Local

The Café at the J will be open Monday, April 2 through Thursday, April 5, during the chol hamoed (intermediate days) of Passover, with a special menu of kosher-for-Passover meals. This the first time the café at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will be open during Passover. The café… Read more »

Deborah Lipstadt, Ph.D.

Eminent Holocaust historian, scholar and author Deborah Lipstadt, Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker at Jewish Family & Children’s Services 9th annual Celebration of Caring, Sunday, April 8. Lipstadt gained international recognition for defending the historical truth of the Holocaust in a precedent-setting lawsuit, tried in a British court.… Read more »

Rina Liebeskind

A decade as the director of education at Congregation Or Chadash has flown by for Rina Liebeskind. The congregation will honor her for her years of dedicated service with a “Flying Chai” tribute festival at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 15. “As the oldest of six children,… Read more »

An annual Holocaust Days of Remembrance Observance, hosted by the U.S. Army at Fort Huachuca, will be held Monday, April 9 at 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Gil Ribak, Ph.D., assistant professor of Judaic studies at University of Arizona, will give the keynote address. He will speak about the… Read more »

At Tucson’s Israel @ 70 Festival next month, Tucsonans can try out a pair of smart glasses created by an Israeli company that enable blind or visually impaired people to read written words and recognize objects and faces. “Basically they point with their figure to a street sign or… Read more »

Alan Veingrad speaks at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Men’s Night Out event at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, March 6.

The journey from Pop Warner to the National Football League is a dream for many youngsters. It seemed an impossible dream for a lanky Jewish boy from Brooklyn in the ’70s. Alan Veingrad shared how mentors helped him make that dream come true — and how “community” ultimately intercepted… Read more »

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson of Arizona State University will present “The Imperative to Heal: Judaism, Ethics & Biotechnology,” the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’ 2018 Rabbi Marcus Breger Memorial Lecture, on Tuesday, March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Today, diverse biomedical procedures constitute what we call… Read more »

A self-portrait by photographer Leo Goldschmidt

On Friday, March 16, the Jewish History Museum opened a new, original, temporary exhibition, “Subtle Apertures: Leo Goldschmidt’s Early Photographic Record of the Sonoran Borderlands.” Images and information for the exhibition are drawn from the collections of the Jewish History Museum and the Bloom Jewish Southwest Archives at the… Read more »

Tucson Organic Gardeners, a nonprofit organization, will present “Growing Mushrooms” at its free monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 20 at 7 p.m. at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third Street, in the Geneva Room. The doors will open at 7 p.m. to allow participants to browse free literature… Read more »

Tucson students can design the garden of their dreams as participants in the Pima County Master Gardeners Student Art Contest.  Master Gardeners are university-trained volunteers who serve as community educators, working with the UA Cooperative Extension. The contest is open to Pima Country residents, ages 5-18, in four categories:… Read more »

Rabbi Elijah Schochet (left) and Rabbi Avraham Alpert at Alpert’s ordination, May 29, 2017.

Rabbi Elijah Schochet will return to Congregation Bet Shalom as scholar-in-residence March 16-17, with a trio of topics exploring thorny issues in Jewish history and ethics. He will start the weekend with “The Jewish Civil War” at the 5:30 p.m. Shabbat service on March 16, exploring the schism between… Read more »

More than two decades have passed since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, yet he remains an intriguing and admired modern leader. Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Itamar Rabinovich will speak about his recent biography of Rabin in an upcoming lecture in Tucson, Tuesday, March 13.… Read more »

As a former French teacher with an enduring passion for the French language and culture and a devout cardiac Jew (Jewish in my heart), I had to attend Monsieur Léon Malmed’s talk Feb. 19 on his survival during the Holocaust in Compiègne, France. The 80-year-old was silent regarding his… Read more »

Jennifer Selco

On the day of the first seder, the smell of onions from my childhood home was noticeable from halfway down the block. Inside, you could hear the songs of Cindy Paley’s “Singing Seder” cassette, the pounding of walnuts, and laughter from a funny story just shared. My parents, grandparents,… Read more »

Experts in the garden and the kitchen are presenting programs at the Tucson Jewish Community Center this spring that celebrate the season’s bounty. Michael Ismail, the owner of Thrive and Grow Gardens, leads weekly gardening classes, now through June, on Fridays, which start indoors and move outside to the… Read more »

Volume 2 of “To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona” will be among hundreds of  books represented at this weekend’s Tucson Festival of Books,  March 10-11 at the University of Arizona. The newly-released book chronicles 45 local Holocaust survivors’ stories. It is the second book in a… Read more »

Cuddle a cockroach, go nose to nose with a skunk, or fly a drone. It’s kids’ choice at Tucson Hebrew Academy’s 4th Annual STEM Festival, Sunday, March 18. STEM encompasses science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The free, family fun fair will offer 50 different exhibits with hands-on activities or… Read more »

Riverfront Park in Oro Valley was chosen as the only location in Arizona for “The Wall That Heals” exhibition, featuring a replica of the national capital’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest Division is among sponsors of the exhibit, hosted March 15-18 by the Town… Read more »

Never again have wilted parsley for karpas (greens) on your seder plate. Instead, grow your own with free seeds, “borrowed” from one of several Pima County Library branches. This Seed Library was among the nation’s first circulating seed concepts, opened in 2012. Now, libraries across the country have adopted… Read more »

The International Rescue Committee in Tucson, in partnership with the Tucson Jewish Community Center, will present a “Walk a Mile in a Refugee’s Shoes” simulation event on Sunday, March 18, in the Tucson J’s Sculpture Garden. Registration starts at 9:30 a.m. and the event will run from 10 a.m.… Read more »