News

Jewish Family & Children’s Services will hold events celebrating two programs next month. The LEAH — Let’s End Abusive Households program, which serves victims of domestic violence within a Jewish cultural and religious context, will mark its 11th year of service with a free house party at Covenant House… Read more »

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, the Jewish History Museum, in partnership with the Tucson Jewish Community Center, will present a free screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray” on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. at the JCC. The film reveals the… Read more »

Shalom Tucson will hold a free bagel brunch on Sunday, Oct. 23, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, with the theme “One Stop Shopping for the Tucson Jewish Community!” Geared toward newcomers and those interested in connecting to Jewish Tucson, the event will include the… Read more »

Participants embrace prior to Occupy Wall Street's Kol Nidre service across from Zuccotti Park in downtown New York, Oct. 7, 2011. (Danielle Fleischman)

Rachel Feldman originally had meant to attend a traditional synagogue Kol Nidre service. Aimee Weiss hadn’t found a place to daven but was looking for something more interesting than a “big box synagogue.” Come Yom Kippur eve, they and several hundred other Jews found themselves drawn to lower Manhattan,… Read more »

Pope John Paul II visits Rome’s Great Synagogue with Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff in April 1986, the first recorded papal visit to a synagogue.

The Northwest Division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is sponsoring a bus trip to Phoenix on Tuesday, Nov. 29 to attend the exhibit, “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” The 2,000 square foot, multi-media traveling exhibit chronicles the friendship of… Read more »

Robert Morris

Growing up in Tucson during the 1950s, Robert Morris, Jr. learned about the importance of fresh vegetables from a local Jewish peddler. “When I was elementary school age Toby would let me ride on his truck for a few blocks,” says Morris. Today, fresh vegetables have often disappeared from… Read more »

A chair for Gilad Shalit was displayed on the bimah at Temple Emanu-El throughout the High Holidays.

During this year’s High Holiday services, an empty, decorated chair was displayed on the bimah at Temple Emanu-El as a reminder of the ongoing captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas five years ago and has been held in Gaza. The idea for the chair… Read more »

John Peck

­ John Peck, a former senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be among four honorees at the second annual Rainbow Keshet Awards reception later this month. The Rainbow Keshet Awards were created as a joint partnership between the Federation’s LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender)… Read more »

Uri Banai

As Israeli actor and singer/songwriter Uri Banai takes the concert stage at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, Oct. 30, he will take the audience on a journey through the history of his family — one of Israel’s leading entertainment dynasties. Told through songs, video clips, rare photos… Read more »

Noam Shalit, the father of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, reacts at the protest encampment opposite the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem that a deal has been reached for the release of his son, Oct. 11, 2011.

JERUSALEM (JTA) – There was a festive mood among the shoppers running around Emek Refaim Street in Jerusalem’s German Colony doing their last-minute shopping Wednesday before Sukkot, but the mood was about more than just the coming holiday. The news late Tuesday night that captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit… Read more »

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was 19 when he was taken captive in a cross-border raid on the Israel-Gaza line. (Shalit family)

(JTA) — If captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is freed in the prisoner-exchange deal with Hamas that was approved by Israel’s Cabinet in a 26-3 vote late Tuesday night, it will raise two immediate questions:  Which side finally acceded to the other’s demands after years of fruitless negotiations since… Read more »

Newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia attending a rehearsal for a Passover Seder at the absorption center in Mevasseret Zion, April 14, 2011. (Kobl Gideon/Flash 90)

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel (JTA) — It’s a typical Friday morning in Israel’s largest absorption center: A handful of local residents, all immigrants from Ethiopia, mill about examining wares for sale at a small, unofficial souk. Located in Mevasseret Zion, a town just outside Jerusalem, the center has become more… Read more »

Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman explaining his Nobel Prize-winning theory to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Oct. 6, 2011. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Dan Shechtman remembers the day he was kicked out of a research group because of the theory that last week won him the Nobel Prize in chemistry. “Read this book. What you say is impossible,” the group leader at the National Bureau of Standards in Maryland,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Here is a weekly roundup of Jewish newspapers from around the world. JEWISH SECRETS: A community art project now on display at a Montreal cafe asked young Jews to anonymously divulge their Jewish secrets on postcards. Among the spilled secrets cited by The Canadian Jewish… Read more »

A building at Columbia University, which is being investigated for an alleged incident of "steering" at its affiliated Barnard College. (Creative Commons)

NEW YORK (Tablet) — “You’ll feel very uncomfortable,” Barnard Professor Rachel McDermott allegedly told an Orthodox Jewish student at the college when the undergraduate inquired about a course called “Arabs and the Arab World” taught by a controversial Columbia University professor, Joseph Massad. “Why don’t you look at ancient… Read more »

Protesters marching in lower Manahttan in an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, Sept. 26, 2011. (Paul Stein/Creative Commons)

NEW YORK (Tablet) — As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its third week, with demonstrations popping up in more than 10 cities, the protesters are aggressively pushing a comparison to the Arab Spring. Some say the movement has channeled the zeal (or perhaps the naivete, others would argue)… Read more »

KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) — The Israeli Labor Party’s new leader, Shelly Yachimovich, makes a grand entrance at the annual Rosh Hashanah toast for party activists. Well over an hour after the guests begin munching on puff pastries, she is greeted like a conquering hero as she wades into… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Republican presidents have been guiding Israel toward the peace table — sometimes not so gently — almost since the Jewish state was born more than six decades ago. But in the recent round of debates, the crop of candidates vying for the GOP nomination have been… Read more »

Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. (Matt Yohe via CC)

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — Social networking sites began buzzing immediately after word spread of the death of Apple Inc. visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday evening. Rabbis took time out of their busy preparations for Yom Kippur to halt their sermon writing and post personal reflections on what the contributions of… Read more »

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee seen here answering questions from reporters on Sept. 13, 2011, is withholding funding from the Palestinians because of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push in the United Nartions. (Courtesy Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the Palestinians don’t pull back from their statehood push, congressional cuts in aid are inevitable, U.S. lawmakers say. Just how comprehensive such cuts will be, however, could end up depending on Israel’s stance on the issue. Lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staffers told JTA that hundreds… Read more »