Sienna Miller and Paul Rudd in a scene from ‘The Catcher Was a Spy’ (Courtesy Tucson International Jewish Film Festival) The 2020 Tucson International Jewish Film Festival will live up to its global billing, with 20 films that will transport viewers from the United States to Austria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, England, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, and Poland. The Tucson Jewish Community Center is the venue for most… Read more »
Sandy Cardin, CEO of Our Common Destiny, talks with Michelle Blumenberg, executive director of the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, and Abbii Cook, assistant director at UA Hillel, Dec. 3 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. [Phyllis Braun/AJP)
Sandy Cardin, who recently stepped down after 25 years as president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, where he remains a senior advisor, visited Tucson Dec. 3 to speak at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s lead gifts dinner. Earlier that day, at a lunch meeting at… Read more »
William Flesch
Hollywood has been known as the “dream factory” since at least the 1930s, when, with the coming of sound, movie makers figured out how to create worlds as realistic and unrealistic as dreams. When we dream or when we watch a movie, we go into another world. What makes… Read more »
At her apartment at Strauss Manor on Pantano, Margaret Hensley shows off her genealogy dating back to the 700s. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
The Gerd & Inge Strauss Manor on Pantano is one of two B’nai Brith affordable housing communities for seniors in Arizona. Both are in Tucson, the other being the better-known Covenant House. Managed by Biltmore Properties, the communities come under B’nai B’rith’s advocacy umbrella as the largest national Jewish… Read more »
Maxwell Greenberg Maxwell Ezra Greenberg will be the inaugural scholar-in-residence at the Jewish History Museum, beginning in January. “Greenberg’s work, which focuses on Jewish encounters and intersections with what he calls Latinidad, has drawn him to Southern Arizona, the Jewish History Museum, and the Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives at the University… Read more »
Hila Plitmann The Tucson Desert Song Festival celebrates ‘The American Voice’ in its eighth annual fest, Jan. 15-Feb. 16. This year marks the first in TDSF’s series of composer commissions. Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann will premiere “Songs of Love and Loss,” commissioned for this festival and written by American composer Richard… Read more »
Jewish Family & Children’s Service is a program site for Pima Council on Aging’s Senior Companion Program. Senior companion volunteers age 55 and older help homebound and isolated older adults continue living independently in their homes by providing companionship, transportation, and caregiver respite. “The need for volunteers is outrageously… Read more »
A mojito toast from Young Women’s Cabinet members at the January 2019 Mahj, Mojitos & Mitzvahs event,
(L-R): Simone Krame, Jennifer Selco, Kathy Gerst, Jenny Rothschild, Katie Stellitano-Rosen, Rachel Jarrett.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Young Women’s Cabinet will host its eighth annual mah jongg fest this year on Wednesday, Jan. 8. “Mahj, Margaritas & Mitzvahs” welcomes players of all levels, from first-timers to experts. The evening will include a margarita bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres. The event… Read more »
Security cameras hang across the street from the Park East Synagogue in New York City. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When I was about 19 years old, I took my first trip to Europe. I marveled at its beauty, its culture, its history and its architecture. On this trip and many others that followed, I shed many tears as I visited the numerous synagogues, Jewish museums… Read more »
The Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepts rockets that were fired from Gaza, Nov. 13, 2019. Congress is approving funds to continue financing this and other anti-missile systems. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — If where you spend your money is the clearest sign of your priorities, Congress seems to be saying that it remains invested in Israeli-Palestinian peace and in robustly supporting Israel’s defense systems. The House of Representatives threw its support this week behind a spending package that… Read more »
Rabbanit Jenna Englender dances with the Torah during her graduation ceremony from Yeshivat Maharat in New York, June 17, 2019. (Shulamit Seidler-Feller/Maharat)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up in a Modern Orthodox community in South Africa, Sara Hurwitz never imagined that she would one day become a clergy member. The Conservative and Reform movements have been ordaining female rabbis for decades. But in the Orthodox world, women are barred from many… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Thousands of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union may have come only to receive an Israeli passport before moving back abroad. The Hebrew weekly Makor Rishon reported that a cottage industry of companies promising expedited Israeli citizenship, and the passport that comes with it,… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Wild boars are stalking the streets of Haifa these days, and some residents say they feel like they “live in a jungle.” It all started when the northern Israeli municipality halted efforts to keep down the pigs’ population. While some city residents told the French news… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Turkish government has allowed Hamas members to use the country as a safe haven from which to plan attacks against Israelis. The Daily Telegraph cited transcripts of Israeli interrogations of suspected Palestinian terrorists in its report Tuesday. Not only do Hamas members have free rein… Read more »
(JTA) — An Albanian Muslim man whose house was destroyed in an earthquake will have it rebuilt by a Holocaust commemoration group in honor of his father’s rescue of Jews. The home of Muhamet Bicaku, 83, was devastated during the Nov. 26 calamity that claimed the lives of at… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yosef Eshed, a 102-year-old Israeli who fought alongside the revered British soldier Orde Wingate to put down the 1936 Arab Revolt, can now register for kindergarten. Eshed, of the village of Motza, near Jerusalem, apparently was one of 20 Israelis over a century old to receive… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Ukrainian court ruling called for the reinstatement of a diplomat who was fired for making anti-Semitic remarks. Israel has expressed its consternation over the ruling, saying it was “confused.” Vasyl Marushchynets, then the Ukrainian consul in Hamburg, Germany, was dismissed last year after his social… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, will visit Israel for the first time in an official capacity next month in order to attend the upcoming World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem. According to The Jewish Chronicle, the British royal will “undertake a number of engagements… Read more »
Colombians celebrate Dia de las Velitas at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Bogota, Dec. 7, 2018. (Lokman Ilhan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Jews in Colombia preparing for Hanukkah saw something earlier this month that no doubt looked very familiar. On the night of Dec. 7, streets, plazas, windows and porches across the country were lit by thousands of candles in honor of Dia de las Velitas (Day of the… Read more »
Gideon Taylor of the Claims Conference speaks as Israeli President Reuven Rivlin look on in Jerusalem in 2017. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
(JTA) — A major German industry family will donate tens of millions of dollars to support Holocaust survivors and former forced laborers in the Nazi era. In addition to one-time donations to the Claims Conference and individual laborers, the Reimann family’s JAB firm has created a foundation designed to… Read more »
