Meijer and Tedje van der Sluis during filming in Amsterdam of a 2018 documentary film about their marriage. (Merlijn Doomernik)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — More than 70 years have passed since Meijer van der Sluis first laid eyes on the love of his life. He was at a home for child survivors of the Holocaust, and he opened the door for her. He still remembers her short haircut and exactly… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Tel Aviv has been decked out in rainbow flags for weeks. Suddenly, it seems, every restaurant, coffee shop and store is super “gay friendly.” The city’s Pride Parade is traditionally held on the second Friday of June. Fifteen years ago, estimates were that 9,000 people… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York, as the son of an African-American mother who converted to Judaism and a white Ashkenazi father who became religious later in life, Isaiah Rothstein knows what it’s like not to fit in. The New York hamlet… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Halie Soifer says her transition from national security expert to political operative started with a crisis of violence: the deadly neo-Nazi march last summer in Charlottesville, Virginia. Soifer says the march, which culminated in a car-ramming attack on counterprotesters that killed one and injured at least 20,… Read more »
Officers taking a group of Central American asylum seekers into custody near McAllen, Texas, June 12, 2018. (John Moore/Getty Images)
By Ben Sales NEW YORK (JTA) — The Orthodox Union released a statement criticizing the Trump administration’s policy of separating the families of illegal immigrants after they cross the U.S. border. The statement came one day after the O.U., an umbrella Orthodox group, hosted a speech by Attorney General… Read more »
Anthony Bourdain at the Whitby Hotel in New York, July 17, 2017.
Anthony Bourdain was quick — and often willing — to publicly offer his own flaws. “Until 44 years of age, I never had any kind of savings account,” Bourdain said in 2017. “ always owed money. I’d always been selfish and completely irresponsible.” Despite or maybe because of such… Read more »
Steven Meckler Tucson photographer STEVEN MECKLER will receive the American Advertising Federation Silver Medal Award at the Tucson Advertising Hall of Achievement event on Sept. 6 at Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort. The Silver Medal is a nationally recognized award that honors men and women who have made significant contributions… Read more »
Students at the Bais Medrash of the Foxman Torah Institute in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, study with Rabbi Shimon Max. (Foxman Torah Institute)
Two rabbis and 12 yeshiva students from New Jersey will join forces with Rabbi Israel and Esther Becker of Congregation Chofetz Chayim and the Southwest Torah Institute later this month for a multifaceted program called “The Connection.” The goal of the free, three-week program is “to help the Jewish… Read more »
Tucson Tikkun Community member Michael Rohrbach (left) and Billie Kozolchyk enjoy her husband Boris’ comments in his talk at a Tucson Tikkum Community meeting held May 28 at the Sonora Cohousing multipurpose room. (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)
There is hope for better international trade relations if leaders will adhere to basic ideas of fairness, good faith and honesty, says Boris Kozolchyk, S.J.D., a world-renowned expert on international banking and commercial law. He is the founder of the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, a nonprofit… Read more »
Volunteers at the Aphasia Center of Tucson practice a memory game with Director Fabi Hirsch (right).(Debe Campbell)
Former U.S. congressional representative and Tucson resident Gabrielle Giffords brought aphasia into the public eye during recovery from the 2011 mass shooting at her “Congress on Your Corner” event in northwest Tucson. Two million people in the United States have aphasia, a communication disorder, but 84.5 percent of Americans… Read more »
Factory owner Bruce Beyer (rear, in green) with newly hired refugees and other employees, June 1. (Debe Campbell)
“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well. No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” — Refugee poet Warsan Shire Each… Read more »
Lynda Rogoff, left, and Linda Tumarkin This is the final part of a series on the Jewish agency volunteers who received 2018 Special Recognition Awards at the Jewish Community Awards Celebration, held May 10. The Jewish History Museum recognized a pair of volunteers, Lynda Rogoff and Linda Tumarkin, for outstanding service, because they are such… Read more »
Uri Shani at May 21 University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center lecture on "The Red-Dead Conduit — A Regional Approach to Water Scarcity.”
As part of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center’s ongoing efforts to compare water management experiences of Israel and Arizona, the WRRC has scheduled two lectures this spring and summer. On May 21, Uri Shani, Ph.D., a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presented “The Red-Dead… Read more »
The group made its first visit and shehecheyanu (blessing for new experiences) at the Kotel on Wednesday, May 9, and returned to the Western Wall for a pre-sunset Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday, May 11. (Courtesy Tucson Hebrew Academy)
Tucson Hebrew Academy eighth graders enjoyed the annual graduation trip to Israel, May 6-17. Highlights included an archeological dig at Beit Guvrin and Bar Kochva Caves, and a Bedouin experience with a drum circle and desert tent sleepover in Kfar HaNokdim, along with the requisite camel ride. Unique on… Read more »
President Donald Trump holds a news conference ahead of his early departure from the G7 Summit in La Malbaie, Canada, June 9, 2018. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli and American Jews disagree on much — settlements, religious pluralism, even the degree to which they are “family.” And now you can add Donald Trump to the mix. Twin polls of Israeli and American Jews published by the American Jewish Committee on Sunday uncovered divides… Read more »
Flaming kites sent from Gaza have caused thousands of shekels of damage on Israel's western border. (Sam Sokol)
NAHAL OZ, Israel (JTA) — Dani Ben David fiddles with his radio, switching between it and his cellphone as he drives through the Beeri Forest, a nature reserve located on the border of Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. As his Jeep jolts over the dirt road, he quickly… Read more »
A picture of Susanna Maria Feldman is placed among flowers at a makeshift memorial in Wiesbaden where the 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered by an Iraqi asylum seeker, June 8, 2018. (Boris Roessler/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — In Germany, the case of a young Muslim refugee charged with the rape and murder of a teenage girl has captured media attention and rocked Germany’s Jewish community: The victim, 14-year-old Susanna Feldmann, was Jewish. Missing since May 22, the girl’s body was found June 6 buried… Read more »
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at their historic summit in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (Kevin Lim/The Strait Times/Handout/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Amos Yadlin likes talking about the Begin doctrine, which calls for removing existential threats to Israel before they are manifest — maybe because he lived it twice. As an Israeli Air Force pilot, Yadlin flew one of the planes that took out Iraq’s nuclear reactor… Read more »
Lionel Messi, left, and Gonzalo Higuain of Argentina play against the United States during the 2016 Copa America Centenario in Houston, June 21, 2016. (Bob Levey/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Israelis want nothing more than for their country to be considered normal. That may have to wait. A much-anticipated soccer game between the Argentine and Israeli national teams was cancelled Wednesday because, Israeli and Argentine officials say, of physical threats made to the Argentine players — including… Read more »
Patrons at the Synagoga Cafe in Trnava, Slovakia, Sept. 13, 2017. (Wikimedia Commons)
TRNAVA, Slovakia (JTA) — Growing up, Robert Sajtlava remembers playing near what used to be his native city’s Orthodox Synagogue. A rectangular structure with a deceptively unimpressive facade, its ornate ceiling and interior walls suffered extensive damage from the precipitation leaking through the roof and, occasionally, by trespassers who… Read more »
