News

The World Economic Forum calls Israel a “tech titan.” Israeli tech companies raised $4.8 billion in venture capital last year. Things many of us use daily — the Intel PC processor, the USB flash drive and Google’s Suggestion function — all were invented in Israel. The Arizona Israel Technology… Read more »

The Israel Center has surpassed all our expectations, in terms of creating a connection between Tucsonans and Israel,” says Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona President and CEO Stuart Mellan. The Israel Center began as a way to bring the cultural richness of Israel to Arizona and engage the local… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Meeting last month with Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came away satisfied that he and the American president were in agreement on a wide range of issues, including Syria, where Israel wants to limit Iranian influence as the Syrian civil war wraps up. “We don’t have… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s been a busy, confounding week for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the question of the African migrants. On Monday afternoon, after months of threats to deport the lot of them, Netanyahu said he reached an agreement with the United Nations that would have resettled half… Read more »

 (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is freezing an agreement made with the United Nations that would have relocated thousands of African asylum seekers to Western countries. His decision leaves in limbo the fate of up to 40,000 African asylum seekers in Israel; an Israeli government plan to deport them… Read more »

(JTA) — With Passover here, leaders of the Conservative movement are engaged in their own exodus. The CEOs of the movement’s rabbinic and congregational umbrella groups are both stepping down. Next month, for the first time in years, there will be a contested election for one of the top… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When the smoke from the rifles of Israeli sharpshooters and the firebombs thrown by Gaza Palestinians cleared in the wake of the Palestinian March of Return, there were at least 15 Palestinians dead and hundreds of protesters injured. Israel, meanwhile, had a huge PR mess. Israeli… Read more »

(JTA) — One year after Israel’s establishment, in the dead of night, three students ascended a tower at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and raised the Israeli flag. The next morning, the Conservative rabbinical school’s administration took it down. That act of surreptitious Zionist protest was one… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) – French Jews mourning a Holocaust survivor murdered in her Paris apartment welcomed the presence of France’s interior minister, Gérard Collomb, at a vigil in her memory. “We appreciate authorities’ swift action for justice and continued support,” Joel Mergui, the president of the Consistoire Jewish group, said… Read more »

(JTA) — Last April, Traore Kobili threw his Jewish neighbor to her death from her third-story home in Paris while calling her a demon and shouting about Allah. French authorities waited 170 days before they declared the killing of Sarah Halimi an anti-Semitic hate crime — and that was… Read more »

Jack Wertheimer (Courtesy of Wertheimer)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Large donors and foundations are responsible for an increasing share of American Jewish giving, and are exercising greater influence on Jewish communal priorities than they were in previous generations, according to a new study. The mega-donor trend was quantified in the study of American Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli doctors performed surgeries to fix severe spinal deformities as part of a weeklong medical mission to Ethiopia. Eight doctors, two nurses and one physical therapist from the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem traveled on the mission last week to the city of Mekelle, in the African… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — An omnibus spending bill approved by Congress more than doubles spending for security grants that have been overwhelmingly tapped by Jewish institutions. The $1.3 trillion bill approved Thursday includes $60 million for the security grants, up from $25 million last year. More than 90 percent of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The organizers of the March for Our Lives, almost all of them under 20, had a gun control agenda packed with specifics. They were able to get 800,000 people on and off of this city’s Pennsylvania Avenue in three hours. They attracted A-list celebrities. They turned… Read more »

The Café at the J will be open Monday, April 2 through Thursday, April 5, during the chol hamoed (intermediate days) of Passover, with a special menu of kosher-for-Passover meals. This the first time the café at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will be open during Passover. The café… Read more »

Deborah Lipstadt, Ph.D.

Eminent Holocaust historian, scholar and author Deborah Lipstadt, Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker at Jewish Family & Children’s Services 9th annual Celebration of Caring, Sunday, April 8. Lipstadt gained international recognition for defending the historical truth of the Holocaust in a precedent-setting lawsuit, tried in a British court.… Read more »

Rina Liebeskind

A decade as the director of education at Congregation Or Chadash has flown by for Rina Liebeskind. The congregation will honor her for her years of dedicated service with a “Flying Chai” tribute festival at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on April 15. “As the oldest of six children,… Read more »

An annual Holocaust Days of Remembrance Observance, hosted by the U.S. Army at Fort Huachuca, will be held Monday, April 9 at 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Gil Ribak, Ph.D., assistant professor of Judaic studies at University of Arizona, will give the keynote address. He will speak about the… Read more »

At Tucson’s Israel @ 70 Festival next month, Tucsonans can try out a pair of smart glasses created by an Israeli company that enable blind or visually impaired people to read written words and recognize objects and faces. “Basically they point with their figure to a street sign or… Read more »

Alan Veingrad speaks at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Men’s Night Out event at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, March 6.

The journey from Pop Warner to the National Football League is a dream for many youngsters. It seemed an impossible dream for a lanky Jewish boy from Brooklyn in the ’70s. Alan Veingrad shared how mentors helped him make that dream come true — and how “community” ultimately intercepted… Read more »