Tucsonan Alain Avigdor, right, visits with a Jewish woman at an assisted living facility in Casablanca, Morocco. (Larry Gellman) “Casablanca” brings to mind an almost mythical film in an exotic locale, conjuring up images of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman parting on a foggy airfield. But Casablanca is a real place where Jews have lived as far back as Roman times. Sixteen Tucsonans witnessed the vibrancy of Morocco’s… Read more »
Micah Halpern It doesn’t matter who the president is when it comes to U.S. policy toward Israel. When political pundit Micah D. Halpern made that statement in his talk, “Making Sense of the Middle East: A Post-Election Analysis,” at a Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona leadership campaign summit on Nov. 8,… Read more »
Israeli author Adina Bar-El, left, with Tucsonan Bill Kugelman (Phyllis Braun/AJP) Adina Bar-El, Ph.D., a children’s book author from Hof Ashkelon, Israel, came to Tucson last week to talk about the power of stories — and ended up discovering tales of her own family’s past. On Friday, Nov. 9, Tucsonan Bill Kugelman attended Bar-El’s Heartbeat of Israel breakfast talk at… Read more »
A new Arizona state tax credit allows taxpayers to double their donations to the Jewish Education Tax Credit Organization, JETCO — without costing them a penny. Earlier this year, the Arizona legislature passed SB1047 to give children enrolled in public schools the opportunity to switch to private schools by… Read more »
Suzi Hileman After 22 months, Suzi Hileman finally got to step into a courtroom and confront Jared Lee Loughner, the man who killed six people and wounded her and 12 others who’d come to meet with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a Tucson Safeway on Jan. 8, 2011. “I have wanted to… Read more »
Congregation Bet Shalom will present a lecture, “Genes, Jewish History, and Jewish Migration,” by Matthew Kaplan, facility manager of the Functional Genomics Core at the University of Arizona, on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. Kaplan previously served as a staff scientist in the Arizona Research Laboratories division of… Read more »
The 9th Annual Muslim-Jewish PeaceWalk will be held Sunday, Nov. 11. There will be a gathering outside the Islamic Center of Tucson, 901 1st Street (at Tyndall) at 1:15 p.m., with a welcoming ceremony at 1:45 p.m. The walk will begin at 2:15 p.m., with a stop at Catalina… Read more »
Maddy Melichar, Becky Monroy, Hayley Flanigan and Catalina Foothills High School Principal Angela Chomokos with Day of the Girl proclamations from the City of Tucson and the Pima County Board of Supervisors (Alison Hughes/Pima County/Tucson Women's Commission) Last month, at the request of sophomore Becky Monroy and four friends at Catalina Foothills High School, the City of Tucson and the Pima County Board of Supervisors issued proclamations naming Oct. 11, 2012 “The Day of the Girl,” building on a successful campaign in almost 100 countries to… Read more »
Rick Recht (Jeff Hirsch) Congregation Anshei Israel, Congregation Or Chadash and Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will present Rick Recht live in concert on Monday, Nov. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at Congregation Anshei Israel. “The concert is a collaboration between three Jewish organizations, promoting the idea that music not only transcends boundaries,… Read more »
Congregation Or Chadash will present the fourth Jewish Food Festival and Fun Fair on Sunday, Nov. 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 pm. The festival gives the larger Tucson community the opportunity to try traditional and not-so-traditional Jewish foods in a family-friendly environment. Admission is $4 per person with… Read more »
Adina Bar-El, Ph.D. The TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Seattle, Phoenix) Partnership 2Gether program (previously known as Partnership 2000) and the Weintraub Israel Center will host Adina Bar-El, Ph.D., author and expert on Hebrew and Yiddish children’s literature, in Tucson Nov. 5 through Nov. 9. Bar-El is the author of 19 books for children… Read more »
Barry Friedman The Jewish History Museum will honor Barry Friedman with the 2012 Jewish Heritage Award at its annual luncheon later this month. Designed to honor an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the museum’s mission and to the larger Southern Arizona community, the award recognizes Friedman’s contribution to preserving… Read more »
C. Diane Ealy, Ph.D. “From Fear to Excitement: Your Personal Journey of Empowerment” will be the focus of a fundraising workshop for Congregation Chaverim on Sunday, Nov. 11 from 9 a.m. till noon. “Chaverim has been through extremely difficult times these past two years with the death of Karla Ember and Gabby’s shooting,… Read more »
The Northwest Division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its second annual bus trip on Wednesday, Nov. 28. This year’s trip will be to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix. On the bus, Cantor Avi Alpert of Congregation Bet Shalom will provide a Jewish musical appetizer.… Read more »
Temple Emanu-El will hold a “Wii Against the Stars” fundraiser on Saturday, Nov. 17, from 5 to 8 p.m. Former University of Arizona basketball players Matt Muehlebach and Corey Williams, along with other former pro and collegiate athletes will be at the event to challenge guests in their sports… Read more »
Joseph Toltz, Ph.D. (Courtesy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) Musical memories have helped Holocaust survivors deal with their trauma, a connection Joseph Toltz, Ph.D., has researched for the past 14 years. Toltz will lecture on “The Accidental Pioneer: Music from David Broder’s 1946 Work in the Displaced Persons Camps of Europe” at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on… Read more »
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Itamar Rabinovich and Guy Gelbart, director of the Weintraub Israel Center, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Oct 29. Rabinovich’s lecture drew a crowd of more than 400. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) Whether or not President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are the leaders of the United States and Israel come January, Iran’s nuclear program will still be on the table. Itamar Rabinovich, Israeli ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1996, presented “The U.S., Israel and the… Read more »
Eric Buss Eric Buss will perform a family friendly comedy show on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El. A Tucson native, Buss combines crazy inventions and high energy into an award-winning act, which he has performed on the David Letterman show, on five continents and on television in… Read more »
Phyllis Broad Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will present its fourth annual “Celebration of Tucson’s Oldest Jewish Residents”on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. The lunch will honor Jewish Tucsonans who are 88 or older. Phyllis Broad will be recognized for her commitment to Handmaker and the greater Tucson Jewish… Read more »
Itamar Rabinovich Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1996, will present “The U.S., Israel and the Challenge of Iran: Options and Constraints,” on Monday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. A Weintraub Israel Center Heartbeat of Israel program, the free lecture… Read more »
