News

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 »

In addition to its traditional Second Night Seder on April 11, Temple Emanu-El will celebrate the Passover holiday this year in an intimate setting with the “Janos Wilder Passover Extraordinary Experience” on Saturday, April 15 at the Carriage House, 125 South Arizona Avenue, Tucson at 6 pm. Named the… Read more »

  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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

On the night of the second Passover seder 12 years ago, Amy Oestreicher’s parents had to ask their guests to leave their Connecticut home so they could take Oestreicher, then 18, to the hospital with a severe stomachache. She was rushed into surgery where her stomach exploded due to… Read more »

Hosting the annual Partnership2Gether leadership mission in Tucson this year was ambitious and quite successful, says Oshrat Barel, director of the Weintraub Israel Center. Six partnership delegates from Israel, Tucson delegates and local community stakeholders spent a week, from Feb. 26-March 5, discussing the program, its strengths and ways… Read more »

Jennifer Cassius, Anita Feder and Patty Vallance recently formed Family Friends, LLC, an estate sales company. Family Friends aims to help families with the distribution and disposition of personal property, whether due to downsizing, a transition to alternative living arrangements or the loss of a loved one, “with an… Read more »

Arizona Onstage Productions will present “Stars of David: A New Musical,” based on Abigail Pogrebin’s 2005 bestseller, subtitled “Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish,” April 15 and 16 at the Berger Performing Arts Center. The musical revue presents little known stories about some of the most famous Jews of… Read more »

Passover is the time of freedom. We eat matzah, the bread of affliction, we eat bitter herbs and dip karpas (vegetables) in salt water to recall our suffering and tears. We eat charoset, made with ground almonds, cinnamon and wine to recall the mortar used by Jewish slaves to… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) — Like many Jews in France, Ludwig Fineltain is hoping against hope that Marine Le Pen will not be elected president of the country five weeks from now. At the moment, the head of the far-right National Front party is leading in the polls with 26 percent… Read more »

(JTA) — The text messages started pouring in at 6:30 a.m. as Tracey Rubenstein was getting her kids ready for school. By the end of the day the Boca Raton, Florida-based social worker had spoken to most of her clients, either in person or via text. They were shocked, disappointment, sad and scared.… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – “Vamos!” “Pass it!” “Ladrao!” For most of the match on a local field Friday, the Inter Aliyah Club soccer players speak a variety of languages. But when the ball hits the back of the opposing team’s net, they join in soccer’s universal victory cry: “Goooal!” Inter… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Maintaining Iran sanctions, crushing BDS and ensuring aid to Israel are high on the agenda, of course. But the overarching message at this year’s conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is, if you want a break from polarization, come join us. “This is an unprecedented… Read more »

 Everything But The House, an online estate sale marketplace, is auctioning a variety of rare, Judaica items from the 19th–mid 20th centuries. Items include: The Torah Crown – an early 20th century Sefer Torah crown that was made during one of the first years of the Bezalel School of Arts… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Literally within seconds of the news of the arrest in Israel of an Israeli-American teenager for the bulk of the JCC bomb threats, Twitter lit up with Jewish anxiety. “ fear the inevitable backlash from haters who we whipped a frenzy for our own nefarious political… Read more »

  ATLANTA (JTA) — When Janice Rothschild Blumberg first heard that a bomb threat had hit an Atlanta Jewish center, she had only one thought: “It’s happening all over again.” Blumberg, 93, remembers her shock in 1958 when white supremacists bombed her synagogue, then called the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Israeli teenager who also has American citizenship was arrested on suspicion of carrying out more than 100 bomb threats on Jewish institutions in the United States. Israel’s anti-fraud squad arrested the 19-year-old suspect at his home in southern Israel and searched the premises on Thursday.… Read more »