Rabbi Stephanie Aaron In conjunction with Jewish Family & Children’s Services, Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley will present a free ethical will workshop for the Jewish community, led by Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, on Tuesday, May 9, 10 a.m.-noon. Unlike a medical directive or living will, or a will detailing bequests… Read more »
Sophie Loeb Sophie Loeb, a second-year medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, has a strong commitment to care for those in her own backyard. Loeb is the 2017 recipient of the Shirley Curson Medical Scholarship from the UA Hillel Foundation. The scholarship recognizes the commitment… Read more »
Vandalized gravestones at the Waad Hakolel Cemetery in Rochester, N.Y., March 3, 2017. (Gretchen Stumme/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) – Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States soared 86 percent in the first three months of 2017 after rising by more than one-third in 2016, according to the Anti-Defamation League. There has been a massive increase in harassment of American Jews, largely since November, and at least… Read more »
President Donald Trump watches the lighting of memorial candles during the annual Days of Remembrance Holocaust ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, April 25, 2017. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Donald Trump got the memo on the Holocaust and the Jews. In a barrage of statements this week from the president and his aides, the Trump administration wants you to know, he gets it, he really gets it: The Holocaust describes a genocide committed only… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) – To build a Jewish state in the Middle East, Israelis had to be innovators. Some of what they’ve come up with has been used mostly by their fellow citizens — think Hebrew slang, Bamba snacks and the Iron Dome missile defense system — at least so far.… Read more »
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrives for a military parade in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. The picture was released the following day by the state's Korean Central News Agency. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Trump administration last week endorsed a narrative long promoted by critics of the Iran nuclear deal: It’s North Korea all over again. “An unchecked Iran has the potential to travel the same path as North Korea, and take the world along with it,” Secretary of State Rex… Read more »
National Front leader Marine Le Pen addresses activists at the Espace Francois Mitterrand in Henin Beaumont, France, April 23, 2017. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Supporters of Emmanuel Macron were not alone in cheering his victory Sunday in the first round of France’s presidential elections. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who finished second in the voting, saw it as excellent news. The two will face off in the final round next month after… Read more »
The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold a panel discussion on the immigration crisis in Southern Arizona at its Spring Leaders Forum on Friday, April 28. The breakfast event will begin at 7:30 a.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, with the… Read more »
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, April 20, 2017. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Iran is not living up to the “spirit” of the nuclear deal, President Donald Trump said, the latest in a flurry of mixed messages on the deal his administration has relayed in recent days. “As far as Iran is concerned, I think they are doing a… Read more »
Jennifer Stempel's recipe was inspired by the similarities between a knish — pictured here from New York's Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery — and an empanada. (Eric Hunt/Wikimedia Commons)
(The Nosher via JTA) — When I think of knishes, like most people, I think of New York Jewish deli-style discs of creamy potato or savory meat enveloped by a flaky crust. Potato knishes are my favorite because they act as a vehicle for as much good, grainy mustard… Read more »
Jair Bolsonaro is a deeply divisive figure in Brazil's Jewish circles. (Udo Kurt)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – A few days before they read from the Passover Haggadah about how God split the Red Sea waters, Brazilian Jews have never felt so split between right and left. At the center of the divide, although hardly in the Moses role, is Jair Bolsonaro,… Read more »
JEWISH FAMILY & CHILDREN’S SERVICES OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA has named LIZ HERNÁNDEZ director of marketing and communications. Hernández was previously marketing manager and then director of public relations and communications at Jewish Family & Children’s Service in Phoenix. Born in New York City and educated through high school in… Read more »
French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon at a campaign rally in Lille, April 12, 2017. (Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Even before the communist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as a serious contender for the presidency in France, the elections were shaping up to be a fateful moment for the country’s 500,000 Jews. Many of them are deeply worried about the rise in the polls of Marine… Read more »
A map of Israeli Cabinet minister Yisrael Katz's proposed regional railway. (Courtesy of the Intelligence Ministry)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Gaza is rebuilt. The West Bank is flourishing. And the trains run from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital. This is the peaceful future being pitched by Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz. In recent months, he has been shopping around a pair of ambitious economic… Read more »
4 things to know about Bret Stephens, the latest Jewish New York Times columnist
NEW YORK (JTA) — At first glance, The New York Times’ hiring of another white, Jewish male opinion-page columnist is anything but news. But the arrival of Bret Stephens, formerly the foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, may be especially resonant for American Jews. Stephens, 42,… Read more »
Lilian Farahani and Benjamin de Wilde portraying Anne Frank and Zef Bunga at the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, March 5, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Decades after her death at a Nazi concentration camp, Anne Frank’s restless spirit in heaven finally finds a soulmate in Zef Bunga, an Albanian teenager who was murdered in a revenge killing. Anne, whose world-famous diary recounts her two years in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam with… Read more »
Jews dig a trench in which they were later buried after being shot in Ponary, Poland. (Courtesy of Yad Vashem)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) – A one-hour TV program airing tonight on PBS links an incredible Holocaust escape story to advanced scientific techniques. “Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” a “Nova” production to be shown April 19, sheds new light on the attempt by 80 imprisoned men and women — mostly Lithuanian Jews… Read more »
Jon Ossoff is one of three Jewish candidates in a field of 18 vying for a congressional seat in Georgia. (Courtesy of the Ossoff campaign)
Editor’s note: Democrat Jon Ossoff will face Republican Karen Handel in the June 20 runoff election. Ossoff won 48.1% of the vote April 18; Handel won 19.78% WASHINGTON (JTA) – One candidate has the endorsement of a civil rights giant. Another boasts that he changes his oil in… Read more »
A parade led by the University of Arizona marching band kicks off Tucson’s 2013 Israel Festival.
In recent years, Tucson’s community-wide celebration of Israel’s Independence Day had grown from a one-day festival to a week of Tucson Celebrates Israel events. This year, in partnership with local congregations, the Weintraub Israel Center has orchestrated a month of events, beginning April 21, celebrating Israel’s 69 years of… Read more »
Opening of 'Degenerate Art' exhibition, Munich 1937 (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)
The Jewish community’s 2017 Yom HaShoah commemoration, which will include a survivor processional and candle lighting ceremony, will take place Sunday, April 23 at 2 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El. This year’s theme is “Art and Totalitarianism: 80 Years After the ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition.” The “Degenerate Art” (Entartete Kunst) exhibition… Read more »
