Dr. Danielle Ofri, M.D.
The 10th Annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Healthcare, honoring a decade of encouraging compassionate care, will be held next month. Dr. Danielle Ofri, an internist, acclaimed author and one of the foremost speakers about the doctor-patient relationship, will discuss the topic of her latest book, “What… Read more »
Steven J. Zipperstein, left, and Mark Hetfield A “brunch and learn” program next month, hosted by the Jewish History Museum, pairs noted author and Stanford professor Steven J. Zipperstein with Mark Hetfield, the chief executive officer of HIAS, a national refugee protection agency, for an interactive community dialogue. “The program, ‘Learning from the Past, Rising to the… Read more »
An IsraAid volunteer helps Syrian refugees come ashore on the island of Lesbos, Greece. IIsraAID)
Rachel Wallace will present “Humanitarian Heroes Around the World” as the Weintraub Israel Center’s Gertrude and Fred Rosen Memorial Lecture next month. The free lecture marks the launch of a month-long photo exhibit at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, “Stories of Courage and Resilience.” The Tucson J will host… Read more »
Ava Cohn
Ava Cohn, aka Sherlock Cohn, will present “Clued-In: The Stories are in the Details” at the March 10 meeting of the Southern Arizona Jewish Genealogy Society, 1 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Cohn specializes in the dating, identification, and interpretation of family photographs. She is the only… Read more »
Homer Davis Project volunteers from Roche Tissue Diagnostics wrapped gift boxes so that each child in the food program receives one on their birthday. (Homer Davis Elementary School)
Students, parents, volunteers, faculty and staff, sponsors, and friends will gather in March to celebrate 10 years of “Making a Difference Every Day: The Homer Davis Project.” The project is a collaboration of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Jewish Community Relations Council, the Jewish community, and Tucson corporate… Read more »
Noa Baum Storyteller Noa Baum is an Israeli who began a heartfelt dialogue with a Palestinian woman she met while living in the United States. Baum grew up in Jerusalem under the generational shadow of the Holocaust and ongoing wars. Past stories and fear of wars from the ’60s through the… Read more »
Josh Shenker, lower right, as young camp counselor
Playing “Ga-Ga ball” is a camp tradition that Josh Shenker, the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s director of child, youth and camping services, looked forward to every year he returned to summer camp at the JCC in Houston. The game starts with a ball thrown into the “pit,” a ringed… Read more »
Ed Asner (Tim Leyes)
The 11th Annual Tucson Festival of Books will be held March 2 and 3 on the University of Arizona campus. With hundreds of authors participating each year, the AJP traditionally highlights several Jewish writers who will be presenting authors. Brenda and Bill Viner, Jewish community members who helped co-found… Read more »
Newly-minted septuagenarian When Andy Kunsberg turned 70 in mid-December, his wife, Linda, planned a late December celebration. The party wasn’t a surprise but the guest list was. Relatives — daughter Rebecca Goodman, her husband Ted and their three children, plus Andy’s brother, brothers-in-law, nieces, great niece and nephews, from… Read more »
The Shalva Band had a shot at becoming Israel's representative at the Eurovision contest. ( Screenshot from YouTube)
A beloved group of Israeli musicians, the Shalva Band, recently made the tough decision to give up a musical chance of a lifetime rather than risk being asked to desecrate the Sabbath. The group, which is comprised of musicians with various disabilities and diverse religious commitments, could not get… Read more »
Jewish decision-makers and funders in Israel, the United States, and around the world in part shape allocations and the dispensing of positions of influence on the basis of demographic studies. When interpretations of these studies are misapplied, too often pivotal policy mistakes are made. Jack Wertheimer’s “The New American… Read more »
Beresheet payload (at the top, in gold), the first Israeli lunar spacecraft. (Photo credit: Courtesy of SSL)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 18 – Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) today announced that Israel’s inaugural voyage to the moon – the world’s first privately funded lunar mission – will begin on Feb. 21 at approximately 8:45 p.m. EST, when the lunar lander “Beresheet” (“In the Beginning”)… Read more »
Josh Boloña, pictured sitting in his campus library, is the president of the Student Government Association at the University of Central Florida. (Ben Sales)
ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) — Growing up, Josh Boloña was just like a lot of kids in South Florida: He was a Latino immigrant, from Ecuador, in an area with a lot of Latino immigrants. He was a Jewish kid in an area with many Jews. He was a soccer… Read more »
Leonard Coris Leonard M. Coris, 78, died Jan. 31, 2019, of complications related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Mr. Coris was born March 29, 1940, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Betty and Al Coris. He attended the Brookline public schools and MIT, where he earned master’s degrees in both food science and finance. He… Read more »
Heidi Fishman holding up an op-ed she wrote about her family's rescue from the Holocaust using a Paraguayan passport. (Courtesy of Fishman)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) – Growing up, Heidi Fishman knew that she was alive thanks to her grandfather’s Paraguayan passport. A Jewish author from Vermont, she was told as a little girl that Heinz Lichtenstern’s passport was the only reason that her maternal grandparents and mother managed to avoid being sent… Read more »
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — A one-time diplomat to the Latin American Jewish Congress has been appointed Venezuela’s diplomatic representative to Argentina by Juan Guaido, the self-declared interim president of Venezuela. Israel’s ambassador in Buenos Aires, Ilan Sztulman, referred to Elisa Trotta Gamus as “ambassador” during a meeting at the… Read more »
(JTA) — Thousands participated Tuesday in demonstrations against anti-Semitism across France. Protesters took to the streets in some 70 marches only hours after nearly 100 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in the eastern French village of Quatzenheim were discovered vandalized with swastikas. Some protesters held posters saying “That’s Enough.” “Whoever did this… Read more »
(JTA) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan blamed “the wicked Jews” for the crisis over anti-Semitism and the Women’s March. “The most beautiful sight that I could lay eyes on when I saw, the day after Trump was elected, women from all over the world were standing in… Read more »
(JTA) — In a brief confidential conference call with Jewish organizations, Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized for any hurt caused by her tweets suggesting that AIPAC pays politicians to support Israel. “Let me reiterate my sincere apology for any actual hurt my words have caused,” Omar, a freshman Democratic congresswoman… Read more »
Observers say Bernie Sanders has helped make it kosher to criticize Israel within the Democratic Party. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — This may be hard to remember, but three years ago it was a big deal when Bernie Sanders criticized Israel in public. During a debate in New York City with Hillary Clinton, Sanders generated headlines when he said the United States should care about Palestinian… Read more »
