News

(JTA) — Just days before Israel was to hold national elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to annex parts of the West Bank as Israeli territory. “I’m going to extend sovereignty,” he said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 on Saturday night, adding that “I don’t differentiate between the… Read more »

(JTA) — The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalist groups in America. The hearing scheduled for Tuesday also will look at how social media can rein in white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online. “Social media platforms have served… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The final polls before Israel’s national election on Tuesday show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party running either neck and neck or up to five seats behind upstart challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party. The last polls allowed by law were published Friday. Exit polling… Read more »

If you were asked to name the “top 5” Jewish values, what would you say? Tikkun olam? Education? Tzedakah?  Community? What if you were Christian?  What would your “top 5” be? Are Jewish and Christian values essentially the same, or are they different? Rabbi Helen Cohn of Congregation M’kor… Read more »

As if completing a 320-mile race in three days isn’t enough, doing it in 36 hours is an enormous challenge. Included in that are a 6.2-mile swim through chilly mountain waters and cycling 171 miles across a desert at the lowest point on earth, not to mention running a… Read more »

Tracing Roots 2.0 paired Tucson’s Jewish teens with residents of Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging to build meaningful relationships. The program encourages participants to learn together, share their stories, trace their ancestry and bring memories to life through technology and personal interaction. Tucson Hebrew High students met regularly… Read more »

Arizona Repertory Singers will present a concert at Temple Emanu-El on Sunday, April 28, “Psalms of David and Songs of Solomon.” “The Arizona Repertory Singers are one of this city’s choral treasures,” says Robert Lopez-Hanshaw, music director at Temple Emanu-El. “They always bring a beautiful, rich sound to the… Read more »

As a mother of three active boys, bestselling author Judith Viorst never had the luxury of waiting for the muse to strike. “I just put my tushy on the chair and wrote” when the kids were napping or at preschool, she told the AJP recently. “If every once in… Read more »

For some local Jewish seniors and the disabled, transportation can’t be taken for granted. Without a vehicle, a driver’s license, friends or family to take them places, or the ability to afford a ride service, life can be confining. Isolation can lead to depression and affect general well-being. When… Read more »

Immigration 2019 is the focus for the annual local leaders forum, presented by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, and the Jewish History Museum. The event will be held Friday, April 12, at the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, 3718… Read more »

Amy Lederman, left, and Ariel Vegosen

More than 60 people gathered at the Jewish History Museum on Sunday, March 17 for “Gender Speak: Understanding the Trans and Gender-Evolving World.” Amy Hirshberg Lederman, a Tucson educator, writer and attorney, and Ariel Vegosen, a California-based gender inclusivity trainer, led the workshop, which looked at gender from a… Read more »

I believe in the Jewish people’s right to live in our homeland. That profound belief has no bearing on the rights of others to live here as well. There are Palestinians who live and work in the land of Israel, and while I may seldom agree with the positions… Read more »

Donald R. Diamond

The Tucson Jewish community mourns the loss of local philanthropist, businessman, and real estate developer Donald R. Diamond, who died March 25 at the age of 91. His daughter Rabbi Jennifer Diamond and Cantor Janece E. Cohen conducted funeral services March 27 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Rabbi… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish man was in the right place at the right time when an elderly man attempted to jump off a New York bridge. Tuli Abraham, 30, told the Gifter in Gotham news website that he and his wife were driving over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects the boroughs… Read more »

(JTA) — President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil said that Nazism was a leftist movement following his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The far-right leader was asked on Tuesday during his visit to Israel if he agreed with a recent claim by his foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo,… Read more »

(JTA) — Uber dropped a driver in London who allegedly said he would not take Jews. Two men who were wearing kippahs said the driver, identified as “Ahmed,” refused to pick them up after they were matched with him on the Uber app, the Jewish Chronicle reported. The driver… Read more »

(JTA) — Police have a suspect in a spree of anti-Semitic and racist graffiti in Oklahoma City and the neighboring city of Norman. A woman was caught on surveillance video painting white supremacist, racist and anti-Semitic graffiti on the Oklahoma Democratic Party headquarters in Oklahoma City. She is the… Read more »

(JTA) — French police say a man suspected of planning a thwarted attack on a nursery school was inspired by Islamist radical Mohammed Merah, who killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012. The man arrested last week in the Seine-et-Marne region near… Read more »

A Chabad center being built in Flagstaff was broken into and vandalized sometime between late afternoon on Friday, March 22 and 7 a.m. on Monday, March 25. Crude swastikas were drawn in black paint on the windows and carved into the walls of the Molly Blank Jewish Community Center, which… Read more »

(JTA) — As the United Kingdom’s political establishment continues its tailspin over Brexit, little can be said with certainty about either’s future. All bets are off as Prime Minister Theresa May, whose own survivability in office seems increasingly doubtful, continues a desperate balancing act meant to satisfy her own coalition’s many… Read more »