News

(JTA) — When Boruch Gorin, a well-known rabbi in Moscow, traveled for the first time from Russia to the United States, a U.S. Customs officer asked him whether he was Russian. “I said, ‘No, I’m not Russian — I’m Jewish,’” Gorin recalled Monday, 27 years after the exchange at… Read more »

(JTA) — Throughout his senior year in high school, Ryan Deitsch has stayed busy. A month ago, the 18-year-old filled his time outside of classes performing in an doing improvisational theater group he started at his school, producing TV content for the school’s newsroom and working as a busboy… Read more »

Tucson Organic Gardeners, a nonprofit organization, will present “Growing Mushrooms” at its free monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 20 at 7 p.m. at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third Street, in the Geneva Room. The doors will open at 7 p.m. to allow participants to browse free literature… Read more »

Tucson students can design the garden of their dreams as participants in the Pima County Master Gardeners Student Art Contest.  Master Gardeners are university-trained volunteers who serve as community educators, working with the UA Cooperative Extension. The contest is open to Pima Country residents, ages 5-18, in four categories:… Read more »

Rabbi Elijah Schochet (left) and Rabbi Avraham Alpert at Alpert’s ordination, May 29, 2017.

Rabbi Elijah Schochet will return to Congregation Bet Shalom as scholar-in-residence March 16-17, with a trio of topics exploring thorny issues in Jewish history and ethics. He will start the weekend with “The Jewish Civil War” at the 5:30 p.m. Shabbat service on March 16, exploring the schism between… Read more »

More than two decades have passed since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, yet he remains an intriguing and admired modern leader. Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Itamar Rabinovich will speak about his recent biography of Rabin in an upcoming lecture in Tucson, Tuesday, March 13.… Read more »

The annual Matza & More program has served thousands of households in Tucson. The project ensures that needy Jewish individuals and families in the community have the necessities to celebrate Passover with joy and dignity. For more than 40 years, Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona has… Read more »

As a former French teacher with an enduring passion for the French language and culture and a devout cardiac Jew (Jewish in my heart), I had to attend Monsieur Léon Malmed’s talk Feb. 19 on his survival during the Holocaust in Compiègne, France. The 80-year-old was silent regarding his… Read more »

Jennifer Selco

On the day of the first seder, the smell of onions from my childhood home was noticeable from halfway down the block. Inside, you could hear the songs of Cindy Paley’s “Singing Seder” cassette, the pounding of walnuts, and laughter from a funny story just shared. My parents, grandparents,… Read more »

Experts in the garden and the kitchen are presenting programs at the Tucson Jewish Community Center this spring that celebrate the season’s bounty. Michael Ismail, the owner of Thrive and Grow Gardens, leads weekly gardening classes, now through June, on Fridays, which start indoors and move outside to the… Read more »

Volume 2 of “To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona” will be among hundreds of  books represented at this weekend’s Tucson Festival of Books,  March 10-11 at the University of Arizona. The newly-released book chronicles 45 local Holocaust survivors’ stories. It is the second book in a… Read more »

Cuddle a cockroach, go nose to nose with a skunk, or fly a drone. It’s kids’ choice at Tucson Hebrew Academy’s 4th Annual STEM Festival, Sunday, March 18. STEM encompasses science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The free, family fun fair will offer 50 different exhibits with hands-on activities or… Read more »

Riverfront Park in Oro Valley was chosen as the only location in Arizona for “The Wall That Heals” exhibition, featuring a replica of the national capital’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest Division is among sponsors of the exhibit, hosted March 15-18 by the Town… Read more »

Never again have wilted parsley for karpas (greens) on your seder plate. Instead, grow your own with free seeds, “borrowed” from one of several Pima County Library branches. This Seed Library was among the nation’s first circulating seed concepts, opened in 2012. Now, libraries across the country have adopted… Read more »

The International Rescue Committee in Tucson, in partnership with the Tucson Jewish Community Center, will present a “Walk a Mile in a Refugee’s Shoes” simulation event on Sunday, March 18, in the Tucson J’s Sculpture Garden. Registration starts at 9:30 a.m. and the event will run from 10 a.m.… Read more »

Carlos Galindo-Elvira

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Arizona surged to 26 in 2017, with the largest single-year increase on record for the region, the Anti-Defamation League said in a new report released Feb. 27. Nineteen percent of the incidents occurred in Tucson, including the bomb threats to the Tucson Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) — In the aftermath of the fatal mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Jewish community should take note: Teenagers are not just the future of the Jewish people; they are the dynamic force driving social change today. Today we are witnessing history unfold as the American teenage populace… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — A poll last year by the American Jewish Committee showed that 77 percent of American Jews disapproved of President Donald Trump’s job performance. American Jews had voted 70 percent to 25 percent in favor of Hillary Clinton over Trump. With the exception of the Orthodox, majorities of all… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Organizers of the Women’s March renounced the anti-Semitic views of Louis Farrakhan, but they stood behind one of its co-presidents who attended a speech last month by the Nation of Islam leader and seemed unperturbed by his attacks on Jews. Tamika Mallory, co-president of the… Read more »

(JTA) — The Catholic journalist Bogdan Bialek is used to being called a traitor in Poland for his commemorations of Jewish victims of a 1946 pogrom in his city of Kielce. For over a decade he has promoted awareness of and atonement for the murders, violating taboos that regard… Read more »