Bill Kugelman talks to Hebrew High students. (Jonathan Vanballenberghe) Picture a room full of teenagers, uncharacteristically still, hanging on to every word spoken by an 86-year-old man, who looks easily 10 years younger, with bushy eyebrows and salt-and-pepper hair, a yarmulke perched stubbornly on his head. “How long after liberation and after the war did it take you… Read more »
JFSA Man of the Year Jim Whitehill The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its own “gem show” to honor its 2011 award winners at its annual meeting and awards celebration on Thursday, May 12 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Heading the list of community gems are Man of the Year… Read more »
Ellie and Si Schorr [Julie Glaser Ray) The idea that mental illness is a shanda (shame) or horrific secret has changed significantly — but not enough, say Si and Ellie Schorr. In the 1970s, when they were raising a child who showed signs of mental illness, people didn’t talk about such things. “The stigma was not… Read more »
(L-R) Josh Silvain (David), Bill Epstein (Murph), Tenoch Gomez (Pete) and Dan Colecchia (Mitch) in “Fronting the Order” “Fronting the Order,” a new play by Warren G. Bodow, opens today at the Beowulf Alley Theatre, with 11 performances running through April 23. Set in a diner in a small upstate New York town on a summer evening in 1959, “Fronting the Order” follows the fortunes of four… Read more »
Painter and printmaker Sylvia Garland and photographer Edlynne Sillman will exhibit their work at the Tucson Jewish Community Center from April 14 to May 19. Garland’s exhibit, “Abstract Botanical Expressions,” features oil paintings and one of a kind prints on paper. Sillman is dedicating her “America the Beautiful” exhibition… Read more »
Sasha Farber When Sasha Farber’s family emigrated from Belarus to Australia in 1991, becoming a dancer was probably the last thing on the 7-year-old’s mind. “We left because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” Farber told the AJP, and also because “we had to keep it quiet that we were Jewish.” Farber,… Read more »
We’ve added two new blogs to azjew ishpost.com. First, former Arizona Jewish Post assistant editor Jen Sonstein Maidenberg , who’d left Tucson for the charms of New Jersey, returns — sort of — with her blog “And Yadda Yadda Yadda, I Made Aliyah,” which also has been picked up… Read more »
Jewish Family & Children’s Services is joining with local synagogues and other agencies for its annual “Matza & More Passsover Project,” collecting food items for nearly 200 Passover baskets that volunteers will deliver to families in need on April 17. Since 1970, JFCS has helped to ensure that local… Read more »
The Weintraub Israel Center and Temple Emanu-El will present an Israeli-Moroccan Mimuna celebration on April 26. A traditional North African Jewish celebration held at the end of Passover, Mimuna marks the start of spring and the return to eating chametz (leavened goods), explains Guy Gelbart, director of the Weintraub… Read more »
Joel Chasnoff, author of "The 188th Crybaby Brigade" Unlike aspiring doctors or lawyers, would-be artists have no set career path, says author and stand-up comedian Joel Chasnoff. But even by the free-wheeling standards of the arts, the former Ivy Leaguer’s path took an unusual detour — right through the Israel Defense Forces, an experience he chronicles in… Read more »
Ishmael Khaldi Israel’s first Arab Bedouin diplomat, Ishmael Khaldi, will speak at a breakfast event hosted by the Weintraub Israel Center, the Israel Consulate in Los Angeles and the America-Israel Friendship League on Friday, April 15, 8:15-9:30 a.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Khaldi, who currently serves as an advisor… Read more »
Cindy Sadowsky with pre-school students at Temple Emanu-El Temple Emanu-El’s Olga and Bob Strauss Early Childhood Education Center will add a full-day kindergarten class beginning in fall 2011. The kindergarten will include a fully integrated secular and Judaic curriculum, with an emphasis on emergent education, in which a teacher observes children’s natural interests and expands on them… Read more »
Max Rusinov, UA Hillel Israel Fellow, points to information about suicide bombings prevented by the Israeli-Palestinian border fence, posted on the mock border fence on the UA campus, March 23. (Sheila Wilensky) If there’s a difference between the U.S.-Mexico border wall and the one dividing Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, you might not have known it by looking at the nearly 1,000-foot mock border fence on the University of Arizona campus last month. The fence was erected by student members… Read more »
In preparation for an upcoming display at the Tucson Jewish Community Center celebrating the Allied victors of World War II and the liberation of Europe, volunteer Bill Kugelman and JCC communications specialist Marty Johnston are collecting historical artifacts. To date, Jeffrey A. Marks has donated a World War II… Read more »
Hadassah Southern Arizona will hold an ice cream social and book swap/sale on Sunday, April 3 at 2 p.m. at Congregation Young Israel. Two local Jewish authors, Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford and Sheldon Sid Brodkin, will read from their works. Rivera-Ashford is the author of two bilingual books for children,… Read more »
The Weintraub Israel Center and the Tucson Jewish Community Library will present “Israel to Go,” an event designed to help participants plan a trip to Israel, on Sunday, March 27 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the library, located in the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Guy Gelbart, director of… Read more »
Former U.S. Ambassador Thomas Price will speak on “Change in the Arab World: Opportunity or Menace?” at a meeting of the Tucson chapter of Parents of North American Israelis on Sunday, April 10 at 10 a.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Price, a visiting scholar at the Arizona… Read more »
Chabad on River will welcome its first Sefer Torah on Sunday, April 10 at 10 a.m. with a processional from the Tucson Jewish Community Center to Chabad on River, followed by a celebratory brunch. The Torah, says Rabbi Ram Bigelman, was originally written for a yeshiva in Tiberias, Israel,… Read more »
In an effort to ensure that every Jew in Southern Arizona has a seat at a seder table for Passover, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and local synagogues are joining forces for Operation Elijah, which pairs seder guests and hosts. All who are new to the community, single,… Read more »
Learning to read is part of any school curriculum but loving to read is another story. For the past two years, Tucson Hebrew Academy has been using the Great Books Foundation K-12 program from the University of Chicago, an established literature curriculum that promotes outstanding reading choices and shared-inquiry… Read more »
