Rep. Eliot Engel The Desert Caucus launches its fifth decade of supporting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship with seven events in Tucson, featuring members of Congress from outside Arizona, planned for 2018-19. The opening fall brunch will feature Rep. Eliot Engel of New York. Founded under the leadership of Tucson businessman Jack Sarver… Read more »
Tucsonans Boaz Cohon (front left) and Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon at the Ride for the Living in Krakow, Poland, June 29 (Rabbi Samuel Cohon)
This summer my son Boaz and I traveled to Poland for the great pleasure and privilege of participating in the Ride for the Living, a 55-mile bicycle ride from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the Jewish Community Center of Krakow, Poland, from the scene of the greatest destruction of our people to… Read more »
Allen and Marianne Langer
Allen Langer keeps a photo on his desk of the ship that brought him and his parents from Germany to the United States in 1949, when he was 21 months old; his parents, survivors of the Holocaust, spent four years in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, waiting for… Read more »
Laetitia Eïdo, left, and Lior Raz in a scene from "Fauda." (Courtesy of Netflix)
(JTA) — Moshe Zonder noticed it quickly: “My students are completely serious. They are writing. They are doing the assignments. All of them. It’s great teaching here.” Zonder shouldn’t be that surprised. For an aspiring screenwriter, who better to study with than the man who wrote the entire first… Read more »
Yuval Fenta plays running back for the Tel Aviv Pioneers. (Hillel Kuttler)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Yuval Fenta saw two guys tossing a football on the beach in Herzliya. He asked to participate. “You’re too small,” they responded. A dejected Fenta retreated, but not before hearing them mention an American football league that played in Israel.… Read more »
Noam Vazana wrote her upcoming album “Andalusian Brew” in Ladino. (Asaf Lewkowitz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Wandering the ornate streets of the city of Fes in northern Morocco, Noam Vazana heard several men singing a tune so familiar that it made her stop in her tracks. Vazana, a successful 35-year-old Israeli musician living here, was visiting her ancestors’ country of birth for… Read more »
Russian meatballs, or tefteli, can be prepared in many ways and are a meal by themselves. (Sonya Sanford)
(The Nosher via JTA) – For the first five years of my life, we lived in the apartment next door to my grandparents. I may have only been a toddler, but I still have vivid memories of being in that home with its many house plants overflowing in their… Read more »
(Kveller via JTA) — Arielle Charnas, 31, is famous for being a stylish mom. She has more than 1 million followers on Instagram. And even though I’m not a mom, I’m one of them. Yes, I follow her because I like her style — her look is always put… Read more »
Demand for high-tech professionals in Israel currently outstrips supply by about 15,000 individuals, according to Start-Up Nation Central. Programs like CyberGirlz aim to address the shortfall by recruiting more women into the field. (Courtesy of CyberGirlz)
TEL AVIV — Tali Ben Aroya knows what it’s like to feel intimidated. As the founder of an Israeli social network startup, she recalls more than once being the only female in a room full of male business executives. “I remember myself asking where all the other women were,”… Read more »
Pablo Solarz, right, wrote and directed "The Last Suit." (Outsider Pictures)
(JTA) — When the Argentine-Jewish filmmaker Pablo Solarz was 5 or 6 years old, he asked his grandfather if he was Polish. On the phone recently, in heavily accented English, he described his grandfather’s reaction. “He gave me a very dead face,” Solarz recalled. “My father said that … Read more »
Sam’s storefront, circa 1968. (Courtesy of Jeffrey Cohen)
WHIPPANY, N.J. (New Jersey Jewish News via JTA) — When Clifford Kulwin celebrated his 13th anniversary as rabbi at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey, he knew he had to mention another local institution. “I understand there are some present who do not consider this a ‘real’ bar… Read more »
Photographers capture a ceremony at a Jewish cemetery in Frampol, Poland. (ESJF)
LUBLIN, Poland (JTA) — When German air force pilots took aerial photographs of western Ukraine in 1941, they did it to help Nazi Germany defeat the Soviet Union in a war that saw the genocide of 6 million Jews. But in a twist of fate, the German government has… Read more »
Tucson J revamps art gallery The Tucson Jewish Community Center revealed its renovated Fine Art Gallery on Sunday, Sept. 16 at the artists’ reception for “Simcha,” a group show featuring 13 members of the Tucson Jewish Artists. Approximately 100 people turned out for the exhibit. The gallery features a… Read more »
Norm Eisen, left, meets Vaclav Havel in Prague. (Forum 2000)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — If you love something but can’t possess it, you write about it. This, the secret axiom of many a besotted author, applies to the palatial embassy residence in Prague that seduced Norm Eisen. As U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, he lived in it for three… Read more »
J.K. Rowling at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) at Royal Albert Hall in London, Feb. 12, 2017. (John Phillips/Getty Images)
(JTA) — For months author J.K. Rowling has been warning about the dangers of anti-Semitism in England, sparring on Twitter with critics who either downplay the phenomenon or say its proponents are confusing criticism of Israel with Jew hatred. Now, in her newest book, she includes a character whose… Read more »
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - SEPTEMBER 19: Rescuers work in the rubble after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck on September 19, 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico. The earthquake caused multiple fatalities, destroyed buildings and knocked out power throughout the capital. (Photo by Rafael S. Fabres/Getty Images)
MEXICO CITY (JTA) — This capital city has yet to recover from last September’s earthquake, which killed over 300 people and left many more homeless. In the trendy Condesa neighborhood, once a predominantly Jewish area here, many buildings have been demolished and others are in a state of abandonment and… Read more »
Pastor Piet van Veldhuizen has lunch inside his congregation's sukkah in the Netherlands, Sept. 18, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
HENDRIK-IDO-AMBACHT, Netherlands (JTA) — From its exterior, the massive building known as The Ark in this Dutch town looks like a typical Reform synagogue. On the Hebrew month of Tishrei, the ancient olive tree that dominates the yard of this large worship space is dwarfed by a reed sukkah,… Read more »
David Maxa delivers a sermon during Shabbat services at Prague's Spanish Synagogue during the European Union of Progressive Judaism's biennial, April 2018. (Courtesy of Maxa)
PRAGUE (JTA) — A new Torah scroll is being used in this historic city by one of its two Reform Jewish congregations to welcome the High Holidays and the series of solemn and joyous celebrations that conclude with, what else, Simchat Torah — the rejoicing of the Torah. But it’s… Read more »
Etrogim can come with a hefty price tag, such as this one that retailed for $345 in Brooklyn. (David Moster)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The holiday of Sukkot isn’t is complete without a lulav and an etrog, the four species that Jews are commanded to wave on the harvest holiday. But according to a new book, it wasn’t until the Second Temple period that Jews started using the lemon-like… Read more »
Ari Fuld, shown at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, worked at a nonprofit that provides food and supplies to Israeli soldiers. (Facebook)
(JTA) — When Ari Fuld first approached him, Josh Weixelbaum was a 20-year-old soldier visiting friends in the West Bank settlement of Efrat. Fuld had heard Weixelbaum speaking English, so he introduced himself and asked Weixelbaum about his time in the army. Fuld soon learned that Weixelbaum, an American… Read more »
