An oil rig in the Tamar natural gas field off the Israeli coast, June 23, 2014. (Moshe Shai/Flash 90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – After years of false starts, Israeli negotiators went to Geneva last week for talks aimed at ending a long-running conflict with a regional adversary. It’s not the Palestinians. It’s Turkey. Once a key partner of Israel, Turkey in recent years has been a thorn in… Read more »
At Daluva, bún chả — a traditional Vietnamese dish of grilled pork and noodles — is made with falafel. (Courtesy of Daluva)
HANOI, Vietnam (JTA) — Shahar Lubin earned his culinary chops in Israel and, later the United States, cooking his way through more than 20 restaurants, starting at the age of 16. Still, it was a leap when he moved to Vietnam and opened a restaurant of his own. “I… Read more »
Libby Kahane, wife of the slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, now has a grandson in prison for heading an extremist group. (Courtesy of Libby Kahane)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Her husband was assassinated and her grandson is in prison. But Libby Kahane, widow of the late far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane, has remained faithful to her husband’s ideology. She repeats his call for Israel to expel its Arab population. She believes the Israeli left, Jewish media… Read more »
Turkish Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, right, talking to congregants outside Kadoorie - Mekor Haim synagogue in Porto, Portugal, Jan. 29, 2016 (Cnaan Liphshiz)
PORTO, Portugal (JTA) — Five years ago, this city’s tiny Jewish community was so strapped for cash it couldn’t afford to fix the deep cracks in its synagogue’s moldy ceiling. The Jewish Community of Porto was also too poor to hire a full-time rabbi because of its small size… Read more »
Women of the Wall praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Jan. 2, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)
(JTA) – On the morning of Dec. 1, 1988, a group of about 70 Jewish women entered the sacred space of the Western Wall. The women represented all the major streams of Judaism. Some wore prayer shawls or kippahs. Some did not. One woman cradled a Torah in her… Read more »
Bernie Sanders making his victory speech in Concord after winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Feb. 9, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Bernie Sanders is having a month of historic firsts. In New Hampshire on Tuesday night, he handily won the Democratic Party contest, becoming the first Jew to win a presidential primary. In Iowa, he became the first Jewish presidential candidate — the first non-Christian, even… Read more »
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., speaking at a Get Out the Vote rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 8, 2016. (Meredith Dake-O'Connor/CQ Roll Call)
(JTA) – Bernie Sanders made history Tuesday night when he became the first Jewish candidate in U.S. history to win a presidential primary election. With the vote results in New Hampshire still trickling in, the Independent senator from Vermont was projected to handily defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in… Read more »
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waving on election day in Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 9, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Maybe now that Bernie Sanders has become the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary he’ll start getting the Joe Lieberman treatment. Back in 2000, Al Gore’s decision to tap Lieberman as his running mate set off what felt like a months-long national bar mitzvah… Read more »
A photo of Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim as it was in 1963, when Bernie Sanders volunteered there for several months. (Ben Sales)
SHAAR HAAMAKIM, Israel (JTA) — Every morning, Bernie Sanders would wake up at 4:10 a.m. to pick apples and pears. Leaving the cabin he shared with a few other American college student volunteers, Sanders would have a quick bite of bread before heading out to the orchard. After 2… Read more »
A Hanukkah celebration at the Kitchen in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2015. (Q Lam)
NEW YORK (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern. She set about harvesting email addresses and putting out the… Read more »
Jonathan Greenblatt, left, with the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, October 2015. (Courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Framed by a slide of two young guys in jeans and tees playing ping-pong on the Facebook campus, Jonathan Greenblatt described an event hosted by the social media behemoth in Palo Alto, California, the week before. “Some of the stuff we’ve done has been really exciting, like… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is recruiting young Jewish athletes, ages 13-16, for the 2016 JCC Maccabi Games to be held this summer in Columbus, Ohio. The Tucson J hopes to register 20-25 teens by March 11, with practice starting at the end of March. The games will feature… Read more »
Young Leadership of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its fifth annual Hava Tequila event, “Party Royale,” on Saturday, Feb. 20 beginning at 8 p.m. at Playground, 278 E. Congress St. The James Bond-themed event for ages 21 and over will include hors d’ouevres, drinks, a DJ… Read more »
Congregation Anshei Israel will present its third annual “Wisdom of Jewish Tucson” adult education series on Wednesdays, February 10, 17 and 24, from 7-9 p.m. This year’s program, “What We Need to Know About … Islam, Mormonism & Catholicism” provides an opportunity for interfaith conversations and greater understanding of… Read more »
Joel Alpert with the English translation of a Yizkor book memorializing a lost Jewish community in Ukraine
Have you been asking yourself when you are finally going to get around to researching your Jewish family roots? The opportunity to jump-start your genealogical quest will be available at the Feb. 21 re-opening of Tucson’s Holocaust History Center on the Jewish History Museum Campus. Joel Alpert will have… Read more »
The new entrance of the Holocaust History Center, sharing a plaza with the Jewish History Museum, will allow for easy traffic flow from one museum to the other.
In just over two weeks, Tucsonans will get their first look at the Rose and Maurice Silverman Jewish History Museum Campus, home to the newly expanded Gould Family Holocaust History Center as well as the Friedman Family Jewish History Museum, which also has been refurbished. The grand re-opening on… Read more »
(L-R) Yehonasan Lipshutz, Yonatan Tzarum and Elyahu Reiter
The musical group Simply Tsfat will give a concert on Thursday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. Simply Tsfat features Israeli musicians Elyahu Reiter, Yehonasan Lipshutz and Yonatan Tzarum playing classic Hasidic and klezmer music on guitars and violin. “Our aim is to spreat the joy… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center will present “Why We Keep Going Back to Auschwitz-Birkenau,” a lecture exploring the confluence of the Jewish, Buddhist and human experience in song, story and silence, by the Rev. Francisco Genkoji “Paco” Lugoviña and Reb Shir Yaakov Feit on Thursday, Feb. 25, from 6-9… Read more »
John Messing practices a tai chi movement.
John Messing, a practicing local attorney, will compete in tai chi at the Senior Olympics in Phoenix next month. Messing, 72, started doing tai chi about four years ago, primarily in response to a painful condition that suddenly developed in his left hip due to an IT-band injury, which… Read more »
Yisrael Kristal (JTA) — A Holocaust survivor in Haifa many now be the oldest man in the world. Yisrael Kristal, 112, achieved that status after Yasutaro Koide of Japan, also 112, died on Jan. 12, Haaretz reported. Kristal’s grandson, Oren, received an email from the Gerontology Research Group, an international organization… Read more »
