News

(JTA) — Donald Trump is just the man to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal done. Just ask Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister was gushing last week about Trump’s negotiating team, which is led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “The thing the people don’t realize is that these people… Read more »

(JTA) — “Nothing matters.” You hear that a lot these days. You hear it when The Wall Street Journal reports that the president’s personal lawyer paid a porn actress $130,000, at the height of the presidential campaign, so she would stay silent about an alleged affair she’d had with Donald Trump. Or… Read more »

(JTA) — Though the Jewish community in South Korea is small, Jews visiting the country to compete in or watch the Winter Olympic Games won’t have to skimp on kosher food or Shabbat programming. The country’s Chabad emissary is setting up a pop-up restaurant in Pyeongchang County, the site of… Read more »

  (JTA) — Avraham Yago, a married father of five who works as a linguistics professor at the University of Abidjan in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire, has visited Israel four times to learn about Judaism and practice his Hebrew. Yago, 64, grew up without any religious affiliation.… Read more »

(JTA) — The Polish parliament’s bill to criminalize the use of the term “Polish death camps” prompted an avalanche of criticism in Israel by officials and individuals who warned that it is excessive and risks stifling research on the Holocaust. Following the bill’s passing Friday in the Sejm, or the lower… Read more »

  TIRANA, Albania (JTA) — Most anywhere else in Nazi-occupied Europe, an encounter with police would have likely sealed the fate of Jewish refugees like Nissim and Sarah Aladjem and their 10-year-old son, Aron. Instead, when the family was detained by police in the Muslim nation of Albania 75… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — During a combative news conference in early August, White House adviser Stephen Miller told reporters that the United States should prioritize immigrants who speak English. “Does the applicant speak English?” Miller asked, describing a bill to reduce the overall number of immigrants and reform immigration… Read more »

Rabbi David Saperstein

Named America’s most influential rabbi by Newsweek in 2009, Ambassador Rabbi David Saperstein will be the scholar-in residence for Temple Emanu-El’s annual Rabbi Albert T. Bilgray Memorial Lecture Series, Feb. 8-10. Speaking on “Freedom and Justice in the World Today,” Saperstein will draw upon a career of service to… Read more »

When Mike Pence moved to Washington earlier this year, he and his wife took with them a framed phrase they had for years hung over their fireplace in their Indiana home, and then over the fireplace in the governor’s mansion in that state. Now it hangs over the mantle… Read more »

The best defense against today’s era of “fake news” is to counter misinformation with accurate information. That’s the remedy offered by two speakers at the recent Brandeis University on Wheels lecture hosted by the Tucson Chapter of Brandeis National Committee and the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Brandeis University professors… Read more »

Congregation Or Chadash’s fourth annual Tournament and Casino Night will be held Saturday, Feb. 10 at the historic Scottish Rite Cathedral. Along with a Texas Hold-Em tournament and other casino games, the evening will feature a buffet dinner, cash bar, DJ, dancing, and prizes. For a $100 registration fee,… Read more »

Hava Tequila and the Chocolate Factory” is the theme for the 7th annual Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Young Leadership party on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 8 to 11 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Cathedral, 160 S. Scott Ave. The golden ticket-themed event, for ages 21 and over, includes… Read more »

Shai Feldman of Brandeis University will present “A Year into the Trump Presidency: The U.S. & the Middle East” on Monday, Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson J. The free talk is part of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies Shaol & Louis Pozez Memorial Lectureship Series.… Read more »

Those entering Tucson’s Holocaust History Center or the Tucson Jewish Community Center will notice a black and white film portraying life in turn of the 20th century Eastern Europe. In fact, it depicts life in the small western Lithuanian town today known as Jurbarkas. The majority of the population… Read more »

The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona has received a new commitment of $1.5 million from Bettina B. and Kenneth A. Plevan, which will be combined with a previous gift of $500,000 to endow a chair in memory of their son Jeffrey B. Plevan. Plevan,… Read more »

Lorenzo Romar.

The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will host its annual alumni and friends basketball event on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 5:15 p.m. The pre-game dinner will feature Lorenzo Romar, UA associate head basketball coach under Coach Sean Miller, who will brief attendees on this year’s Wildcat team. A silent… Read more »

The art gallery at Beth Shalom Temple Center is presenting an exhibit by award-winning Tucson artist Lynn Rae Lowe, “Ancient and Contemporary Symbolism of the Hebrew Alphabet,” through March 4. Lowe uses a variety of materials, two- and three-dimensional methods and the techniques of 20th century master artists to… Read more »

A passion for history that began with her father’s stories of his childhood in pre-war Poland has led Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett to play a large part in piecing together the scattered, thousand-year history of the Polish Jews. Now she is bringing this history to Tucson. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, chief curator of the core… Read more »

THA students earn spot in state math competition Tucson Hebrew Academy sixth grade students participated in a MathLeague.org competition held at University High School on Tuesday, Nov. 29 and won big. The team won second place school, and one student won third place overall. The students will go on… Read more »

(JTA) — If one thing jumps out about the nominations for the 90th annual Academy Awards, it’s the lack of big Jewish headlines to be plucked from them. “The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro’s latest fantasy-tinted film, about an amphibian creature housed in a government laboratory, led the… Read more »