News

Local woman uses personal, family challenges for good

Members of Tucson’s Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition with Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) in her office on April 13, 2016. (L-R): Samantha Ybarra, Sayanna Molino (chaperone), Emma Galligan, Slaughter, Zoe Holtzman, Michael Artzi, Sophie Gootter, Joshua Cohen, Aaron Gomez, Shari Gootter (program coordinator), Alexander Senti, Daniel Vogel, David Bracamonte (Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)

Tucsonan Shari Gootter spends her time changing the lives of others in a wide variety of ways. Self-employed as a therapist and yoga instructor, she works daily to help people as they improve themselves emotionally and physically; however, her work as a volunteer for several organizations in Tucson is… Read more »

Spirituality, mindfulness on tap for JFCS Shalom in Every Home talks

Cantor Avraham Alpert

Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona and the LEAH program will present two free talks in the Shalom in Every Home Healthy Family Lecture Series, April 23 and 30, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.  On Sunday, April 23, Avraham Alpert, spiritual leader of… Read more »

ANALYSIS Spicer, Hitler and the Soup Nazi: Why can’t this White House get the Holocaust right?

Sean Spicer in a TV interview at the White House apologizing for comments he made suggesting that President Bashar Assad of Syria was worse than Hitler, April 11, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — We interrupt this Passover to bring you two news bulletins: Bashar Assad is worse than Hitler. The Soup Nazi was almost a real Nazi. Let’s start with the second revelation, since Sean Spicer’s Hitler gaffe about Hitler is probably better known. Entertainment Weekly reported… Read more »

Greenberg of ‘one and done’ fame to offer inspiration at MNO

Adam Greenberg was struck in the head by a fastball in his first Major League at bat. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

The key to overcoming obstacles is setting a goal, says Adam Greenberg, a former major league baseball player and motivational speaker. “No matter what’s going on, always persevere and always get up, because that’s why we were given the opportunity we have to live and have the life we… Read more »

JFSA proposes officers, directors for 2017-18

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s board governance committee, chaired by Eric Schindler, has recommended the following slate of officers for the 2017-2018 program year: Shelly Silverman, chair of the board; Eric Schindler, vice chair/board development; Deborah Oseran, vice chair; Ben Silverman, treasurer/secretary; Tom Warne, immediate past chair. Also… Read more »

Ziegler’s ‘Dov and Ali’ tackles the big questions

Paul Hammack is Dov and Callie Hutchison is Sonya in ‘Dov and Ali.’Paul Hammack is Dov and Callie Hutchison is Sonya in ‘Dov and Ali.’ (Paul Hammack is Dov and Callie Hutchison is Sonya in ‘Dov and Ali.’ (Whitney Woodcock)

Something Something Theatre is presenting “Dov and Ali” by award-winning playwright Anna Ziegler, through April 23 at the Community Playhouse, 1881 N. Oracle Road. In “Dov and Ali,” a Jewish high school teacher and his Muslim student, sparked by their studies of “The Lord of the Flies” by William… Read more »

ANALYSIS Is Mike Pence’s marriage rule anti-women, or pro-religion?

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, walk in the presidential inauguration parade in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2017. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

(JTA) — I am a huge fan of monogamy. My wife and I have been married for — well, let’s just say we met in high school (we didn’t get together until after college, but I was trying to avoid saying “a long time”). I took it personally when… Read more »

Recalling lessons of Passover, Israelis pray for their Syrian ‘enemies’

A view of the Suruc refugee camp in Turkey, which houses some 35,000 Syrian refugees. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – At a Shabbat service in Tel Aviv on Friday evening, congregants recited the mourner’s prayer for those killed in Syria’s civil war. Standing before a mural of the Tree of Life, the rabbi of Beit Daniel, the largest Reform synagogue in Israel, delivered a sermon… Read more »

Why Israelis are happy about Trump’s missile strike — and why they should be wary

The USS Porter fires a Tomahawk missile at a Syrian military airfield in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. (Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Israel’s government and pundits are unabashedly pleased by the missile strike ordered by President Donald Trump early Friday on the Syrian airfield from where Tuesday’s deadly chemical attack is believed to have been launched. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out a statement out at 6 a.m.… Read more »

The Israeli response to the Syrian chemical attack — A wave of donations

Hassan Dallal, a survivor of the chemical attack in Syria, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Idlib, April 5, 2017. (Mohammed Karkas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – In response to the alleged chemical attack in Syria on Tuesday, Israelis have donated hundreds of thousands of shekels to help children and others caught in the conflict raging on their northern border. With Israel maintaining a policy of noninterference, giving money has been a way for people here to… Read more »

White supremacists don’t know what to make of Jared Kushner

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner leaving after the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 2017. (Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty Images)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — White supremacists have a problem, and his name is Jared Kushner. While many on the far right are hoping that President Donald Trump will help advance their separatist, racist agendas, figures like former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin are… Read more »

When politics gets in the way of Jewish giving

Jewish Voice for Peace members at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago protest donor-advised funds from JUF going to groups that have been deemed Islamophobic, March 24, 2017. (Inbal Palombo)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Lisa Greer didn’t think twice when she used her cellphone to donate to IfNotNow, a Jewish organization that protests Israel’s West Bank occupation. Greer and her husband, Joshua, had given millions to progressive Jewish and Israel causes, and she sits on the board of the… Read more »

Holocaust expert explores difference between religious hostility, anti-Semitism

Peter Hayes speaks at the Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum on March 13. (David J. Del Grande)

From the Catholic Church, to occupied Europe and the United States, the world failed to prevent the Holocaust because they were too vested in their own interests, Peter Hayes, a former professor at Northwestern University, told about 40 people who packed the Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History… Read more »

Lecturer says Trump’s dealmaking could work in Middle East

Shai Feldman

Shai Feldman, a professor of politics at Brandeis University, believes President Donald J. Trump could broker a deal that ends the Arab/Israeli conflict, because the most contentious issues contradict a golden rule of negotiation. “In the Arab/Israeli conflict the devil is not in the details, in the Arab/Israeli conflict… Read more »

Shinshinim hosts grateful for opportunity

Seated (L-R): Leah Avuno, Yoni Weiner, Bar Alkaher; standing: Téa, Tamir, Erin, Elana, Joshua, Jackie and Naomi Weiner (Courtesy Naomi Weiner)

If your heart longs to visit Israel, but time doesn’t allow, consider the opportunity to bring a vibrant piece of Israel to your home. The Shinshinim Young Ambassadors Program sends Israeli high school graduates to communities all over the world to work in Jewish educational and cultural institutions (see… Read more »