Rabbi Israel and Esther Becker will hold an informational meeting about Southwest Torah Institute’s “Israel: Where the Past Shapes Your Soul” trip planned for October on Sunday, July 23 at 11 a.m. An Israeli-style brunch will be served. “Even if you have been to Israel before, every trip presents… Read more »
News
JFSA helping synagogues boost youth engagement
Declining youth engagement has been a problem facing synagogues across the country for a decade or more. To help local synagogues reverse this trend, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is providing them with new allocations for religious schools and family education programs. Each synagogue will decide how to… Read more »
Esther Becker plans women’s book brunch
The Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies will hold its annual Women’s Summer Reading and Brunch event with Esther Becker on Sunday, Sept. 10 at 10:45 a.m. at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. For nearly two decades, this event has been held during the High Holiday season. “This event has become a… Read more »
Darkaynu adds staff, toddler program
Darkaynu Tucson Jewish Montessori is making changes for the new school year, adding a new covered playground, new staff members and a toddler program. The preschool now accepts children ages 1-6. Darkaynu will become the first preschool in the area with Imagination Playground Blue Blocks (as seen at the… Read more »
Free Taste of Judaism celebrates 18th year
This year marks the 18th anniversary — the chai year — of Temple Emanu-El’s outreach and education program, Taste of Judaism. The free course offers an introduction to Jewish spirituality, values and community in three two-hour sessions. Rabbis Samuel M. Cohon and Batsheva Appel lead interactive explorations of Jewish… Read more »
Temple Emanu-El celebrates b’nai mitzvah with a difference
A bar or bat mitzvah brings families together in a special way. In recent months, three Temple Emanu-El members with interfaith backgrounds created new family traditions as they demonstrated their commitment through this age-old rite of passage. A father and son celebrated a joint b’nai mitzvah, and the son of… Read more »
The West Bank’s world class wines have Israelis toasting the settlements
PSAGOT, West Bank (JTA) — Psagot Winery calls its Sinai wine an “unassuming but distinctive blend” of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Like all its wines, the bottle is stamped with the image of a coin dating to the first century C.E. found in a chalky cave near its namesake… Read more »
How Gaza’s electricity crisis could spell trouble for Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA) – An internal Palestinian dispute has left Gaza’s nearly 2 million Palestinian residents dangerously vulnerable to a heat wave, but Israel could get burned, too. The West Bank Palestinian Authority has recently spearheaded a sharp reduction of electricity to the coastal enclave with Israel’s cooperation, resulting… Read more »
Fed-up Reform leaders are thinking twice about how they donate to Israel
NEW YORK (JTA) — Daryl Messinger knows she’s going to visit Israel again. But the next time she flies there, it won’t be on El Al. Messinger, the chair of the Union for Reform Judaism, will be boycotting Israel’s national airline as part of her protest of the… Read more »
In Holland, the Nazis built a luxury camp to lull the Jews before murdering them
WESTERBORK, Netherlands (JTA) — Nothing about the footage that Rudolf Breslauer filmed here on May 30, 1944, suggests that it was taken inside one of Europe’s largest Nazi concentration camps. In the film by Breslauer, a German-Jewish inmate of the Westerbork camp in Holland’s northeast, prisoners are seen playing… Read more »
ANALYSIS India-Israel ties step out into the open
After 25 years of full diplomatic ties, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Israel commencing Tuesday can be seen as the official coming out of the relationship between the two countries. While ties between Israel and India have grown exponentially since P.V Narasimha Rao and Yitzhak Shamir… Read more »
Modi: ‘Israel among India’s most important partners
“India counts Israel as among it’s most important partners,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at Ben Gurion Airport Tuesday afternoon as he arrived for a three-day visit to mark 25 years since the establishment of full diplomatic ties between the countries. Thanking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for a… Read more »
U.S. pilots reunite with Israeli ‘brothers in arms’ from Yom Kippur War
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The arrival of U.S. fighter jets in Israel, part of a monthlong arms drop, was critical to turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War in favor of the Jewish state. But for the American pilots who volunteered to deliver the aircraft, it was… Read more »
A haredi Orthodox rabbi explains why his community opposes the Western Wall deal
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Haredi Orthodox Jews agree with their non-Orthodox brethren on one thing: The future of the Jewish people is at stake in the debate raging over who controls the Western Wall and conversion in Israel. Other than that, though, there is little common ground. According to Nachum… Read more »
ANALYSIS American Jews really care about pluralism. But it’s not just about pluralism.
(JTA) — The Great Jewish Revolt of 2017. The Bar Kotel Rebellion. The Diaspora Strikes Back. Whatever you call it, last week’s clash between American Jewish leaders and the Netanyahu government felt louder, angrier and more significant than previous clashes over pluralism in Israel. That may be because it wasn’t… Read more »
Israel is losing support among minorities and millennials, study finds
(JTA) — What do you think of when you think of Italy? Maybe you picture beautiful works of art set against rolling Tuscan hills. Maybe a steaming plate of spaghetti topped with marinara sauce served with a deep red wine. Now what do you think of when you… Read more »
LGBT Jews say it’s increasingly difficult to be pro-Israel and queer
NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, Laurie Grauer had waved a rainbow flag emblazoned with a Jewish star at the Chicago Dyke March, sometimes marching near activists waving Palestinian flags. It had never been a problem. But this year, Grauer was confronted by the LGBT parade’s organizers, questioned about… Read more »
Netanyahu defends suspending the Western Wall agreement. Here’s how.
(JTA) — American Jewish leaders are calling it a betrayal. They say that 17 months after achieving a historic agreement to provide a non-Orthodox space at Judaism’s holiest prayer site, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reneged in a Cabinet vote June 25, effectively canceling the deal and caving to… Read more »
Meet Diego Schwartzman, the best Jewish tennis player on earth
(JTA) — When Wimbledon starts this week, no other Jewish tennis player will be seeded higher than Diego Schwartzman. The scrappy 24-year-old from Argentina, fresh off an impressive five-set duel with perennial star Novak Djokovic at the French Open earlier this month, is No. 37 in the Association of Tennis… Read more »
Israel’s controversial conversion bill, explained
(JTA) — Israeli politicians and Jewish leaders are fighting again over an age-old question: Who counts as a Jew? And who gets to decide? Last week, Israel’s government inflamed simmering tensions over Jewish conversion when a Cabinet committee advanced a bill that would further empower the country’s haredi Orthodox… Read more »