News

President Barack Obama speaking at the White House with members of Congress about the situation in Syria, Sept. 3, 2013. (Photo by Dennis Brack/Getty Images/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish groups backing President Obama’s call to strike Syria militarily are citing moral outrage and U.S. national security as primary considerations, but concern for Israel — however muted — also looms large in their thinking. A lingering sensitivity over misrepresentations of the role of the pro-Israel… Read more »

Positive Jewish experiences in college may predict greater future involvement with Judaism. And if that’s the case, the new director of student life at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, Ryan Wolo­shin, says he’s raring to go. Woloshin arrived on campus from Virginia in mid-July. He will focus on… Read more »

Hadassah Southern Arizona will form a young women’s special interest group this fall for women 45 and under. “There are a lot of younger people who are members but don’t really use their memberships. We’d like to get them to come out, get involved and make some positive changes… Read more »

(L-R) Stuart Mellan, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona; Capt. Mark Lytle, Green Valley Fire District; Capt. Rich Johnson, Tucson Fire Department; Lt. Thomas Tucker, Tucson Airport Fire District; Mike McKendrick, chairman, Greater Tucson Fire Foundation; Capt. Kyle Canty, Northwest Fire District; and Battalion Chief Kelly McCoy, Northwest Fire District, outside the JFSA office (Phyllis Braun/AJP)

The Greater Tucson Fire Foundation has announced Firefighters Without Borders, a two-week mission that will send local Arizona firefighters to Israel in October to learn from their Israeli counterparts. The firefighters will travel as private citizens, but their resumes reflect expertise with nearly a dozen local fire departments and… Read more »

The Arizona Jewish Post asked Tucson’s congregational rabbis for a few words on how they hope to inspire their congregants for the new year. Here are their diverse and enlightening responses:… Read more »

Although Israel is 7,500 miles from Tucson, for some in the Jewish community it may seem like a hop, skip and a jump away. During the High Holidays, we’re particularly conscious of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. For some Tucsonans affiliated with the University of Arizona,… Read more »

Israelis flocking to a southern Tel Aviv post office to receive free gas masks -- a scene being played out throughout Israel amid fears of an attack by Syria. (Ben Sales)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Daniela Hayoum arrived at a Tel Aviv post office at 7 a.m. and took a number. The line of people waiting for gas masks was long and Hayoum stepped away to run errands. She returned in the afternoon to find hundreds of Israelis crowding under… Read more »

Stephen Ost could win “College Entrepreneur of the Year” for his Ufree app. (Courtesy Stephen Ost)

The bold letters “Ufree?” emblazon the T-shirt Stephen Ost wears and the license plate on his car. Ironically, these days he rarely is free as he speeds from one appointment to the next, working to determine the valuation of his company Ufree, LLC. Ost has spent the last three… Read more »

Tucson author Jillian Cantor’s spare, elegant new novel, “Margot,” begins with a startling premise: What if Anne Frank’s sister had survived the Holocaust and was living under an assumed name in Philadelphia? Cantor, 35, says the first time she read “The Diary of a Young Girl” at age 13,… Read more »

Oshrat Barel and her husband, Eli, with daughters (L-R) Ronnie, Shira, and Yuval

Earlier this month, Oshrat Avitan Barel arrived in Tucson as the sixth director of the Weintraub Israel Center. The five shlichim (emissaries from Israel) who preceded her were men, making Barel the community’s first shlicha (female emissary). “Oshrat has an outstanding background and we thought she’d do wonders for… Read more »

SDEROT, Israel (JTA) — A thick concrete bomb shelter sits by the side of a central street in this embattled southern Israeli town, but Naomi Moravia can’t get inside. Shelters like this one are crucial in Sderot, which is located about a mile from the Gaza Strip and is… Read more »

A model of the Second Temple at an exhibit of Third Temple vessels in the Temple Institute's offices in Jerusalem. (Ben Sales/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – No praying. No kneeling. No bowing. No prostrating. No dancing. No singing. No ripping clothes. These are the rules that Jews must abide by when visiting the Temple Mount, the site where the First and Second Holy Temples once stood, located above and behind the Western… Read more »

Ilya Farber during his trial in Tver, Russia, July 2013. (Zhekov.ru)

MOSCOW (JTA) — Clutching the bars of the defendant’s cage, Ilya Farber assumes the posture of a crucifix as he proclaims his innocence and pleads for freedom with characteristic thespian flare. “I implore the judge to rule in favor of the children,” the Moscow-born Jewish artist begs the court,… Read more »

Aron Berger being interviewed earlier this year outside his daughter's state-funded elementary school in Antwerp. (Cnaaan Liphshiz)

(JTA) — New government regulations are threatening the pedagogical autonomy of Antwerp’s haredi Orthodox schools and sowing division between hardliners and moderates over whether to bring the community’s school system into conformity with secular educational standards. Earlier this summer, the Flemish government issued decrees that would force both state-funded… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In 5773, the religious wars just would not go away. In Israel, elections that extended Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister delivered big wins to two anti-Orthodox-establishment upstarts, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. For the first time in nearly two decades, Israel’s coalition government included… Read more »

Secretary of State John Kerry said chemical weapons had been used to kill scores of people during the ongoing civil war in Syria in an appearance at the State Department, Aug. 26, 2013. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Following reports of what was almost certainly a chemical weapons attack in Syria, the White House has made moves indicating it may be inching closer to military intervention in the 2 1/2-year civil war there. Among the moves: moving warships toward the eastern Mediterranean and… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Incidents of physical and sexual abuse at Yeshiva University were not limited to its high school for boys, an investigation has found. The investigation commissioned by the university and carried out by the New York-based law firm Sullivan & Cromwell followed reports of sexual abuse… Read more »

Eritrean refugees gathering outside Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem for a demonstration against the deportation of refugees from Israel, June 9, 2013. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Hanging by his feet in a torture cell in the Sinai Desert, Dawit Demoz knew he had only one way to escape a nearly certain death: He would have to make good on his captors’ demand of a $3,500 ransom to buy his freedom. Demoz,… Read more »

Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman gestures toward a new platform built for egalitarian prayer at Robinson's Arch. (JTA/Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s religious services minister, Naftali Bennett, has unveiled a temporary platform for non-Orthodox prayer at Robinson’s Arch, the archaeological site adjacent to the Western Wall plaza used by egalitarian groups. The platform, which will include Torah scrolls, prayer books and prayer shawls and be open… Read more »

Magda Haroun, president of the Jewish community in Egypt, says she is 'very confident of the future' in her country and vows to 'never, never, never' leave. (Bassatine News)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Magda Haroun was out on the streets during the unrest now rocking Egypt’s capital, she saw someone standing over the body of a dead soldier. “Not even a Jew would do this,” she heard him say. Haroun, the president of the Egyptian Jewish community, doesn’t… Read more »