News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference March 4, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington determined to hold the line on Iran, but he also brought something new: an expansive vision of Middle East peace. The Israeli prime minister remained firm, after meeting with President Obama on Monday, in insisting that any nuclear deal must remove… Read more »

Simferopol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid on Feb. 28, 2014. (Courtesy Simferopol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid)

Shortly after Russian soldiers occupied the Crimean city of Sevastopol last week, Leah Cyrlikova took her two children out for an afternoon stroll in a city park. When they passed a group of soldiers, they stopped to have a friendly chat and pose with them for photos. While many… Read more »

U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), at left, and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) deliver remarks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference in Washington. (Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — You’ve got your rousing church choir, your multi-denominational trio of rabbis quoting Torah, your montages of Israelis and Palestinians coming together and, above all, your pleas to please, please, please be nice to one another. Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, Jew, Christian, black, white, Hispanic —… Read more »

Hundreds of thousands of haredi Orthodox Jews protesting a measure to draft them into the Israeli military, March 2, 2014. (Yaakov Naumi/FLASH90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Beneath banners invoking historic calamities from the Egyptian enslavement to the Holocaust, hundreds of thousand of haredi Orthodox men gathered on the streets of Jerusalem to recite psalms and penitential prayers as they inveighed against an enemy they consider on par with Hitler and the… Read more »

The deli counter at Winn-Dixie's Boca Raton store is larger than that of many kosher-only supermarkets. (Uriel Heilman)

BOCA RATON, Fla. (JTA) – Stroll past the kosher section of most large supermarkets in America and you could be forgiven for thinking that Jewish diets consist mainly of jarred gefilte fish, unsalted matzahs and Tam-Tam crackers. Not so at the Winn-Dixie supermarket in this affluent South Florida suburb.… Read more »

Delta, the nom de guerre of the Jewish commander of a Ukrainian street-fighting unit, is pictured in Kiev in February. (Courtesy of 'Delta')

(JTA) — He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta — the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution. Under his helmet, he also wears a kippah.… Read more »

Ken Sandock on the F-series diesel Copper Spike. The Arizona & Eastern Railway ran excursions from Globe, Ariz., to a local casino from 2008-2011.

Ken Sandock’s fascination with trains started when he was a boy — and it’s only gotten stronger over the years. His family lived in South Bend, Ind., and he would take the Chicago South Shore and Southbend Railroad to visit relatives in Chicago. “When I lived in Chicago there… Read more »

(L-R) Susan Wortman, Lupe Zembrano, Marjorie Cunningham and Paula Riback at Hebrew High

Teaching cooking at Tucson’s Hebrew High gives Marjorie Cunningham hope for the future. “I have confidence in our young people,” says Cunningham, who has found, over the past 15 or so years that she’s volunteered to teach the class, that her students are “pleasant, polite, appreciative and enthusiastic.” She… Read more »

Patty Vallance

Patty Vallance started volunteering when she had young children and lived in the small town of Placerville, Calif., from 1986 to 2000. “I have an obligation to my children, my family, to my community,” she told the AJP. “I wanted to raise my kids Jewish and connect them to… Read more »

From top: Lily, Bella, Michael, Allison (with Woody) and Sage Wexler (with Jessie)

Allison Wexler is not your average Jewish matchmaker. Not only is half of every pair she connects non-human, but they generally come from a pet shelter. “I can’t go anywhere in town without being called the Dog Matchmaker,” says Wexler, laughing. “For the last five or six years, people… Read more »

It was the summer of 1963 and I was 10 going on 11. I had never attended camp before. My Auntie E worked for the Jewish Federation in New York and had discussed with my parents sending me to the Hebrew Education Society’s two-week camp with her daughter (and… Read more »

Ryley Katz at camp in 1994

I always thought it was cliché when someone said “one decision changed the course of my entire life.” That is, until I said it myself. When I was 11 years old, my mom decided to give me respite from hot Arizona summers by sending me to summer camp. She… Read more »

(L-R) Maya, Shelby, Randie and Joel Collier (Shaun Roby)

Probably not many people have attended Jewish summer camp for as many years as Randie Collier. She spent 13 summers at Steve and Shari Sadek Family Camp Interlaken JCC. Camp Interlaken is in Eagle River, Wis., a five-hour bus ride north of Collier’s hometown of Milwaukee. When Collier aged… Read more »

Philip Caputo

It’s time to celebrate books. The Brandeis National Committee/Tucson Chapter will hold its 18th annual Book & Author Day luncheon on Thursday, March 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Skyline Country Club, and its evening soirée March 12 at the same venue. The four featured… Read more »

Dmitry Gerasimov raises his clarinet as he plays with the Pushkin Klezmer Band. (Vadym Yunyk)

(JTA) — Kiev’s Maidan, or Independence Square, has been the heart of the Ukrainian protest movement that last week brought about President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster after deadly street battles. Russian officials and other Yanukovych supporters have accused the Maidan protesters of being fascists and neo-Nazis. But while Ukrainian ultra-nationalists,… Read more »

Stella Inger

Stella Inger believes in the American dream. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Inger was 6 years old when her family immigrated to the United States in 1989, following the fall of Soviet communism. “We came as refugees,” says Inger, in her office at KGUN9 television, where she’s a news anchor.… Read more »

Jill Rich

Whether it’s assisting the Lost Boys of Sudan or making sandwiches for the homeless, Jill Rich has been a tireless volunteer in Tucson for more than 30 years. And her commitment to helping others began even longer ago. “Helping others is what I was raised to do. It’s what… Read more »

(L-R) Shailah, Alexandra and Jordan Lowe, granddaughters of Tucsonans Anne and David Lowe, at Camp Young Judaea Midwest.

All three of my children went to Camp Young Judaea Midwest in Waupaca, Wis., where Young Judaeans from Tucson still go. At the time we lived in Milwaukee, so the camp was about a two and a half hour drive from our home. Jonathan, Caren and Ethan loved the… Read more »

Magician Michael C. DeSchalit of Magically Speaking will appear at Congregation Chofetz Chayim’s “Magical Purim Party” and dinner on Sunday, March 16 at 4 p.m. DeSchalit has performed in such venues as the Magic Castle in Hollywood, the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, the Riviera and Circus Circus hotels in… Read more »

Beth S. Wenger

Beth S. Wenger will pre­sent “Civic Lessons: Jews and American National Holidays,” as part of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’ free Shaol & Louis Pozez Memorial Lectureship series, on Monday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. When America’s Jews participated in national celebrations… Read more »