News

  (JTA) — The World Jewish Congress called on the FIFA world soccer association to hold a tribute to the victims of the AMIA Jewish center terrorist attack before a match between Argentina and Iran at the World Cup in Brazil. A letter sent to FIFA President Joseph Blatter… Read more »

Rep. Eric Cantor, then-House majority leader, delivers an address at the Virginia Military Institute, Feb. 17, 2014. (Courtesy of House Majority Leader)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Eric Cantor’s defeat in one constituency, Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, triggered mourning among another: Republican Jews. Since 2009, Rep. Cantor (R-Va.) has been the only Jewish Republican in Congress. After the 2010 GOP takeover of the House, he became the majority leader. He is the highest-ranking… Read more »

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Pope Francis plant a tree together at the Vatican Gardens during a joint peace prayer initiated and hosted by Pope Francis, in the Vatican, on June 8, 2014. (Haim Zach/GPO/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for “freedom in our sovereign and independent state” during a prayer for peace with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Pope Francis. Vatican officials had called the service on Sunday at the Vatican a “pause in politics” with no political intentions.… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Reuven Rivlin of the Likud party was elected president of Israel in a campaign that was fraught with scandal. Rivlin was elected in the second round of Knesset balloting on Tuesday, defeating Meir Sheetrit of the Hatnua party in a 63-53 runoff vote. The former Knesset… Read more »

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas delivers his farewell speech as prime minister of the Hamas-run government in Gaza, a position he stepped down from under the new Palestinian unity agreement, June 2, 2014. (Wissam Nassar/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Is the new Palestinian government kosher under U.S. law? A range of American Middle East policy analysts and current and former U.S. officials say that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threaded the needle last week and created a government of technocrats untainted by Hamas and not… Read more »

HERZLIYA, Israel (JTA) — Naftali Bennett and Tzipi Livni don’t agree on much. Bennett, Israel’s economy minister, sees the West Bank as an inseparable part of the Jewish state and wants Israel to annex its settlements there. Livni, the justice minister, says Israel can remain a Jewish democracy only… Read more »

Allegro Il Gelato Naturale 446 N. Campbell Ave., #120 207-1991 • www.gelatoallegro.com Allegro uses only natural ingredients and you can really taste the difference. Our coffee gelato is made with Lavazza, Italy’s favorite coffee, and for our chocolate we’ve chosen Valrhona, the Grand Cru of cocoa powder. We know… Read more »

  1702 1702 E. Speedway Blvd. 325-1702 • www.1702az.com All our ingredients are brought in daily and our sauce and dough are made daily as well. We serve any combo of toppings you want on our giant slices that are sure to impress. Caruso’s Italian Restaurant 434 N. 4th… Read more »

Erika Mitnik-White

Why buy local? When you buy from locally owned businesses, you support your friends and neighbors in the community. These are the people who buy homes locally, pay taxes locally and support our local charities. In fact, local businesses contribute twice their percentage of profits to charity than non-local… Read more »

Sarah Artzi

Congregation Anshei Israel has appointed Sarah Artzi as interim religious school administrator. In this new role, Artzi will oversee day-to-day operations of the school and its teachers. Born and raised in Tucson, Artzi is a lifelong member of CAI. She is the daughter of Sue and the late Saul… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center is seeking to assess interest in an intergenerational fitness/volunteer program for memory-impaired seniors and teen volunteers. The program would recreate a successful Alzheimer’s disease rehabilitation program that retired research scientist Sharon Arkin, Psy.D., ran at the University of Arizona from 1996 to 2001. The… Read more »

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, regional director of Chabad Tucson, will lead a discussion of a new book about his spiritual mentor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneer­son, on Wednesday, June 11 at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at 5130 E. Broadway. Shemtov will share his personal thoughts on “Rebbe: The Life… Read more »

A photo of Sara Kaplowitz Greenberg in the early 1940s is surrounded by a few of her beloved shul hats. (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)

The Jewish History Museum’s summer exhibit, “Skullcaps and Shul Hats,” which runs through June 30, focuses on two family collections of head coverings. One is a collection of elegant shul hats worn by Tucsonan Nicki Lasky’s mother, Sara Kaplowitz Greenberg. They range from “fascinators,” small, often feathered decorative headpieces,… Read more »

Evan Mendelson

Evan Mendelson has worked most of her life in Jewish philanthropy, including as the founding executive director of the Jewish Funders Network in New York. In January 2013 in Tucson, she was named the first non-family member executive director of the David C. and Lura M. Lovell Foundation. Previously,… Read more »

Rose Cabat, “Feelies,” c. 1960s-1980s, porcelain, collection of the artist (Carissa Castillo)

                                    The Tucson Museum of Art is presenting “Rose Cabat at 100: A Retrospective Exhibition of Ceramics,” through Sept. 14. Cabat, who lives in Tucson, is considered one of the most important… Read more »

Howard Kline welcomes patrons to his art gallery on the sunny side of Bisbee’s Main Street. (Heather Green)

A visual artist who started out as a rock drummer in the ’60s, a bookstore owner about to make aliyah, a Harvard Law School graduate who headed west to practice on the Navajo reservation — these are three of the 40 to 50 Jews currently living in Bisbee. Although… Read more »

The Ohio Holocaust and Liberators Memorial, designed by Daniel Libeskind, on the lawn of he Statehouse, Columbus, Ohio, was dedicated June 2, 2014. (Marshall Weiss/ The Dayton Jewish Observer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (The Dayton Jewish Observer) — Visibly moved by the testimony of a Holocaust survivor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich called for a monument at the Ohio Statehouse during the annual Governor’s Holocaust Commemoration three years ago. “Let’s construct something that can teach people about man’s inhumanity to man,… Read more »

Idit Klein, right, the executive director of Keshet, married Jordan Namerow under a chuppah at their 2011 wedding in Massachusetts, which was officiated by two rabbis. (Courtesy of Idit Klein)

BOSTON (JTA) — Ten years ago, shortly after midnight on May 17, 2004, a jubilant Arthur Lipkin and his longtime partner descended the stone steps of Cambridge City Hall clutching a marriage license application. It was a historic night of revelry and celebration, as Massachusetts became the first state… Read more »

Supporters of the Greek ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn attend a pre-election rally on May 2, 2014 in Athens, Greece. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — The picture of Golden Dawn leaders being led away in shackles by masked policemen last September was supposed to be a defining image: Greek authorities cracking down on the country’s neo-Nazi party as a harbinger of its demise. Instead, soon there will be a new… Read more »

The chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Natan Sharansky, seen during the interview with the press at his office in Jerusalem on Sept. 12, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Its leaders call it a “historic development,” a “paradigm shift” and a “change in the relationship” between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. But when it comes to the details of the Joint Initiative of the Government of Israel and World Jewry, key questions have yet to be… Read more »