Sacha Baron Cohen speaks at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never Is Now conference in New York, Nov. 21, 2019. Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Sacha Baron Cohen has made a career out of playing absurd comedic characters, from the dopey Brit Ali G to the Kazakh journalist Borat to the Israeli veteran Erran Morad. He rarely gives interviews and stays relatively far from the movie star limelight. But on Nov. 21, Cohen tossed… Read more »
Robin Bessier Jazz vocalist and songwriter Robin Bessier and her jazz trio will bring the rich history of jazz alive at the Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life’s 2020 Northwest Division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Campaign Kickoff dinner, “An Evening of Jewish Jazz Throughout the Ages”… Read more »
Sean Patrick Doyle (center) and the company of Arizona Theatre Company’s ‘Cabaret’ in rehearsal. Photo courtesy Arizona Theatre Company
“Cabaret,” on stage at the Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson through Dec. 29, “has toe-tapping, show-stopping musical numbers,” says Sara Bruner, who is directing the ATC production. “It’s wildly entertaining … but it also has real meaning.” It’s such a famous show — there’s Bob Fosse’s 1973 film, the… Read more »
Susan Kasle of Jewish Family & Children’s Services presents Yad Vashem docent Robert Eden with books of stories by Southern Arizona Holocaust survivors, Nov. 3. Photo: Jon Kasle
Susan Kasle is vice president of community services at Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona, which coordinates services for Holocaust survivors living in Southern Arizona. For Kasle, a highlight of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s recent interfaith mission was representing JFCS during the mission’s Nov. 3… Read more »
Sula Miller Tucson resident Sula Miller will discuss her recent book “Welcome to … The Widows Club” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2017) at two local venues next week. Tucson is the last stop on Miller’s seven-state book tour that began in Florida. The novel was inspired by her mother-in-law, Bernyce, who became… Read more »
Larry Gellman J Street will honor Larry Gellman at a Tucson reception on Monday, Dec. 16, at 6 p.m., with guest speakers Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman and J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015. Gellman has chaired the boards… Read more »
Jewish community members rally in support of humanitarian Scott Warren on Nov. 12, the opening day of his retrial at the federal courthouse in Tucson. Those in attendance included Rabbi Avi Alpert, Rabbi Thomas Louchheim, Jewish Community Relations Council Chair Mo Goldman, Jewish History Museum Executive Director Bryan Davis, and JHM board member Eric Schindler. Photo: Stephen Shawl
A collaborative Jewish community initiative that sprang from the Oct. 24 day of a learning journey to the U.S.-Mexico border at Nogales, Arizona, continues to move forward. “There are clearly two tracks of interest that emerged from the initial education event,” Jewish History Museum Director Bryan Davis told the… Read more »
Brittany Bristow, center, plays Brooke in the first of two new Hallmark Channel Hanukkah-themed features, ‘Holiday Date.’ Photo courtesy Crown Media
The Hallmark Channel will premiere its first two Hanukkah-themed movies this month in honor of the holiday, which starts this year on Dec. 22. “Our audience is very vocal, and they tell us when they’d like to see more of something,” says Michelle Vicary, Crown Media’s executive vice president… Read more »
(L-R): Carol Weinstein; Janice Brumer, a member of the Union for Reform Judaism national board; and Rabbi Helen Cohn Photo courtesy Congregation M’kor Hayim
Congregation M’kor Hayim has joined the Union for Reform Judaism, the association of nearly 900 Reform congregations in North America. “Our congregation began in 2008. Now that we are fully established locally, we felt it was time to connect with the wider Jewish community,” Rabbi Helen Cohn said. She… Read more »
Graham Hoffman holds a challah for Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona interfaith mission participants celebrating their arrival in Jerusalem on Oct. 30. Photo courtesy Graham Hoffman
On a Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona interfaith mission Oct. 27-Nov. 5, dubbed “Connecting Cultures, Communities, and Hearts,” 28 participants got a taste of Israel’s diversity and complexity, coming away with a new appreciation for the nation’s challenges, but no easy answers. Members of the group “were touched so… Read more »
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
About 85 community members joined a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Nogales, Arizona, on Wednesday, Nov. 20. The bus trip, hosted by the Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life and Hadassah Southern Arizona, included several speakers along the journey: immigration attorneys Alexandra Miller from Humane… Read more »
An Israeli couple at Second Beach in Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Renato Santana/CORREIO)
MORRO DE SAO PAULO, Brazil (JTA) – Summer is just around the corner here and the breathtaking beaches of Brazil’s northeastern coast will be packed soon with tourists from around the world. Many of them will be sababas. A derivative of an Israeli slang word that roughly means “cool,”… Read more »
A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium features caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO)
(JTA) — The U.N.’s leading cultural body was scheduled to vote this month on whether to remove a Belgian carnival that had hosted a float seen as mocking Jews from its list of important human cultural expressions. But the carnival’s organizers decided they wouldn’t wait for a possible censure… Read more »
Allan Gerson in 2014. (Screenshot from YouTube)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Allan Gerson, a lawyer who made it easier for the families of terror victims to sue foreign governments, has died. His daughter Daniela told family and friends that he passed away Sunday at his Washington, D.C., home. His wife, Joan Nathan, the cookbook author and authority… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel played a role in President Donald Trump’s reported plans to send an additional 14,000 troops to the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported. Multiple reports citing unnamed officials say Trump is planning to deploy the troops to counter increased Iranian adventurism in the region.… Read more »
(JTA) — Iran is stockpiling short-range ballistic missiles in Iraq that can reach Israel, according to a New York Times report that cited American intelligence and military officials. The hidden rockets are part of a larger effort by Iran to intimidate countries in the region and assert its power,… Read more »
(JTA) — The undergraduate student government of Arizona State University passed a resolution in support of the Tempe school’s Jewish students. The resolution, which passed Tuesday by acclamation, comes amid public discussion among campus student organizations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in the wake of fliers bearing swastikas and… Read more »
Jeffrey Jacobson has been elected to the board of directors of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Foundation. Last year, he became the 74th supreme master (international president) of Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. Jacobson is a member of the Tucson Hebrew Academy board of trustees and co-founder of the Will for… Read more »
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn does arts and crafts during a visit to Winwood Heights Retirement Village in Nottingham, while on the 2019 election campaign trail. (Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images)
LONDON, England (JTA) — I am a secular Jew and a lifelong British Labour Party voter — two allegiances that once intersected very comfortably. As so many of us do, I inherited my politics. Every time Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was reelected, my mother and her friends held a… Read more »
(JTA) — The United Nations General Assembly passed five resolutions against Israel, but for the first time, 13 countries switched their positions and voted against a pro-Palestine measure. The five resolutions passed Tuesday are among 20 against Israel that the international body will vote on during the 74th session… Read more »
