News

The Multi-faith Pride Inclusion Project and the Colby Olsen Foundation will present the 10th Annual Multi-faith Pride Service, “Our Brighter Future,” on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. at Rincon Community Church, 122 N. Craycroft Road. Guest speakers will include Kelly Fryer, gubernatorial candidate in the Democratic primary and… Read more »

(JTA) — The wall separating Bethlehem from Israel-controlled territory is silent and noisy at once, like the breakdown in conversation between Israelis and Palestinians that helped kill the Oslo peace accords. It was only this year — in June, almost 25 years since the launch of the accords that… Read more »

(JTA) — Moshe Aryeh Friedman may be mild-mannered, but the Antwerp rabbi certainly has a knack for publicity. An anti-Zionist activist from New York, Friedman, 47, has been accused — falsely, he has said — of denying the Holocaust during a 2006 conference organized by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Read more »

(JTA) — On Sept. 13, 1993, exactly 25 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat were captured shaking hands in a historic ceremony in Washington, D.C., hosted by President Bill Clinton. The leaders agreed to set up a framework, now known as Oslo Accord… Read more »

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — This summer, America’s Jewish youth rebelled. Or at least a very small minority of them did. But through orchestrated stunts and aggressive marketing, they garnered the headlines they sought. These youth are demanding that Israel end its “occupation,” presumably of the West Bank. They are… Read more »

(JTA) — Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels didn’t mince words when he criticized Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and a former congregant of his Southern California synagogue, in his Rosh Hashanah sermon. “Honestly, Mr. Miller, you’ve set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, appearing at a Jewish day school in Brooklyn, spoke about her Jewish background and how her family jumped from synagogue to synagogue. “I had a very strange Jewish upbringing actually,” Kagan, 58, told journalist Dahlia Lithwick, who moderated the Wednesday… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s hard to follow the news these last weeks without running into a reference to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides for the removal from office of a president unfit to serve. Questions about Donald Trump’s capacity to govern arise in “Fear,” Bob… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — It has become conventional wisdom in certain circles that the Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which was signed 25 years ago Sept. 13 on the White House lawn, was simply a failure. There is no doubt that the great hopes of Israeli-Palestinian peace and… Read more »

Sarah Shulkind, Ph.D., head of the Alice and Nahum Lainer School in Los Angeles, will be the guest speaker at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy Annual Welcome next month. Entitled “Many Voices Impacting as One,” the event will celebrate 10 years of the Mitzvah Magic program… Read more »

Jeffrey H. Jacobson, a Tucson attorney, became the 74th supreme master at Alpha Epsilon Pi’s 105th International Convention in Phoenix in August. “AEPi has been everything to me. From my Jewish identity to friendships and relationships to my leadership skills and my desire to give back to the community.… Read more »

Cody Blumenthal and Gabe Green were among 2,600 athletes at the largest annual JCC Maccabi Games this summer, representing the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Blumenthal participated in 16 and under basketball while Green vied in 14 and under soccer at the Aug. 5-10 games in Orange County, California. Josh… Read more »

Hadassah Southern Arizona is hosting a luncheon fashion show called “Walkin’ and Rollin’ Down the Runway” next month. It will be held on Sunday, Oct. 21 at 11:15 a.m. at the Country Club of La Cholla, 8700 N. La Cholla Blvd. Committee member Anne Lowe says the fashion show… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum and the Consulado de México en Tucson will host the fourth annual Stone Avenue Block Party, featuring live music, food trucks and local beers, on Saturday, Sept. 22. The Mexican consulate was located on Stone Avenue, across from the museum building, for more than 70… Read more »

The Trump administration ordered the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington D.C. “We have permitted the PLO office to conduct operations that support the objective of achieving a lasting, comprehensive peace between Israelis and the Palestinians since the expiration of a previous waiver in November 2017,”… Read more »

ERIE, Pa. (JTA) — There was some debate about putting the old synagogue up for sale and moving to a new, smaller building, but not much. In 2012, a major pipe burst at Temple Anshe Hesed, and the cost of repairing the nearly century-old building convinced the small but… Read more »

By Josefin Dolsten NEW YORK (JTA) — Tourists and locals wandering around Flatiron Plaza in downtown Manhattan were met with an unusual sight: a 20-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty standing in a steel cage filled with empty plastic bottles and metal cans. On the other side of… Read more »

WARSAW (JTA) — In the small park behind the only synagogue in this city to have survived World War II, Yoram Sztykgold looks around with a perplexed expression. An 82-year-old retired architect, Sztykgold immigrated to Israel after surviving the Holocaust in Poland. He tries in vain to recognize something… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In 1993, filmmaker Ariel Vromen was part of an Israeli air force rescue unit sent in to Lebanon to evacuate both Jewish and Arab soldiers wounded during a battle. During the fighting, two of Vromen’s closest friends died in front of his eyes. For several months… Read more »

(JTA) — For years, American Jewish groups have agitated for more religious pluralism in Israel. And year after year, the Israeli government has acted as if the country’s demographic and political realities make any kind of substantial reform impossible. The latest version of an annual survey disputes that claim:… Read more »