Local

In Israel’s south, English classes give kids a leg up

Tucsonan Aimee Katz (front right) with third-grade students at the Alfassi school in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. Katz taught English in Mitzpe Ramon during the 2018-19 school year. (Courtesy Aimee Katz)
September 13, 2019 / Aimee Katz, Special to AJP

Leaving home is difficult, especially since I had lived nowhere else besides Tucson, except for sleepaway camp and teaching in Israel for short stints during the summers. A year ago, however, I traded in the Arizona desert for Mitzpe Ramon, a small southern Israeli desert town in the middle… Read more »

PJ Library program offers cash for multi-family gatherings
September 13, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

If you’ve been meaning to get together with friends but haven’t found the time, here’s an additional incentive: PJ Library’s Get Together program offers up to $100 reimbursement for hosting two or more families to gather and have some fun. PJ Library of Southern Arizona is participating in Get… Read more »

Chat on migration opens Jewish History Museum season

Scott Warren listens to a question from the audience at the Jewish History Museum gallery chat, Sept. 6. (Debe Campbell)
September 13, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Tucson’s Jewish History Museum marked its reopening for the 2019-2020 season with a gallery chat by Scott Warren, Ph.D., a humanitarian aid worker and academic geographer. Focusing on the topographies of migration, Warren addressed the geographic sense of landscape and place and how memory and erasure can affect them.… Read more »

Israeli cannabis researcher to speak at UA symposium
September 13, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor
David Meiri

Professor David “Dedi” Meiri of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming University of Arizona Inaugural Interdisciplinary Cannabis Symposium. The symposium, sponsored by the UA’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, BIO5 Institute, College of Medicine-Tucson, and College of Science,… Read more »

Growth at Chabad Oro Valley inspires new facility, more leaders

Adeli and Rabbi Boruch Zimmerman, with son Mendel, join the leadership team at Chabad Oro Valley. (Courtesy Rabbi Boruch Zimmerman)
September 13, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Since opening in 2012, Chabad Oro Valley, led by Rabbi Ephraim and Mushkie Zimmerman, has grown its roster of participants to about 500 — and outgrown its current space. For the High Holidays, Chabad Oro Valley will celebrate in a new 3,388-square-foot home in Sun City’s Mountain View Plaza,… Read more »

Nuclear expert will speak on Iran issues
September 13, 2019 /
Carolynn Scherer

Carolynn Scherer Katz will present “Iran Update: a Jewish Perspective” at a Hadassah Southern Arizona lunch later this month. Scherer Katz is a scientist and team leader of the nuclear nonproliferation and systems analysis team at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She was instrumental in drafting Safeguards-by-Design documents for the… Read more »

Business briefs 9.13.19
September 13, 2019 /
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Keith Marcum joins the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona as communications and marketing manager. Most recently, he managed marketing and sales for Kuumba Made Inc., in Tucson. Before that, he was marketing manager at IMPACT of Southern Arizona, a Tucson non-profit. He is a graduate of James Madison… Read more »

Rancho Sahuarita founder Robert Sharpe succumbs to brain cancer
September 11, 2019 /

Robert (“Bobby”) Sharpe died Aug. 28, 2019, in Snowmass Village, Colorado, after a long battle with terminal brain cancer. Born and raised in Minnesota, Sharpe’s career took him to the movie business in Los Angeles and the garment industry in Minnesota before he was drawn to Tucson, where he… Read more »

Tucson Jewish Community Center aims for autumn Garden of Hope opening
August 30, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor
he ‘Garden of Hope’ at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will be a multipurpose healing space. (Photo: Barbara Grygutis Sculpture LLC)

Gan Tikvah, the Garden of Hope, is nearing completion at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. It will have a fluid connection to the current Sculpture Garden and provide a shady and tranquil pocket park for all seasons. It will offer an outdoor venue for classes, programming, and, with dramatic… Read more »

Annual book brunch to highlight women’s prayers
August 30, 2019 /

Esther Becker will explore “Conversations with G-d” at the annual Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies Women’s Book Brunch, Sunday, Sept. 15 at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. “We live in an era when we all have our challenges to deal with and no one goes unscathed,” says Becker.  “I wanted to… Read more »

Classes offer free ‘Taste of Judaism’
August 30, 2019 /

The Union for Reform Judaism’s Taste of Judaism classes, taught by Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Batsheva Appel, will be offered at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sundays, Sept. 8, 15, and 22 from 2:30-4:30 p.m., and at Temple Emanu-El on Thursdays, Sept. 12, 19, and 26, from 6-8 p.m.… Read more »

Cook comes full circle at UA Hillel Foundation

Abbii Cook, a University of Arizona alum, now UA Hillel Foundation’s assistant director, stands in front of Old Main, the first building constructed on the UA campus. (Photo courtesy University of Arizona Hillel Foundation)
August 30, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

It’s very nostalgic to be back in Tucson,” says Abbii Cook, University of Arizona Hillel Foundation’s new assistant director. “I’m so excited to be back at the place that really shaped me. It’s like a full circle,” she says. Cook spent a lot of time at Hillel as a… Read more »

Locals traveling to Israel urged to take medicine to Tucson teen on gap year

Tucsonan Aliya Markowitz in Jerusalem’s Old City during the 2019 March of the Living trip to Poland and Israel. (Photo courtesy Neil Markowitz)
August 30, 2019 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Eighteen-year-old Aliya Markowitz had a goal: maintain a 4.0-grade point average through all four years at Catalina Foothills High School. She achieved this, while being active in BBYO, serving on the youth group’s Tucson and regional boards, and participating in the March of the Living two-week trip to Poland… Read more »

Gallery Chat on migration to reopen JHM
August 30, 2019 /
Scott Warren

Scott Warren, Ph.D., will be the Gallery Chat speaker at the Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center as it reopens for its 2019-2020 season on Friday, Sept. 6, at 11 a.m. He will speak about human migration through the Sonoran desert and how it shapes both memory and… Read more »

ICSAVE offers Arizonans free lifesaving training for active shooter incidents

Green Valley Fire Captain Mark Lytle, a member of ICSAVE’s team of volunteers, learned about Israeli emergency medical services as part of Tucson’s first Firefighters Without Borders delegation in October 2013. The Magen David Adom (Red Shield of David) is Israel’s national ambulance, blood services, and disaster relief organization. It has been a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement since 2006. (Photo courtesy Mark Lytle)
August 30, 2019 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Mark Lytle, a native Tucsonan who has worked in the fire service for 24 years, is part of a coalition of first responders who created Integrated Community Solutions to Active Violence Events, or ICSAVE, to provide free active violence trainings to schools, religious institutions, and other groups across Arizona.… Read more »

New guidelines call for early breast cancer risk assessment
August 30, 2019 / Shayne Tarquinio, AJP Intern
Dr. Michele Ley

Women should get a formal breast cancer risk assessment between the ages of 25 and 30, according to the new guidelines set by The American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS), published in May. According to the organization, one in eight women, or 12 percent of women in the United… Read more »

A relaxation garden, no matter how small, turns your house into a home

This very tropical looking plant survives in a desert garden with afternoon shade. Its flowers are visited by hummingbirds. (Photo: Pixabay.com)
August 30, 2019 / Jacqueline A. Soule, Ph.D. Special to the AJP

Behaviorists have stacks of data highlighting the fact that getting out in nature can calm and restore the human spirit. This applies to all humans, even if you never lived in the country, even if you hate to hike, and no matter what age. Five, 35, or 85, we… Read more »

Sisterhood high tea will focus on fashion, fund-raising
August 30, 2019 /
Fashions by LuLaRoe will be among those modeled by synagogue members at the Congregation Or Chadash/Temple Emanu-El high tea, Sept. 15. (Photo courtesy Congregation Or Chadash Sisterhood)

Congregation Or Chadash Sisterhood and Temple Emanu-El Women of Reform Judaism will hold their first major collaboration, a fashion show high tea, on Sunday, Sept. 15, from 2-4 p.m. The event will be catered by L’Chaim Catering and fashions provided by Clique and LuLaRoe will be modeled by members… Read more »