News

The Sisterhood of Congregation Or Chadash will hold a Fashion Show Fete celebrating mothers and daughters on Sunday, May 18 at 3 p.m. Mother and daughter models will be featured. The event, which will include an afternoon tea on the patio with sandwiches and desserts, plus door prizes and… Read more »

Christians United for Israel at the University of Arizona will host its fifth annual Night to Honor Israel at the Tucson Convention Center’s Leo Rich Theater on Thursday, May 15. The keynote speaker will be Deputy Consul General of Israel Uri Resnick, Ph.D. The Gatekeepers community choir will perform.… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El will honor the achievements of adult B’nai Mitzvah with two events this month. On Friday, May 9, at 6:30 p.m., the 13th anniversary of the 2001 adult B’nai Mitzvah class will be celebrated, with nine of the 14 members of Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon’s first adult B’nai… Read more »

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is pictured with V. Stiviano to his left at a 2013 basketball game. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

When Donald Sterling’s racist rant hit the news last week, you could practically hear the jostling at the microphone by those eager to denounce the Los Angeles Clippers owner. For the beneficiaries of Sterling’s largesse, the denunciations took on a special imperative as a means of distancing themselves from… Read more »

Actor Ed Asner, center, led a Freedom Seder on April 21 cosponsored by Temple Emanu-El and Humane Borders. He is pictured with Dinah Bear, president of the board of Humane Borders, and Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El. (Simon Rosenblatt)

Singing the traditional Passover song Chad Gadya, leaving a cup of wine for the prophet Elijah, reciting poems by Marge Piercy and other secular poets, listening to reflections by members of Tucson’s Latino community — all marked the Freedom Seder held April 21 at Temple Emanu-El, cosponsored by Humane… Read more »

Miriam Furst (Sheila Wilensky)

Tucsonan Miriam Furst has been teaching in the field of gifted education for more than 30 years. She’s still at it, researching stimulating activities that illustrate concepts she’s trying to convey. But instead of K-8 or college students, students in Furst’s sharp mind classes are residents at Handmaker Jewish… Read more »

Elizabeth Katz, DMD

Establishing good dental hygiene for children begins long before they have all of their teeth. Children should begin seeing a dentist when they get their first tooth, or by their first birthday, according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. Visiting a dentist within the first year of life… Read more »

What does a triangle sound like? What noise do you think the color purple makes? Israeli scientists have made the seemingly impossible possible by helping the blind ‘hear’ colors and shapes normally perceived visually. Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have shown that through the use of sensory substitution devices,… Read more »

A garden path can combine different materials for visual interest. (Jacqueline Soule)

Destination is defined as “a set point for the end of a journey.” But we are also reminded that, “Whereever you go, there you are,” suggesting that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. One place where both of these sayings can be equally true is in… Read more »

“Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West” by Harriet Rochlin was recently republished by the Authors Guild and iUniverse. The book, which covers 13 Western states, was called “Social history at its best, entertaining, engaging, and filled with little known information about famous and not-so-famous Jewish pioneers,”… Read more »

Tucsonan Nora Sevy enjoys PJ Library books (Courtesy Libby Quinn)

The PJ Library program in Southern Arizona is expanding and will now be available for all families raising Jewish children through 8 years of age. When the program launched in Southern Arizona in 2009 it was available for families raising Jewish children from 6 months through 6 years of… Read more »

This photo collage was inspired by the word ‘Echad’ in the Shema prayer. (Jenni Steinberg Pagano)

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Buying “Real Art” is a great thing. Supporting artists whose work you love is an important part of creating a home that satisfies your soul. I encourage you to buy other people’s creations. But sometimes that isn’t the best solution. Perhaps… Read more »

(JTA) — Sure, the news from the city of Detroit seems endlessly grim: bankruptcy, crime and so for  But the metro area, whose northwest suburbs host a panoply of Jewish amenities, is the most affordable place in the United States to raise a “committed Jewish family,” at least according… Read more »

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with European Parliament President Martin Schulz in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Feb. 10, 2014. (Issam Rimawi/Flash 90)

 (JTA) — When Israeli police found thousands of contraband cell phones in the car of senior Palestinian Authority official Rawhi Fattouh, he was promptly removed from office — for about two months.  A consultant to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Fattouh was reinstated in May 2008 after his driver, a… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — On Twitter, pro-Palestinian activists dubbed it “DivestApalooza.” Student governments at three Southern California public universities all voted on divestment resolutions targeting Israel in a single day. The April 23 votes were part of a surge in student governments at American universities voting on divestment resolutions.… Read more »

Members of the Philadelphia-based "Butterfly Project" perform in Terezin, the very place where the characters they portrayed had been imprisoned during the Holocaust. (Londa Salamon Photography/www.londaphotography.com)

 PRAGUE (JEWISH EXPONENT) — When the applause faded, the 32 young actors remained on stage in silence. Some of them hugged. They looked at each other, their faces filled with amazement and disbelief — the circle was complete. The Philadelphia-based troupe had brought the words of Terezín’s children back… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem on March 31, 2014. (Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office/FLASH90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Now that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have screeched to a halt, U.S. officials are apportioning blame, and a big share is going to Israel. In an interview with Nahum Barnea, a veteran diplomatic affairs writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, anonymous members of the U.S. negotiating team… Read more »

Haredi Orthodox men studying toward professional degrees at Kemach, a Jerusalem-based organization that guides haredim through study programs and job placement. (Kemach)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Moshe Friedman turned 31, he made what was for him a radical decision: He left school and launched a start-up. Plenty of Israelis jump from graduate school to the high-tech sector, but for Friedman the leap was longer. A descendant of rabbis, he had… Read more »

One of the professional hazards of columnists today is the temptation to borrow from the wealth of materials available on the Internet without giving proper credit to their authors. I guess that if Moses came down from Mount Sinai today, he would add an 11th commandment: Thou shall not… Read more »

J Street's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, addresses his group's 2013 national conference in Washington. (Courtesy of J Street)

(JTA) — The vote is over, but the debate rages on over the recent rejection of J Street’s application to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Depending on where you stand, the 22-17 vote rejecting the application was either about J Street’s own missteps or… Read more »