Michael Peel Grab your Golden Coupon and gear up to save and celebrate Tucson businesses during Independents Week. Promoted by Local First Arizona, Tucson’s version of this national event will take place July 1-9. It runs through Independence Day to capture the spirit of freedom that local businesses bring to their… Read more »
(L-R) Eliana Siegel, Ellah Ben-Asher, Elana Goldberg, Sigal Devorah (Tucson Hebrew Academy teacher), Breanna Yalen, Lily Isaac, Shira Dubin, Eliana Tolby, Dani Lee, Ava Leipsic and April Glesinger (THA parent) at the Western Wall. (Courtesy Breanna Yalen)
Seeing, hearing, smelling, actually being in Israel is magical for Tucson teens who spent years studying about the Jewish state at Tucson Hebrew Academy. It is a powerful experience for eighth-grade graduates to travel with classmates and teachers, building lifetime friendships and memories. Twenty-one students made the trip this… Read more »
La Contessa Boutique Thirty-two years ago, father–daughter team Bob Couchman and Kara Moeller opened La Contessa Boutique in Plaza Palomino, offering a wide selection of women’s casual and formal wear and accessories. The pair credit their longstanding success not… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center will present a book launch party and signing by local author Jillian Cantor for her new historical novel, “The Lost Letter,” on Tuesday, June 13 at 7 p.m. The event will include a question and answer period with the author. Inspired by World War… Read more »
JPride will sponsor a Celebration of Love, Family, and Community at the Jewish History Museum on Sunday, June 25, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. This is the group’s second annual event commemorating the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage on June 26, 2015. Weather permitting, the… Read more »
What did American newspapers report about Nazi persecution during the 1930s and ’40s? The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has launched the History Unfolded project to seek answers to that question. The project asks students, teachers and history buffs throughout the United States what was possible… Read more »
Members of the Sparks club, aa new group for youngsters with special needs, with residents of Handmaker. The kids and senior citizens played board games together on Sunday, June 4. (Allison Wexler)
Caring for a child or young adult with physical or mental challenges means negotiating a world geared primarily for a differently-abled majority. So where do you start in locating a therapist, a school for a child with learning disabilities, a supervised social environment, or simply a salon to give… Read more »
Devy Wolff served in the Israel Defense Forces after the Six-Day War. This photo is from December 1967. Devy Wolff served in the Israel Defense Forces after the Six-Day War. This photo is from December 1967.
Fifty years ago Israel won a war that no one expected it to win. The Six-Day War took place from June 5-10, 1967 when Israel fought against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and captured the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, Old City of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. For… Read more »
The border fence separating Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico (Michael Zaccaria)
Twenty-seven people joined the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona for a tour of Arizona’s border with Mexico on May 3. The day included a visit to the site of a Humane Borders water station in Arivaca, a speaker’s session at the Fresh Produce… Read more »
Margo Gray, a member of Hadassah Southern Arizona, wrote the following recollection of the Six-Day War period for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America: I was 18, had completed my first university semester and had just returned to Chicago. I am a first-generation American whose father had escaped… Read more »
B’nai B’rith Covenant House of Tucson is a low-income HUD housing community for seniors that provides safe, affordable housing for 120 older adults in mid-town. Early in the morning on Sunday, May 14, which was Mother’s Day, 40 residents living in building one were awoken to a blaring fire… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center will hold a weeklong day camp for adults, “Around the World,” June 12-16. The camp will explore the languages, cultures, and cuisines of Mexico, China, Italy, France and Israel, with each day devoted to a different country. Participants can register for the entire week… Read more »
The Mosaic Outdoor Club is planning a hike on Thumb Butte in Prescott during its Labor Day weekend ‘escape.’ (Courtesy Mosaic Outdoor Clubs of America)
The Mosaic Outdoor Clubs of America, the nation’s oldest and largest Jewish organization dedicated to fun and adventure in the outdoors, will hold its annual five-day international event in Prescott, Ariz., Aug. 31-Sept. 4. . The 27th annual Jewish Outdoor Escape, dubbed “r-AZ-ma-t’AZ: An Arizona Adventure,” will be based… Read more »
The Tucson March of the Living delegation marches from Auschwitz to Birkenau on April 24. [Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
It takes a special kind of courage to revisit your worst memories. When Holocaust survivor Pawel Lichter of Tucson accompanied a group of Jewish teens on the 29th annual March of the Living, April 19-May 3, he stepped back to 1939. In a basement on Warszawska Street, in his… Read more »
Alma Hernandez at her bat mitzvah party in the Holocaust History Center garden, April 8 (Courtesy Hernandez)
Alma Hernandez is passionate and strives every day to make a difference. People say her values and actions represent the core of Judaism, which is noteworthy because Hernandez didn’t grow up Jewish. At age 24, she has been active in the Jewish community for several years, even before she… Read more »
Immigration lawyer Alan Bennett speaks at the Tucson Jewish Community Center April 28. (Simon Rosenblatt)
The immigration crisis in Southern Arizona was the topic of a breakfast forum organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on Friday, April 28. Opening the meeting, which was held at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, JCRC Chair Richard White explained that… Read more »
(L-R): Linda Behr, Congregation Bet Shalom Cantor Avraham Alpert, Eileen Weizenbaum and Andrea Siemens, LMSW, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center April 23. Behr and Weizenbaum are Jewish Family & Children's Services Shalom in Every Home Healthy Family program board members. (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)
Avraham “Avi” Alpert’s spiritual journey has led him from Judaism to atheism to being an observant Jew. Now he wants to help other Jews find their own path to Jewish traditions, values and celebrations that bring families closer together. His April 23 talk at the Tucson Jewish Community Center,… Read more »
Sam Beskind of Catalina Foothills High School drives to the basket against Walden Grove High School, Jan. 12, 2017.
[Courtesy Beskind)
Three young Jewish athletes from Tucson will compete in the elite Maccabiah Games in Israel. Held every four years, the games are the world’s third-largest international sporting event, with more than 9,000 athletes from over 80 countries. Sam Beskind, Tamara Statman and Brett Miller will be part of Team… Read more »
Dr. Seneca Erman and Cantor Janece Cohen at Congregation Or Chadash in 2016 (Elliot Framan)
The Navajo cradleboard at Tucson’s Jewish History Museum held Cantor Janece Cohen when she was a baby. It continues to hold many stories for her and her father, Dr. Seneca Erman, 88, who gave a gallery chat at the museum on Feb. 3. Erman had done a two-month internship… Read more »
Handmaker resident Les Waldman, third from left, with the Gibly family: Haya, Yochanan, Zakai, Raquel, Nati and Ayelet, at the April 30 Tracing Roots and Building Trees reception at Handmaker. (Nanci Levy)
Tracing Roots and Building Trees, an intergenerational program that brings together residents of Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging with students from Tucson Hebrew High, wrapped up its second year with a reception at Handmaker on Sunday, April 30. Fifteen Handmaker residents and 13 teens participated in the program,… Read more »
