Cheerleaders celebrate walkers at the Autism Society of Southern Arizona’s 2018 Autism Walk (Darin Wallentine)
The Autism Society of Southern Arizona will hold its 13th Annual Autism Walk & Resource Fair on Saturday, April 6, in Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium at Kino Park Sports Complex, 2500 E. Ajo Way. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and the Walk and Resource Fair runs from 9 a.m.–1… Read more »
Irene Gefter, Jewish Family & Children's Services executive office Aaministrator; Helene Rothstein, CHAI Circle volunteer; Alice Steinfeld, CHAI Circle volunteer; Susan Kasle, JFCS vice president of community services.(Courtesy Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona)
One Sunday each month, two dedicated psychotherapists come together to provide a salutary space for female cancer patients and survivors in the Tucson Jewish community. Alice Steinfeld and Helene Rothstein are therapists and friends who facilitate the cancer support group, CHAI Circle. CHAI (Cancer, Healing and Inspiration) Circle has… Read more »
Unity marks interfaith vigil honoring Muslim terror victims [Debe Campbell/AJP)
Tucson community members attended a vigil at the Muslim Community Center of Tucson on Monday to express solidarity and commemorate the 50 people killed in the March 14 shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Another 50 people were wounded in the shootings. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild spoke on… Read more »
Gary Kippur
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s annual Men’s Night Out event is getting a new format this year. There will be no keynote speaker for the event on Tuesday, April 9. Instead, it will begin at 6 p.m. in the Tucson Jewish Community Center Sculpture Garden with a whiskey… Read more »
(L-R) Rabbis Yossie Shemtov, Robert Eisen and Thomas Louchheim Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will present a three-rabbi panel lecture next month, “Why good things happen to bad people,” presenting the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish perspectives with Rabbi Yossie Shemtov of Congregation Young Israel, Rabbi Robert Eisen of Congregation Anshei Israel, and Rabbi Thomas Louchheim of… Read more »
(L-R): Medical volunteers Audrey Russell-Kibble, D.N.P., F.N.P.C., F.A.A.N.P.; Richard Wahl, M.D.; and Kenneth Iserson, M.D., on Feb. 24, in the Benedictine monastery chapel in Tucson that serves as a dormitory for asylum-seekers.
(Debe Campbell/AJP)
Disembarking without fanfare and frequently no forewarning, asylum-seekers file, dozens at a time, into the old Benedictine monastery in midtown Tucson. Since Jan. 26, the monastery has been a makeshift “hospitality center” providing a safe place for families released from custody after applying for asylum at the Mexican border.… Read more »
Alexis ‘A.J.’ Kaiser, seen here at bat for Syracuse University, grew up in Tucson and will be a member of Team Israel in women's softball. (Courtesy A.J. Kaiser)
Softball players across the country are coming together this summer to train for the Team Israel women’s softball team, which will be led by Stacey Iveson, the University of Arizona women’s softball director of recruiting-operations. Iveson is a former Wildcat player and coach, and won four junior college national… Read more »
Chuck Reisig, Tucson Jewish Community Center director of tennis, poses in a forklift prior to the removal of the tennis courts’ current surface. (Photo: Andrew Rosenfeld/Tucson Jewish Community Center)
The late Jack Sarver was an excellent tennis player. In fact, he started at the University of Michigan on a tennis scholarship, but his need to support his mother, three sisters and a brother made it impossible to continue his studies, says his daughter, Betty Anne Sarver. When Jack,… Read more »
(L-R): Gila Ben-Jamin, Arlene Kutoroff, and Sheryl Boris at a recent University of Arizona women’s basketball game where cancer survivors were recognized, with Tucson Cancer Conquerors participating.(Courtesy Marlyne Freedman)
For nearly a half-century, Gila Ben-Jamin had a secret she refused to share. She reluctantly accompanied a friend to a meeting of Tucson Cancer Conquerors 17 months ago and called it life-changing. There, for the first time, she was able to talk about what had once been a taboo… Read more »
Holocaust survivor Yulia Geninatalk makes a tile at the 28th Annual Holocaust Vigil on the University of Arizona mall. At least 500 people stopped by the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation’s 28th Annual Holocaust Vigil, held over 24 hours beginning at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 13. Volunteers read the names of victims throughout the vigil. Visitors also had the opportunity to participate in an art project, meet… Read more »
Yehezkel Lazarov as Tevye in Broadway in Tucson’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ (Joan Marcus)
At 45, Israeli actor and theatre director Yehezkel Lazarov may at first seem too young to star as Tevye in the national tour of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which Broadway in Tucson is bringing to Centennial Hall for a one-week run beginning April 9. Audiences have gotten used to… Read more »
The battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla inspired Mayumana founders Eylon Nuphar and Boaz Berman to create ‘Currents.’ (Courtesy Fox Tucson Theatre)
If you like Stomp you’ll love Mayumana” promises the Fox Tucson Theatre, which is presenting “Currents by Mayumana,” an Israeli dance/rhythm/acrobatics spectacular, with the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. “Currents” is inspired by the historic battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla… Read more »
Siegmund Kornmehl’s butcher shop was at 19 Berggasse in Vienna. Note the swastika on the awning to the right. (Courtesy Edie Jarolim)
You’ve heard of Sigmund Freud, but what about Siegmund Kornmehl? Kornmehl’s butcher shop shared Freud’s famous Vienna address of 19 Berggasse for 44 years. The butcher was forced to sign over his business to the Nazis in 1938, the same year the Freud family escaped from Austria. Kornmehl’s great-niece,… Read more »
Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz (right) leads a tour of kosher products at an Albertson’s supermarket in Tucson on March 19, 2017. [AJP Archive)
Renowned kosher authority Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz is returning to Tucson to lead his acclaimed “Yes, It’s Kosher!” supermarket walking tour on Sunday, March 31, in advance of Passover. Eidlitz last led the tour in Tucson in 2017. This year’s event will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at… Read more »
The Sculpture Garden at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will open its ninth annual exhibition of new work, featuring nine new artists, with a brunch event on Sunday, March 24, beginning at 10 a.m. with mimosas and time to wander the garden. Artists will be on hand to discuss… Read more »
Rabbi Hazzan Avraham Alpert Do you get frustrated from reading the news? If you are like me, you find it difficult to restrain yourself from posting and reposting on social media in response to the stories that upset you. It’s good, though, to have other ways to answer the irritations that come with… Read more »
Students in Melissa Landau’s third-grade class at Tucson Hebrew Academy won a SARSEF first place Grand Award for their project at the Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation fair on March 7 in the animal and plant sciences category. The project, “Germination Station,” allowed students to use the… Read more »
Paul Patterson The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has hired Paul Patterson as a community security consultant. His office is located at the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, but he is available to synagogues and Jewish agencies and organizations throughout the community. Patterson, a 23-year veteran of law… Read more »
(L-R) PJ Library volunteers Jane Ash, Karen Katz, and Lee Surwit; Rosalie Eisen, PJ Library national senior program officer; Mary Ellen Loebl, Tucson PJ Library coordinator; and Deborah Oseran, incoming Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona board chair, at the Federation Feb. 19 (Debe Campbell)
In Southern Arizona, nearly 900 families with children from 6 months to 11 years old receive free books monthly from PJ Library and PJ Our Way programs. And 98 percent of those parents say PJ Library has been a valuable parenting tool. “This is the largest cohort of young… Read more »
The late Pearl Kitay and her foster cat, Ringo (Courtesy Hearts That Purr Sanctuary)
Ringo the cat spent the past two glorious years with his foster “mom,” Pearl Kitay. Kitay was a dog person and Ringo was her first cat. But it didn’t take long for them to adjust to one another. In fact, they became best friends and housemates. “My routine is… Read more »
