News

(JTA) — While the rest of the world is busy exchanging Happy New Year wishes, Germans are greeting each other with a peculiar expression: “guten Rutsch,” which means “good slip.” Some believe the greeting, which is especially unusual in a formal society such as Germany’s, is a lighthearted reference… Read more »

UN passes anti-settlement resolution, US abstains (JTA) — The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States abstaining. The resolution was adopted Friday afternoon with 14 votes in favor and only the U.S. abstention. It called Israeli settlements “a flagrant violation of international law”… Read more »

  BERLIN (JTA) — Even before the deadly attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Jews in Germany were divided in their approach to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Muslim countries since 2014. Citing a Jewish moral duty to aid the displaced, many Jewish organizations, synagogue groups… Read more »

  AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Before Monday’s attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal had planned to invite hundreds of people to the traditional lighting of the first Hanukkah candle at a large menorah erected at the city’s Brandenburg Gate monument. But he decided to change his original… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — The transition between the Barack Obama and Donald Trump presidencies is creating a vacuum that is increasing the threat of genocide in trouble spots, according to a top official at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Cameron Hudson, the director of the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — Weird paradoxes have been packed into Hanukkah observance forever. It’s the holiday about killing infidels that is now celebrated as a victory of religious pluralism. It’s the unofficial little Jewish holiday that a U.S. congressman once tried to turn into a major American holiday. It’s… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) -– Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for – and got – the endorsement of one of Obama’s fiercest pro-Israel critics. “Dan has always spoken… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Although Poopa Dweck has never been to Aleppo, her New Jersey home evokes the smells of a kitchen in the now-ravaged Syrian city. Dweck was born after her parents left the once-bustling metropolis in 1947, but she still calls it her “homeland.” She has dedicated herself… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – A year ago, when several dozen Washington-area Jewish and Muslim religious and lay leaders jostled for spots in a group picture, the mood was convivial. The most novel item on the agenda for that November 2015 confab was bringing in non-Middle Eastern Muslims into the Jewish-Muslim… Read more »

  JERUSALEM (JTA) — Over the past few weeks, more than 1,700 brush fires across Israel have destroyed homes, vehicles and countless irreplaceable personal possessions. As a nation, we have also suffered severe damage to more than 32,000 acres of precious natural resources – woodlands, grasslands and protected parklands,… Read more »

“This Is Hunger,” a multimedia traveling exhibition created by MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, will be at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Jan. 5-8. The free exhibit, housed in a 53-foot trailer that opens to reveal almost 1,000 square feet of exhibit space, uses state-of-the-art storytelling techniques and… Read more »

Jonathan Elkhoury represents multiple minority groups in Israel. He told his life story to a rapt group of students at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation on Dec. 1. His father fought for the South Lebanese Army against the Palestine Liberation Organization and fled to Israel when the Israel… Read more »

The 26th annual Tucson Jewish International Film Festival will present more than 20 films from around the world, Jan. 12-22. All films will be screened at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, with two exceptions: a pre-festival kickoff in SaddleBrooke and the opening night film at the Loft Cinema, 3233… Read more »

When Leonard Nimoy announced in 1949 that he wanted to be an actor, and was leaving Boston for Hollywood, his Russian-Jewish parents were stunned. “My grandfather said that he should take up the accordion,” says Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s son and the director of the new documentary “For the Love… Read more »

Micah Halpern, a syndicated columnist and political analyst, says traveling the country as a guest speaker gives him the opportunity to help local communities and really get a sense of what’s going on in the Jewish world. “And that’s really the best part about this whole thing; it charges… Read more »

The third annual Limmud AZ, a daylong smorgasbord of Jewish learning, will be held Sunday, Feb. 12 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Arizona State University Memorial Union Student Conference Center in Tempe. Limmud AZ will include dozens of workshops, discussions, art, music, performances and text-study sessions,… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El and the Tucson Jewish Community Center are joining forces to bring the free “Taste of Judaism” class to the Tucson community on Sundays, Jan. 8, 15 and 22 from 2-4 p.m. at the J.  Taught by Rabbis Samuel M. Cohon and Batsheva Appel, the Taste of Judaism… Read more »

The Women’s Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is seeking nominees for its ninth annual Bryna Zehngut Mitzvot Award, recognizing an outstanding Jewish teenage girl. The award was created to honor the memory of Zehngut, a community leader who died in 2005. Award nominees must… Read more »

Bryce Megdal

Native Tucsonan Bryce Megdal will hold a concert, “Home for Hanukkah,” on Dec. 29 at the Jewish History Museum, 564 S. Stone Ave. The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with light refreshments. At 7 p.m., there will be a menorah lighting — participants may bring their own menorahs… Read more »

As soon as she heard about the hundreds of fires raging through Israel late last month, Marcela Donovan Hammond expected a call. Having just completed her Emergency Volunteer Project training in Israel in September  the Nogales firefighter, arson investigator and mother of six was prepared to drop everything at… Read more »