News

How the world’s longest-running Chabad house survives in Morocco

Photos of King Hassan II and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson adorn the wall of the Chabad facility in Casablanca. (Ben Sales)
November 13, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

CASABLANCA, Morocco (JTA) — Raizel Raskin’s office feels like a cluttered museum of Moroccan Jewish heritage. A photo from an old Jewish summer camp lays on the table. Another, of a rabbi meeting Moroccan dignitaries, hangs on the wall. Outside the door is a bookshelf filled with Hasidic tracts… Read more »

At Reform biennial, focus on social justice and tradition

Left to right, Beth Schafer, Julie Silver, Peri Smilow and Michelle Citrin sing "If I Had a Hammer" at the Union for Reform Judaism biennial conference in Orlando, Fla., Nov. 6, 2015. (URJ)
November 11, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) – Growing up in a traditional Jewish household, Joan Cubell didn’t really know much about Reform Judaism. But after obtaining ordination a few years ago from a little-known rabbinical institute in suburban New York, Cubell decided to make her home in the Reform movement. First she got a… Read more »

5 questions for the first woman to chair the Union for Reform Judaism
November 11, 2015 / Ami Eden, JTA

ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) — Last week was a big one for Daryl Messinger. A resident of Palo Alto, California, and an active board member of several organizations, Messinger was installed as chair of the Union for Reform Judaism, becoming the first woman to hold that post. And she chanted Torah… Read more »

Finally, a kosher restaurant with Michelin acclaim in Paris

: Edward Boarland, sous chef at Le Rafael in Paris, on Nov. 3, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)
November 11, 2015 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

PARIS (JTA) — With 84 Michelin-certified restaurants and a combined total of 115 stars, the French capital offers a dazzling gastronomic selection to anyone willing to stomach the bill. Anyone but observant Jews, that is. For years, the kosher-keeping community has been limited to budget pizzerias or moderately priced… Read more »

Help JFCS win the $15,000 Santa Rita landscaping grant
November 9, 2015 /

Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona is a finalist in the Santa Rita Landscaping $15,000 Nonprofit Landscape Makeover. If you are on Facebook and would like to help JFCS win, do the following Click here and like the JFCS Facebook page Once there, click on the link… Read more »

Meet the Jewish woman who’s reinventing the Museum of the Jewish People

A rendering of the new Synagogue Gallery at Beit Hatfutsot-The Museum of the Jewish People. (Courtesy of Beit Hatfutsot)
November 9, 2015 / Debra Kamin, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Irina Nevzlin didn’t know she was Jewish until she was 7, and even then she wasn’t quite sure. So it’s pretty remarkable that the Moscow native — who grew up in Soviet Russia under the dual shields of privilege and protection — is now the… Read more »

Eat Local: Hot pizza, cold beer and other pleasures
November 6, 2015 /

Good food and drink are among life’s best simple pleasures — especially when you’re talking about pizza baked to perfection or a cold brew shared with friends. Here are a few words about some of Tucson’s best purveyors of gustatory bliss. Fresco Pizzeria & Pastaria Mat and Britnee Cable,… Read more »

CAI taps Jerusalem Post analyst as scholar-in-residence
November 6, 2015 / Laura Wilson Etter
Gil Hoffman

As the chief political correspondent and analyst for The Jerusalem Post, Gil Hoffman has a profound understanding of the nuances that make Israeli politics complex and, at times, confusing. On Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, Nov. 14, Hoffman will share his insights as scholar-in-residence at Congregation Anshei Israel. Having… Read more »

JFSA women get update on sex trafficking

(L-R) Event co-chair Tamar Bergantino, Aimee Graves of CODAC, event co-chair Robyn Kessler and Beth Jacobs of Willow Way at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy annual welcome Oct. 14. (Danielle Larcom/JFSA)
November 6, 2015 / Kate Mailliard, AJP Intern

Around 60 women gathered in the Tucson Jewish Community Center sculpture garden at 7 p.m. on Oct. 14 as the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy installed its new board. The evening served as an update on the issue of sex trafficking, a subject discussed at last year’s… Read more »

JScreen co-founder will discuss genetic disease testing
November 6, 2015 /
Karen Grinzaid

Karen A. Grinzaid, MS, CGC, CCRC, senior director and co-founder of JScreen, will present “Knowledge is Power: Impacting the Health of Future Generations” at a Tucson Maimonides Society dinner on Nov. 12 at the La Paloma Country Club. The Maimonides Society is a fellowship of doctors dedicated to education… Read more »

Jewish Culture Shuk returns: love, violence, shellfish and more
November 6, 2015 /

The Jewish Culture Shuk (Hebrew for “marketplace”) returns Sunday, Nov. 15 with an evening of adult education classes taught by more than a dozen local rabbis and educators. Presented by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Coalition for Jewish Education and the Synagogue-Federation Dialogue and held at Tucson Hebrew… Read more »

Policy maven’s series to cover ISIS, debt crisis, elections
November 6, 2015 /
Bob Harris

Bob Harris, a former policy and management expert with the federal government, will lead a four-part discussion series sponsored by Hadassah Southern Arizona at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, beginning Thursday, Nov. 12. Topics will be “Combating the Islamic State or ISIS” on Nov. 12; “Debt Crisis from Greece… Read more »

Green Valley Jews to celebrate center’s 20th
November 5, 2015 /
Cyrel Bandy

The Beth Shalom Temple Center, serving Green Valley and Sahuarita, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a full weekend of activities beginning on Nov. 20. Located at 1751 N. Rio Mayo in Green Valley, the Temple Center is the successor to a grassroots organization that began in the early… Read more »

Rabbi to parse anti-Semitism in ‘new’ Europe
November 5, 2015 /
Rabbi Joel Oseran

Rabbi Joel Oseran, D.D., vice president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, will present “The ‘New’ Jews Face the ‘New’ Anti-Semitism in the ‘New’ Europe — Implications for Reform Jews in Europe and Around the World,” at Temple Emanu-El’s Shabbat evening service, Friday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m.… Read more »

Kindertransport story sparks Tucsonan’s novel of intrigue
November 5, 2015 / Nancy Ben-Asher Ozeri, Special to the AJP
Lauren Grossman

Tucson author Lauren B. Grossman found the inspiration for her second novel, “The Golden Peacock,” in a souvenir from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. When visiting the museum about a decade ago, Grossman was handed the identity card of a Holocaust survivor, randomly selected from a bin. She… Read more »

Mideast expert Dennis Ross to speak at free JFSA event
November 5, 2015 /
Dennis Ross

Former Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross, author of the new book “Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama,” will speak at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s free Together community event on Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Anshei Israel. The event will… Read more »

You down with RBG? Highlights from the new biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
November 5, 2015 / Erica Brody, JTA

  (JTA) — Ever wonder what the perfect pop-culture storm looks like? Hurricane Ruth — as in Bader Ginsburg — was brewing among millennials, feminists and across social media platforms before it made landfall in Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s new biography about the Meme Supreme: “Notorious RBG: The… Read more »