German officials laying a wreath at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as Claims Conference officials look on, May 2103. NEW YORK (JTA) – The German government agreed to significantly expand its funding of home care for infirm Holocaust survivors and relax eligibility criteria for restitution programs to include Jews who spent time in so-called open ghettos. The agreement, reached after negotiations in Israel with the Claims Conference, will… Read more »
Dougoutigo Fadiga outside the Bani Israel clinic near the Senegalese village's sacred tree, May 2013. (Cnaan Liphshiz) BANI ISRAEL, Senegal (JTA) — He will welcome you into his earthen-floor home, introduce you to his three wives, and let you sample their cooking. But Dougoutigo Fadiga does not want foreigners to come near the sacred tree of his village deep in the Senegalese bush. “The tree is… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) – Now that it’s clear that the top leaders of the Claims Conference were involved in investigating an anonymous accusation of restitution fraud in 2001, the question is who bears the responsibility for failing to detect that a broad fraud scheme was underway. The person at the… Read more »
Adam Green with fellow British fans of the English soccer club Chelsea on their way to a match in Amsterdam, May 15, 2013. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA) (JTA) — Itzik Shanan and Abbas Suan watched last week as 100,000 English soccer fans sang along to a live performance by a multiracial quartet at London’s Wembley Stadium. Shanan, who started a campaign to eliminate racism from Israeli soccer, and Suan, a well-known Arab-Israeli player, were in Britain… Read more »
A previously unknown document obtained by JTA shows that concern in 2001 about fraud at the Claims Conference reached the highest levels of the organization. (Claims Conference) NEW YORK (JTA) — The Claims Conference in recent days has blamed a now-dead regional director for bungling an early warning in 2001 about a massive fraud scheme that wasn’t halted until 2009. But a document obtained by JTA shows top conference officials were sufficiently concerned by the allegations… Read more »
President Barack Obama and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaking at a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, May 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Poland is a stalwart American ally in Europe, a bulwark against an increasingly belligerent Russia and, with the recent opening of a major new Warsaw museum, is enjoying a flush of accolades for its belated embrace of its Jewish roots. But there’s a thorn in the… Read more »
Dov Lipman, an American-born haredi Orthodox Knesset member for the centrist Yesh Atid party, speaking on the Knesset floor, March 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Dov Lipman has staked his budding political career on his reputation as a moderate haredi Orthodox leader, someone uniquely positioned to broker compromise between Israel’s increasingly polarized secular and religious communities. The problem is that Israel’s haredi leaders say he’s not actually haredi. Once seen… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) – Who knew what, and when? Those are the questions critics are asking following the disclosure that the Claims Conference received an anonymous letter in 2001 identifying several fraudulent Holocaust-era restitution claims — nearly a decade before the organization halted a massive fraud scheme. By 2009,… Read more »
Shira Ledman “Eileen” is struggling. Once an independent business woman, she now finds herself isolated and depressed due to age-related macular degeneration and limited mobility. Her isolation is ironic, since her three grown children have moved back in with her. But as each of these adult children has either a mental… Read more »
Renee Gutman, Ph.D., has a thriving practice as a pediatric and adolescent neuropsychologist in Tucson, but her family’s relocation from Mamaroneck, N.Y., wasn’t for professional reasons. Their 2004 move depended on finding the right Orthodox shul for her grieving father. When Gutman’s mother lay dying in her arms, her… Read more »
Gwen Harvey, author of ‘Esperanza Means Hope,’ with Tucson Hebrew Academy fourth graders Breanna Yalen and Jonah Parnaby, holding their painting inspired by characters in the book. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) What could be more exciting for fourth graders than to read a book and have the author visit their classroom? On April 26, Gwen Harvey, former director of education at the Arizona Historical Society and the author of “Esperanza Means Hope,” visited Tucson Hebrew Academy. “They’re so excited,” said… Read more »
How do you break into the circle? A concierge service to help people navigate the Jewish community is one of several new initiatives to come out of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s strategic planning process. (Allegro Photography, http://allegrophotography.com) Looking for a way to jump into a Jewish community “can be a very lonely place,” says Liz Kanter Groskind, a member of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona strategic planning steering committee. That’s why a “concierge” service to help people at various stages of life find Jewish community… Read more »
Marian Salzman May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month. After having two brain tumors removed in the last four years, Tucsonan Marian Salzman, 53, is celebrating being alive. And she’s not just alive, she’s vibrant, creative and has a prominent role in the world of public relations and newscrafting. Salzman, the CEO… Read more »
Rachel Baumann Rachel Baumann, a University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson student, has won the Shandel Medical Endowment Scholarship from the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation. The merit-based, $20,000 biennial scholarship is awarded to Jewish second-year medical students attending the UA College of Medicine in either Tucson or Phoenix.… Read more »
Palestinian Authority Minister of Health Dr. Hani Abdeen visits 8-year-old Sarah Ghanem, from the village of Durah near Hebron, while she is treated at Hadassah Hospital’s pediatric oncology-hematology department in Jerusalem on Sunday, May 5. (Courtesy Hadassah) Palestinian Authority Minister of Health Dr. Hani Abdeen visited Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem on May 5. The hospital said Abdeen was the first P.A. health minister to visit the facility. Abdeen, accompanied by other senior officials from the Palestinian Authority, met some of the dozens of Palestinian physicians who… Read more »
Ilan Fluss from Mashav, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s aid agency, helps to implement an advanced irrigation system in Senegal in 2011. (Israel21c) Struggling to be heard over a flock of bleating sheep, Israel’s ambassador to Senegal invites a crowd of impoverished Muslims to help themselves to about 100 sacrificial animals that the embassy corralled at a dusty community center here. The October distribution, held as French troops battled Islamists in neighboring… Read more »
(L-R) Guy, Carmel, Arbel, Clil, Hadar and Inbal Gelbart The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and Tucson Jewish Community Center will host a farewell party for community shaliach (Israeli emissary) and Israel Center Director Guy Gelbart and family on Wednesday, May 22, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the JCC. The family friendly event will include a light… Read more »
Jeffrey McIntyre and Miriam Hawley The Temple Emanu-El adult education committee will present a book talk by Miriam Hawley and her husband, Jeffrey McIntyre, authors of “Living with Intention in Life, Love and Business,” on Tuesday, May 21, from 7 to 9 p.m. Hawley and McIntyre, business coaches who have worked with executive management… Read more »
Orlando real estate developer and Jewish philanthropist Hank Katzen is aiming to create a perpetual funding source for the new Hillel at the University of Central Florida. (Uriel Heilman) ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) – Real estate developer Hank Katzen has a conviction: If you build it, they will come. Except this is no baseball field in an Iowa cornfield. It’s a $60 million, 600,000-square-foot luxury dormitory at the nation’s second-largest college campus, the University of Central Florida in this… Read more »
A reward for information leading to an arrest has been offered in the murder of Aliza Sherman, left, seen here in an undated photograph. (Facebook) CLEVELAND (JTA) — The voice of the 911 caller is frantic, pleading for help. In the background, the victim is heard moaning, her words unclear. “There’s blood everywhere,” the caller says. “I’ve never seen so much blood.” Paramedics arrive on the scene in downtown Cleveland moments later and rush… Read more »
