News

In face of bomb threats to Tucson J, locals respond with love

Messages of support for the Tucson Jewish Community Center include chalk art and postcards. (Eitan Penner/Tucson Jewish Community Center

On the evening of Monday, Feb. 27, the Tucson Jewish Community Center received a bomb threat phone call, making Tucson part of the disturbing trend of more than 100 bomb threats targeting JCCs and other Jewish institutions across the country since mid-January. Last Friday, March 10, as the AJP… Read more »

With emotional link to new musical, Tucsonans become Broadway producers

Dick and Sherri Belkin at the opening night of "Come From Away" on Broadway, March 12. (Courtesy Dick Belkin)

Dick and Sherri Belkin, known for their dedicated energy and philanthropy in the Tucson Jewish community, recently donned new hats as Broadway producers. The couple attended the New York premiere of “Come From Away,” a musical about 9/11, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre last week. A musical about 9/11? … Read more »

In Tucson talk, author details how modern Germans helped, hindered quest for lost legacy

Author Dina Gold, left, with J. Edward Wright, director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on March 6 (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)

In December 1990, Dina Gold marched into a government building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in the formerly Soviet-controlled East Berlin, and announced that she had come to claim her family’s property. She was bluffing. At that point in her quest for justice, she had no evidence. Gold showed an official,… Read more »

Shoah survivor on global healing mission to speak here

Leslie Schwartz

Holocaust survivor Leslie Schwartz will speak about his experiences as a teenager in Auschwitz, Dachau and Mühldorf and show a film titled “The Mühldorf Death Train” on Wednesday, April 5 at 6 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event is sponsored by the German studies department at… Read more »

UA Hillel students plan for 26th annual Holocaust vigil

The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will hold its 26th annual Holocaust vigil later this month, a 24-hour program dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust as well as to promoting tolerance and understanding on campus and in Tucson.  A student committee designed and organized the vigil. This year’s… Read more »

ANALYSIS The false choice between Zionism and feminism

Women and their supporters rally at a New York City park to mark International Women's Day, March 8, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Two weeks ago the Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour started a fundraising campaign to help restore the graves at a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery damaged by vandalism. The Jewish community there and across the country generally welcomed the effort — wildly successful, as it turned… Read more »

UA experts help bring medicines, inventions to market

Eric Smith is Tech Launch Arizona's commercialization network manager. (Courtesy Tech Launch Arizona)

How does an invention get from “there” to “here”?  The University of Arizona is at the cutting edge in science, medicine, optical sciences, engineering, agriculture and other areas — but bringing inventions from the lab to the marketplace is a complex process, calling for talented experts with extensive technical,… Read more »

THA adding art component to annual STEM festival

House Herp will offer hands-on reptile experiences at the March 26 festival. (Facebook)

Tucson Hebrew Academy will host its third annual free community STEM ((Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Festival on Sunday, March 26 from 10 am.-2 p.m. At last year’s event, more than 1,500 visitors enjoyed more than 75 interactive exhibits and activities. This year, an art element is being added… Read more »

Nepal focus of Tucson J photography exhibit

"Yatra" by Aryen Hart

Tucson artist Aryen Hart’s photos capture distant Nepal, a land of monasteries, monks and the Himalayas. The Tucson Jewish Community Center will present Hart’s photography exhibit, “Inner Yatra: Meeting Nepal’s High Spirit on the LightSeed Path” through April 19 in the Fine Art Gallery. “Yatra” is a Sanskrit word… Read more »

Team Israel baseball gear a home run with kvelling American Jewish fans

Cody Decker of Team Israel holds team mascot the Mensch on a Bench after the World Baseball Classic game against the Netherlands in Seoul, South Korea, March 9, 2017. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A couple weeks ago, Adam Atkins didn’t know Israel had a baseball team. But since the squad started winning games last week in the World Baseball Classic, he has become a fan. Atkins and his friends wanted team caps, but were frustrated to discover they were… Read more »

Trump the change agent looks positively traditional on Mideast peace

President Donald Trump attends a meeting on health care in the White House, March 13, 2017. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Trump administration rhetoric about Israeli-Palestinian peace is typical of a president who would make everything great: President Donald Trump is going to bring about a “historic” deal, the White House has said, one that would “reverberate positively throughout the region and the world.” What isn’t typical, at… Read more »

In Turkey-Netherlands row, a foreboding sign for Jews

Protesters outside the Dutch consulate in Istanbul after the Turkish foreign minister was refused entry into the Netherlands, March 12, 2017. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (JTA) — The thousands of people who gathered outside the Turkish consulate of this port city on Saturday patiently waited for hours, chatting with friends and relatives. Waving Turkish flags, they had gathered on a chilly evening to listen to a Cabinet minister from Turkey arguing in… Read more »

How Israeli women turned this Purim into a feminist holiday

Shir Yorkevitz, right, and two other teachers dressed as Rosie the Riveter flexing at a middle school in Herzliya, Israel, March 8, 2017. (Courtesy of Yorkevitz)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Wonder Woman, Rosie the Riveter and a female Israeli fighter pilot walked into a bar. They were just a few of the heroines out in Tel Aviv Saturday for the night of Purim. With International Women’s Day falling a day before the holiday weekend this… Read more »

Camp becomes the endless summer — thanks to social media and smartphones

Sophie Golden, in striped shirt and headband, uses social media to coordinate meet-ups with her camp friends. (Davina Golden)

(JTA) — For 12-year-old Sophie Golden, camp is “kind of like a different world,” where electronics are a no-go and her bunkmates feel more like sisters than friends. When she misses that feeling during the year, there’s an easy way to get it back, even if just for a… Read more »

Not just prayers: synagogues are organizing to fight Trump’s agenda

Congregants of Bnai Jeshurun in New York City rally on behalf of immigrants Thursday, Mar. 9, 2017. Bnai Jeshurun is one of several synagogues more assertively embracing activism since Donald Trump's election. (Courtesy of Bnai Jeshurun)

NEW YORK (JTA) – The day after the presidential election, as congregants gathered in her Brooklyn synagogue to air their feelings, Rabbi Rachel Timoner was already starting to organize against the incoming administration. She called her local city councilman, Democrat Brad Lander, and together they organized an activists’ panel… Read more »

While some parents pull out of JCCs, others vow to remain despite bomb threats

Brian Federman, a lifelong member of the JCC in West Hartford, Conn., sends his daughter to the preschool there. While the bomb threats that have hit JCCs nationwide have shaken her routine, Federman says he and his wife are not considering withdrawing her. (Courtesy of Federman)

(JTA) — When Cincinnati’s Mayerson Jewish Community Center was hit with a bomb threat on Jan. 18, Adam Bellows was satisfied with how the staff handled the preschool kids, including his two-year-old son. The kids, said Bellows, had no idea the threat had happened. They were evacuated and taken to… Read more »