Birthright participants visiting Masada, summer 2012. (Taglit-Birthright) NEW YORK (JTA) — With the summer travel season fast approaching, providers of Israel programs for teenagers are bracing themselves for what several say could be a season of historically low travel in a year unaffected by major security concerns. Over the past decade, Israel travel among those aged… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Israeli Independence Day celebrations in Boston were muted and security was increased in the wake of bombings that left three dead and dozens injured at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Mike Rosenberg, director of community relations at Maimonides, a Jewish day school in… Read more »
A Boston Marathon runner embracing another woman near Kenmore Square after two bombs exploded in the area, April 15, 2013. (Alex Trautwig/Getty) (Jewish Exponent) — “It was a beautiful day. I was so excited to run and having such a good run. The crowd was unbelievable. The whole experience was amazing. It was almost magical.” That’s how the Boston Marathon began for Rabbi Benjamin David, head rabbi at Adath Emanu-El in Mount… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – A legislative effort led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to enable Israelis to enter the United States without visas may be stymied by the government – Israel’s government. The hitch is Israel’s inability or unwillingness to fully reciprocate, something required for visa-free travel to… Read more »
Gilles Bernheim, the chief rabbi of France, leaving the Elysee Palace in Paris after meeting with then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, March 21, 2012. (Frank Prevel/Getty) (JTA) — “When Gilles Bernheim speaks, France listens.” That’s how Avraham Weill, the chief rabbi of Toulouse, describes what he believes was the main appeal of his charismatic mentor, who on Thursday resigned as chief rabbi of France after admitting to several instances of plagiarism and falsely using an… Read more »
Lesley Sachs, director of "Women of the Wall," is detained by police due to her wearing a "tallit" (prayer shawl) visible at morning prayers together with "WOW" at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem on April 11, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Natan Sharansky said the implementation of his plan to expand the non-Orthodox prayer site at the Western Wall could begin in as little as one month. In an interview Thursday with JTA, Sharansky sounded cautiously optimistic about his proposal to create an egalitarian space equal in… Read more »
Iran watchers are worried that the reckless gamesmanship of North Korea's Kim Jong-un, shown in an Oct. 9, 2010 photo, will provide a model for the Islamic Republic. (Creative Commons) WASHINGTON (JTA) — If you have nuclear weapons, all sorts of bad behavior will be tolerated. That’s the lesson some are worried Iran may be learning from North Korea’s increasingly confrontational stance against South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang has stepped up its belligerent rhetoric in recent days,… Read more »
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Southern Jewish Life) — “Are you still a bigot?” Every year for the rest of his life, students studying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would call Rabbi Milton Grafman, knowing little of the situation in 1963 Birmingham, and pose that question. His… Read more »
British Prime Minister Margaret thatcher visiting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Jerusalem, May 25, 1986. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90.JTA) WASHINGTON (JTA) — History will remember former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for relentlessly facing down communism and helping to turn back more than three decades of socialist advance in her country. But it was Thatcher’s embrace of British Jews and insistent promotion of Jews in her Conservative Party… Read more »
Illustration from the new book "Tiny Dynamo," which promotes the most important and interesting innovations to emerge from Israel. (Courtesy Megan Flood) NEW YORK (JTA) — While a great deal of international and media focus has been placed on Israel’s military conflicts, the country quietly has become an energetic, ambitious incubator of entrepreneurialism and invention. What follows is a timeline chronicling some of the most important and interesting innovations produced by Israelis during… Read more »
Klansmen exiting the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tenn., moments before their rally, March 30, 2013. (Blake Billings) MEMPHIS, Tenn. (JTA) — Cantor Ricky Kampf descends from the bimah, adjusts his prayer shawl and strides up the aisle, cutting through the cavernous sanctuary to greet the familiar out-of-towner. “Y’all here for the shindig?” Kampf says at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue here as he grasps the hand of… Read more »
Guy Gelbart During the recent Passover holiday, we celebrated the ending of our slavery and becoming a free people. After fleeing Egypt, we were liberated but not yet free. Even after receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, we were not yet free. It took more than 40 years, a full generation,… Read more »
Bicycle rental vending machine and bikes in Tel Aviv. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) A short ride on a luxury wooden bicycle can take much longer than expected in south Tel Aviv. The roads are fine, Maxime van Gelder says, “but people keep asking you to stop and take their picture with the bike.” Van Gelder, the 22-year-old marketing director for the 2-year-old… Read more »
A Yad Sarah volunteer prepares a wheelchair to be loaned to a client. AJP Associate Editor Sheila Wilensky was in Israel in January with the American Jewish Press Association. From inhalers and humidifiers to walkers and wheelchairs, Israel’s Yad Sarah provides homecare services to thousands of people — all for free. Founded in 1976 in one room, Yad Sarah now has 100… Read more »
Rabbi Richard Address Rabbi Richard F. Address, author of “Seekers of Meaning: Baby Boomers, Judaism, and the Pursuit of Healthy Aging,” will bring his quest to Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging on Tuesday, April 23. In a free public lecture at 7 p.m., Address — a baby boomer himself — will… Read more »
Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will present Denise Camille Frye, the author of “Into the Fog,” for a talk and book-signing at “Mind Games 2” on Thursday, April 11 at 7 p.m. The event will serve as a virtual groundbreaking ceremony for the Paul and Lydia Kalmanovitz Elder-Care… Read more »
The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will host a registration drive for potential bone marrow or stem cell donors on Wednesday, April 17, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., on the UA Mall. The drive is being held on behalf of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, a nonprofit… Read more »
Dan Siegel, M.D. Dan Siegel, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, exemplifies the mission of the Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Medicine. Siegel is the author of “Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation,” an in-depth exploration of the power of the mind to integrate… Read more »
David Zinke as Otto Frank and Gabriella De Brequet as Anne Frank in Pima Community College Theatre Arts’ production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” (Carol Carder) Pima Community College Theatre Arts will stage “The Diary of Anne Frank” by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, April 11-21. In 1943 Holland, 13-year-old Anne Frank and her family were forced into hiding to escape deportation to concentration camps by the Nazis. During two years in hiding in a… Read more »
Yafit Josephson in 'New Eyes' Back by popular demand, the critically acclaimed one-woman show “New Eyes” will return to Tucson for a single performance on Monday, April 22. “New Eyes” tells the story of Yafit Josephson, a young woman living in Israel who joins the army as part of her mandatory service to her… Read more »
