News

Sen. Richard Lugar, right, accompanies actor George Clooney with Sen. John Kerry for Clooney's testimonial on Sudan issues, in washington, D.C., March 14, 2012. Lugar's defeat in a primary election has pro-Israel activists worried about bipartisanship in Congress. (Medill DC via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Richard Lugar was never considered to be one of Israel’s leading advocates on Capitol Hill. The veteran Republican senator from Indiana, who suffered a primary defeat last week after 35 years in office, is famously his own man. Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations… Read more »

Pilgrims enjoying the Hiloula celebration at the El Ghriba Synagogue in Tunisia, May 2012.

DJERBA, Tunisia (JTA) — Two thousand years ago, a mysterious woman who was unable to talk arrived on this island. Every sick person she touched was healed. Although she died when her wooden house caught fire, her body remained intact and did not burn. That’s a local legend. Another… Read more »

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, left, and Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol engage in The Great Debate: Election 2012 at the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, May 4, 2012. (Ron Sachs/CNP)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Simmering beneath the presidential season’s familiar refrains of support for Israel is a passionate partisan argument over how best to confront Iran and deal with the new Middle East. The Jewish election debate season was launched informally on May 4 at the annual American Jewish Committee… Read more »

An anti-government demonstration in Budapest, December 2011. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The debate over anti-Semitism in Hungary has sharpened since the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma (Gypsy) Jobbik movement entered Parliament two years ago as the country’s third largest party. Seeking scapegoats and channeling paranoia at a time of severe economic, social and political woes, Jobbik’s lawmakers regularly… Read more »

Rabbi Tamas Vero and his wife, Linda Ban Vero, outside Budapest's Frakel Leo street synagogue, where they head a growing congregation mainly made up of young families like themselves. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — Linda Ban is a rebbetzin, but with a mass of curly hair and chunky rings on the fingers of both hands, she hardly fits the stereotype of a Central European rabbi’s wife. A mother of two in her mid-30s, Ban is married to Tamas Vero, the… Read more »

Pawel Bramson, left, at the Jewish cemetary in Warsaw. (Kuba Wyszynski)

WARSAW (JTA) — Fifteen years ago, Pawel Bramson was a skinhead shouting anti-Semitic and racist slogans during soccer matches. He hated Jews and blacks – simply, he says, because you need someone to blame for what’s wrong in the world. These days he keeps kosher, wears the long beard… Read more »

President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC's "Good Morning America," in the Cabinet Room of the White House, May 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As soon as President Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar call to the Orthodox Union. The… Read more »

Jacob Ostreicher (Courtesy Miriam Ungar)

NEW YORK (JTA) – Supporters say he’s an innocent man caught up in the tentacles of a corrupt Latin American regime. Authorities in Bolivia, however, allege that he’s a shady businessman with ties to drug dealers and money launderers. What’s certain is that Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old Chasidic Jew… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Kadima Party chairman Shaul Mofaz at a joint news conference in the Knesset announcing that Kadima has joined the coalition government. May 8, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israelis went to sleep Monday night expecting early elections in September for the 19th Knesset. They woke up to the news that elections would take place as planned in October 2013. A behind-the-scenes deal clinched overnight between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Shaul Mofaz created Israel’s… Read more »

Molok Shamshiri, an Iranian-Israeli restaurant cook, left Iran in 1964. (Ben Lynfield)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Avi Nobel lived in Tehran and is sure the Iranian people want peace. “There are a lot of poor people there and what they want is food and to work, not a nuclear bomb,” says Nobel, a spice seller here whose goods include some imported… Read more »

ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — Jewish leaders in Greece expressed concern and disappointment after the fascist Golden Dawn party was poised to enter the Greek parliament for the first time. With most of the ballots counted, Golden Dawn received nearly 7 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections as Greeks… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — With the Sept. 4 date all but officially set as the day for early elections for Israel’s 19th Knesset, the question now is which political parties are poised to gain and which stand to lose. With four months remaining before the election, incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin… Read more »

Kristopher Carson “KC” Rosburg and Carol Galper, assistant dean for medical student education at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, with the letter announcing his award from the Dr. Sam Goldfein Memorial Fund

The Dr. Sam Goldfein Memorial Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation will honor Kristopher Carson “KC” Rosburg with its second annual award of $2,500. Rosburg is a graduating senior at the University of Arizona College of Medicine who will become a pediatrician. He will do his residency at St.… Read more »

David Graizbord, associate professor of Judaic studies at the University of Arizona, will be the guest speaker at the Tucson Jewish Genealogy and Oral History Group meeting on Sunday, May 13. Graizbord will discuss how Sephardic Jews from the “golden age” of medieval Spanish Jewry, through the Inquisition, to… Read more »

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging is partnering with Youth Volunteer Corps, a program of Volunteer Southern Arizona, to create an intergenerational program for youth. Participants will engage with the elderly at Handmaker at quarterly events that they will help plan. Handmaker Youth Leadership Team participants who complete the… Read more »

Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll

Cooperation was on the agenda at the annual legislative breakfast that took place at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 20. Republican and Democratic Pima County supervisors and Tucson City Council members started out by voicing opposition to the proposed Rosemont Mine, drawing repeated applause from the audience… Read more »

Tucsonan Paul Rubin with journals written by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, and a copy of his compilation, “In Her Own Words: A Life Well Lived” (Photo: Brenda Stosberg-Rubin)

Imagine Paul Rubin’s surprise when he found a suitcase full of journals penned by his mother, Roz Kaufmann, dating back to 1944. Kaufmann was 79 and suffered from dementia when her son found the journals in 2004. She died two years later at age 81. “All of a sudden… Read more »

The lower part of the Schindler factory next to a demolished 19th century building (Eva Munk)

The windows are smashed, the doors stand agape and the keys in the rusting padlocks have not been turned for years. Still, despite the plaster clinging to the crumbling bricks in leprous sheets, the front looks salvageable. The back, however, tells a different story. Piles of debris block gaping… Read more »

Micha Bar-Am

Congregation Anshei Israel’s 10th annual observance of Yom Yerushalayim — celebrating the 45th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem — will feature an exhibition of 10 works by Micha Bar-Am, a renowned Israeli photojournalist. Bar-Am, who is best known for his coverage of the Six-Day War in 1967, has… Read more »

Rabbi Miri Fleiming

The Secular Humanist Jewish Circle will sponsor a lecture, “Torah as Mythology,” by Rabbi Miri Fleming, Ph.D., on Saturday, May 19, from 2-4:30 p.m. at the Dusenberry-River Library, 5605 E. River Road (at Craycroft). Fleming will address the question of what the Torah, or five books of Moses, is… Read more »