimir Proch negotiates deep puddles as he shadows two rabbis and a group of Ukrainian officials. An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Proch lives near the Kiev ravine where Nazis and local collaborators murdered more than 50,000 Jews starting… Read more »
Budapest Jews crowding into the Glass House, a Budapest factory that housed an operation credited with saving more than 40,000 of the Hungarian city’s Jews in 1944 and 1945. (Courtesy of Beit Ha’edut)
SEEKING KIN The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. NIR GALIM, Israel (JTA) – On a recent afternoon in a museum in this moshav community near the port city of Ashdod, Hodaya Gadba held up a black-and-white photograph of a three-story building and pronounced,… Read more »
Donald Trump serving as grand marshal in the Salute to Israel Parade in New York, May 23, 2004. (Ron Antonelli/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — He’s crude. He’s blunt. He’s inauthentic. He is not a man of peace. Left and right, religious and secular, Arab and Jew, Israelis don’t have many kind words for Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner. In interviews this week, several prominent Israelis described Trump as an… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – AIPAC’S smartphone app, downloadable for the expected 18,000 participants at its conference this week, has a nifty little feature for lobbying day, the conference finale on Tuesday when thousands of pro-Israel activists ascend to Capitol Hill. Activists comfortably seated in a Congress member’s office can use the app to call… Read more »
From left, Tamim Zoabi, Masar Zoabi and Ruaa Omari are the first Arab-Israeli team to win a prize at Israel's Young Engineers’ Conference. (Danny Seaman)
HAIFA, Israel (JTA) — Tamim Zoabi knew that if he and his classmates could win at the Young Engineers’ Conference, it could mean a ticket to a better life – a coveted university scholarship for this truck driver’s son from a poor village in northern Israel. But no Arab team… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Here are five things to watch for at this year’s annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is taking place here March 19-22: It’s Yoooooooooge. Organizers are expecting 18,000 activists, 3,000 more than last year, the largest number ever. So large, for… Read more »
Judge Merrick Garland at the White House listening to President Barack Obama announce his nomination to the Supreme Court, March 16, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
(JTA) – Americans have heard a lot about Merrick Garland since President Barack Obama nominated him to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court. But there’s a lot we still don’t know. What are his views on abortion? Will the Republican leadership give him a hearing in the Senate? What… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Citing his campaign schedule, Bernie Sanders said he would not address AIPAC’s conference next week, making him the only presidential candidate that will not attend the large annual pro-Israel gathering this year. “I would very much have enjoyed speaking at the AIPAC conference,” Sanders said in a… Read more »
Donald Trump speaking in West Palm Beach, Florida, March 15, 2016. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Walk in wearing stickers. Stay out bearing placards. Get up and walk out when Trump walks in. Just don’t go. Go but don’t clap. Blame AIPAC. Don’t blame AIPAC. And whatever you do, hit the Jewish texts. Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance on Monday at the American Israel Public… Read more »
Dan Shapiro Dan Shapiro, Ph.D., was 20 years old when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. For the next five years, he says his treatment spanned more than a dozen hospitals across four states, nine individual surgeries and “more chemotherapy and radiation than one person should be able to enjoy.” And,… Read more »
Amy Hirshberg Lederman When her husband, Ray, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2011, award-winning local author and columnist Amy Hirshberg Lederman says that they decided as a family to live with “no regrets.” It was three years, seven months, and six days later that Ray passed away as a result… Read more »
Rabbi William Cutter An information fair for Jewish seniors, families and friends will be held Sunday, April 3, 1-5 p.m. at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging. The fair will cover topics from health and wellness to financial and legal matters, says Rabbi Sandy Seltzer, chair of the Senior Task Force, which… Read more »
Bernie Sanders, the first Jewish presidential candidate to win a primary contest, will hold a rally tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave. His visit comes days before the Arizona Presidential Preference election on Tuesday, March 22. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Tickets… Read more »
