News

Local volunteer’s love for teaching is a good fit for P2G

Shelley Lipowich, right, employs science, nature, and technology to build bridges between students in Tucson and Israeli classrooms while volunteering for Weintraub Israel Center’s Partnership2gether school twinning program. (Courtesy Lipowich)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Shelley Ann Lipowich, Ph.D., says she’s taught “for 150 years … everything from pre-kindergarten to post-doctoral, and I’ve had a ball.” She got her first taste of the Old Pueblo when it truly was a little village. She attended Sam Hughes Elementary as a child, “when Plumer Avenue was… Read more »

‘Spirit’ offers free Jewish learning for men and boys

(L-R) Rabbinic student Avrohom Luban talks with Tucsonans Max Lazar and Al Gordon during a ‘Spirit’ study session in 2014. (Courtesy Southwest Torah Institute)
July 12, 2019 /

The 2019 Dr. Paul W. Hoffert Spirit Program, a free Jewish learning opportunity for men and boys from the Southwest Torah Institute’s Naomi Adir Center for Torah Education, begins July 28 and runs through Aug. 11. In morning or evening sessions, individuals or groups can study the topic of… Read more »

Elder Rehab powers retired Tucsonan toward the century milestone
July 12, 2019 /
Lee Chutkow accepts an award certificate from Elder Rehab coordinator Sharon Arkin, recognizing his nine semesters of continuous participation. (Courtesy Arkin)

Lee Chutkow, M.D., 92, has a goal: To reach his 100th birthday. In pursuit of that goal, Chutkow, a retired psychiatrist, classical music maven, and Shakespeare and poetry buff, keeps his mind and body active through the Elder Rehab program at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Five years ago,… Read more »

New school year brings exciting programs to Tucson Jewish community
July 12, 2019 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Local Jewish educators are gearing up for the new school year, which starts next month. Here are some of the new programs awaiting students. Congregation Anshei Israel is introducing a new, integrated youth education program, B’Yahad (Together). B’Yahad will provide experiential learning opportunities for students of CAI’s religious school… Read more »

JFCS workshops give Holocaust survivors from Russia end-of-life guidance

L-R: Iosif Beskin, Gregory Tselnik, and Raisa Moroz examine advance directive documents at a workshop. (Courtesy Raisa Moroz)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

This summer, Jewish Family & Children’s Services conducted a series of workshops on advance directives and ethical wills for the 40 Russian-speaking Holocaust survivors in the Tucson community. Nearly half attended. “It is not in Russian culture to talk about final days or what would happen with a person… Read more »

An Israeli cop shot an unarmed Ethiopian teen. Here’s why American Jews should care.

Family and friends mourn at the funeral of Solomon Tekah, outside Haifa, July 2, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) *** Local Caption *** ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ???????
July 12, 2019 / Mijal Bitton, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli society has been gripped over the past week by the killing of Solomon Tekah, an unarmed 19-year-old Ethiopian Israeli. On June 30, an off-duty Israeli police officer shot and killed Tekah under highly contested circumstances. While emerging evidence seems to indicate that the policeman was not… Read more »

Lubavitcher Rebbe’s death anniversary marked

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson at the Lag B’Omer parade in Brooklyn, New York, May 17, 1987 (Photo: Mordechai Baron)
July 12, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

World leaders and celebrities praised the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe on the 25th anniversary of his death. Rabbi Menachem Schneerson led the Chabad-Lubavitcher Hasidic movement through a period of revival and spread its influence through Jewish outreach centers in dozens of cities and countries. An estimated 50,000 people… Read more »

Remembering former JFCS chair for his passion, kindness

The late Fred Fruchthendler, left, with Jewish Family & Children’s Services’ President and CEO Carlos Hernández at the 206 JFCS Celebration of Caring event on April 10, 2016, which marked JFCS’ 75th anniversary. (Photo courtesy Jewish Family & Children's Services)
July 12, 2019 / Carlos A. Hernandez, MA, LCSW, CPHQ Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona

I remember when I first met Fred Fruchthendler. It was my first interview with the board of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona for the position of president and CEO. After an hour or so of many tough and thoughtful questions, a voice that had not yet… Read more »

New shlicha will bring experience, charm, young family to town

Inbal Shtivi, her husband, Eran Falach, and their children look forward to a new experience sharing Israel with Tucson. (Courtesy Shtivi)
July 12, 2019 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Twenty-first century technology can go a long way toward bridging distances between people thousands of miles apart, but there is no replacement for personal and cross-community connections, says Inbal Shtivi. Shtivi, 43, who will be Tucson’s new shlicha (Israeli emissary) and director of the Weintraub Israel Center, will arrive… Read more »

Vigil will support migrants
July 12, 2019 /

As Jews, we have a special responsibility to stand up for the migrants currently being held under deplorable conditions in ICE detention centers. The situation is completely untenable. A Trump administration lawyer recently argued to a court that the government’s obligation to provide “safe and sanitary” conditions for child… Read more »

AJP article hits the right note
July 12, 2019 /

I wish to thank the Arizona Jewish Post and interviewer Debe Campbell for the well-written article (“Retiree takes social justice to heart,” 6/28/19). She provided important information I shared with her when we met at the monastery. She has seen firsthand the role that so many volunteers and Catholic… Read more »

How the AMIA attack changed Latin American Jewry forever

A man walks over the rubble left after a bomb exploded at the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994. (Ali Burafi /AFP/Getty Images)
July 10, 2019 / Ilan Stavans, JTA

AMHERST, Mass. (JTA) – Twenty-five years after the terrorist attack that targeted the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, leaving 85 people dead and hundreds more injured, one thing is clear: The lives of Latin American Jews were changed forever. With nearly 200,000 Jews at the time, from various religious… Read more »

BBC airs expose accusing Jeremy Corbyn’s team of shielding anti-Semites

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking during a visit to the Regents Park Mosque in London, May 19, 2019. (Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
July 10, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Leaders of Britain’s Labour’s party shielded members from accusation of anti-Semitism amid an internal crisis that led to thousands of hate speech complaints but only 15 expulsions, the BBC reported. The findings aired Wednesday by the service’s flagship investigative television program “Panorama” represent the largest-scale journalistic focus… Read more »

Cartoonist disinvited from White House defends image widely labeled as anti-Semitic

Ben Garrison drew this cartoon in 2017. It shows George Soros being manipulated by a hand of the Rothschilds, and Soros in turn manipulating Trump’s former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and retired Gen. David Petraeus. (Courtesy of Garrison)
July 10, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — The artist behind a political cartoon that showed U.S. government officials as puppets of George Soros and the Rothschilds has defended his work and accused the Anti-Defamation League of libeling him. On Wednesday, Politico reported that Ben Garrison would no longer be attending a White House social… Read more »

Tel Aviv suburb votes to operate public transportation on Shabbat
July 10, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Tel Aviv suburb has approved operating public transportation on Shabbat. The City Council of Ramat Gan, a municipality in central Israel, approved the measure on Tuesday by a vote of 15-6. In a harbinger of the religious freedom debate that will infuse the campaign for… Read more »

California bill will ensure the right to hang mezuzahs

Jewish religious law and customs require that mezuzahs be affixed to doorframes. (Zeevveez/Flickr)
July 10, 2019 / Gabe Stutman, J. The Jewish News of Northern California

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — A bill to ensure the right of Californians bill to hang mezuzahs on their door frames is moving through the state legislature, and is on its way to the desk of Governor Gavin Newsom. SB 652 bars landlords and… Read more »

Netanyahu meets with head of Ukrainian party that includes neo-Nazis
July 10, 2019 / Sam Sokol, JTA

(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under fire in recent years for allegedly failing to confront anti-Semitism and revisionism in Central and Eastern Europe, met Wednesday with the head of a European political party whose membership includes ultranationalists and neo-Nazis. Oleh Lyashko of the Ukrainian… Read more »

3 lawmakers leave British Labour Party over anti-Semitism
July 10, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Three lawmakers in the upper house of the British parliament left the Labour party over its spiraling anti-Semitism problem. David Triesman and Leslie Arnold Turnberg, who are Jewish, and Ara Darzi, who is not, announced their resignation on Tuesday. They will stay on as independents in the House of Lords.… Read more »