News

The Women’s Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is accepting applications for the Seventh Annual Bryna Zehn­gut Mitzvot Award, recognizing an outstanding Jewish teenage girl. The award, which honors the late Zehngut, will recognize a girl who is currently a high school junior or senior… Read more »

Recently, while browsing through news clips I have collected over the past 30-plus years, I came across a story I wrote when I was a very young reporter for The Jerusalem Post. “Dayan: Israel needs civilians in W. Bank,” the headline said. The story ran at the top left of… Read more »

A political ad for the Shas party portrays the secular Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and until recently Israel's foreign minister, as an Orthodox Jew. "Only a strong Shas will prevent assimilation," the ad says. (Ben Sales)

HAIFA (JTA) — The debate was not televised. The participants did not sit on a stage in front of an auditorium under bright lights. Nor were Israel’s major candidates present. Instead, five representatives of Israeli political parties sat at a folding table in a classroom of perhaps 100 students… Read more »

Sen. John Kerry, pictured here addressing troops in Afghanistan in 2011, was nominated for U.S. secretary of state on Dec. 21, 2012. (U.S. Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On a wintry day at a small Iowa shul in November of 2003, John Kerry got all verklempt. The man whose opponents had taken to depicting as aloof and patrician, whose campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination had been all but written off by that… Read more »

RAANANA, Israel (JTA) — From the outside, it looks like any other warehouse: imposing, gray and rectangular, with trucks idling outside and hundreds of crates stacked in the driveway. Inside, the largely empty main room, however, is a vegetable sorting machine and several large boxes of produce: carrots, pomelos… Read more »

Cranes at the Hula Valley in late autumn. (Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency)

Some of the lesser known ‘tourists’ that visit Israel by the millions each year, are the 300 species of birds, which use Israel as a rest-stop as they migrate en route from Africa, Asia and Europe. For international bird watchers attending the Second International Hula Valley Bird Festival in… Read more »

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis will serve as Britain's next chief rabbi. (John Rifkin)

LONDON (JTA) — Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has big shoes to fill. Appointed this week as the 11th British chief rabbi, he will succeed Jonathan Sacks, an internationally renowned author and public intellectual who speaks frequently on moral, philosophical and theological affairs. The widespread assumption among British Jews has long… Read more »

Anna Greenberg lights the Chanukah candles at the service of healing in her honor Dec. 5. (L-R) Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Wendy Weise Cohon, Anna, Bruce Greenberg, Burney Starks (behind Bruce), Aaron Greenberg, Alayne Greenberg, Joree Sowards, Tzadik Rosenberg-Greenberg (MartyJohnston/TJCC)

“Anna-tude” – it’s a new word in the Tucson lexicon to describe the shining spirit of Anna Greenberg, 27, who has been fighting cancer with enormous courage and a wry sense of humor for more than a year. Anna was diagnosed with cancer in October 2011 after her dramatic… Read more »

Sen. Chuck Hagel introduces Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey at the Forum on the Law of the Sea Convention in Washington, D.C., May 9, 2012. (Glenn Fawcett/DoD Photo)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The expected nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as the next defense secretary has sparked an outcry from segments of the pro-Israel community. Media reports in recent days have said that Hagel, a Republican who represented Nebraska from 1997-2009 in the U.S. Senate, is President Obama’s… Read more »

President Obama talks on the phone with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas aboard Air Force One, July 9, 2010. (Pete Souza/White House).

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Is history about to repeat itself? President Obama’s first three years in office saw some serious tussling with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the peace process and settlements. Now, with Obama beginning his second term and Netanyahu looking pretty certain to win next month’s Israeli… Read more »

President Obama attends the Sandy Hook interfaith vigil at Newtown High School in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 16, 2012. ((Pete Souza/White House)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the wake of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., Jewish groups are looking to build alliances and back legislation to strengthen gun control laws. Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his group is assembling a coalition… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Like many other mothers, Patti Weiss Levy’s heart broke when she heard about last Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The longtime Connecticut resident lives an hour away from Newtown, so she assumed she wouldn’t know anyone involved. But as details… Read more »

Noah Pozner, 6, was among the child victims of the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that claimed six adults.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (JTA) — It was a eulogy for a life that had only just begun. Veronique Pozner remembered her son Noah as a rambunctious, video-game loving “little man,” a boy with a perpetual smile and twinkly blue eyes who dreamed of becoming a doctor, a soldier and manager… Read more »

The Silverman family's kindness yard at night in Winterhaven (Gila Silverman)

I live in a neighborhood known for its Christmas festival. Several years ago, I wrote an essay for this paper, describing our decision to build a giant dreidel for the festival, and reflecting on the experience of living here. That essay ended with this thought: Sometimes a giant dreidel… Read more »

For many Jewish nonprofits, fundraising often can seem like an art — a process of educated guesswork based largely on intuition, word of mouth and experience. So when David Gad-Harf, the chief development officer of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, saw a way to introduce more science… Read more »

Members of the B’nai Tzedek Teen Advisory Council take a break at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on Nov. 18 after working with B’nai Tzedek’s newest teens to pack Thanksgiving food bags for 62 students at Homer Davis Elementary School as part of this year’s New Teen Social Action Sunday. (L-R) Belle Soyfer, Madeline Levy, Allison Whitehill, Sarah Cassius, Abigail Herz. In front: Eli Soyfer.

“Something magical began to happen among the villagers. As each person opened their heart to give, the next person gave even more. And as this happened, the soup grew richer and smelled more delicious.” — from “Stone Soup” by Jon J. Muth The B’nai Tzedek Tucson Jewish teen philanthropy… Read more »

Afshin Ellian

Among his many talents, Afshin Ellian has a knack for making people want to kill him. It’s a trait he demonstrated as a fugitive in his native Iran after the Islamic Revolution; then as a refugee in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he angered secular Stalinists; and finally in Holland,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Palestinian state will emerge by 2030, not through negotiations but incrementally, according to a group of intelligence advisers to President Obama. The office of the director of national intelligence this week published the annual “Global Trends” report compiled by the National Intelligence Council, a group… Read more »

Sandra Toro

Sandra Toro, author of several historical novels including the recently published “Secrets Behind Adobe Walls” (Gaon Books), will shed light on the little known activities of the Spanish Inquisition in America in a lecture on Thursday, Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. The talk, hosted by Chabad of Tucson, will… Read more »

Mike Reiss, writer/producer of ‘The Simpsons,’ as he would look in the cartoon world he helped create.

The 22nd annual Tucson International Jewish Film Festival, featuring almost two dozen comedies, dramas and documentaries about everything from music to bagels to the healing power of dolphins, will be held Jan. 10-20. A pre-festival kick-off will be held Sunday, Jan. 6 at 2:15 p.m. and 7 p.m. at… Read more »