News

Jewish UA students in cast of ATC’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

As Arizona Theatre Company celebrates its 50th anniversary with its largest production ever, “Fiddler on the Roof,” two Jewish University of Arizona seniors are making their ATC debuts in the iconic musical, under the direction of ATC artistic director David Ira Goldstein. For Shira Elena Maas (Rivka) and Taylor… Read more »

NPR’s Liasson examines media, divisive election at JFSA event

Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for NPR, speaks at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s “Together” event on Nov. 16 at Congregation Anshei Israel. (Martha Lochert)

Historical rules work until they stop working, Mara Liasson, an award-winning political correspondent for National Public Radio, told about 1,000 people who crowded Congregation Anshei Israel on Nov. 16 for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s 2017 Community Campaign kickoff. President-elect Donald Trump proved that he could break all… Read more »

Why Jews in France might give right-wing populist Francois Fillon a chance

Francois Fillon, in a 2008 photo, is the front-runner to become French president in next year's elections. (Wikimedia Commons)

(JTA) — If the French right-wing politician Francois Fillon is elected president next year, it won’t be for his skills at promoting interfaith dialogue. The secularist candidate widely favored to win the election in May managed to enrage many Jews, Muslims and even Catholics with a single explosive statement… Read more »

With the wildfires tamed, Israelis seek answers

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the scene of a fire in Zichron Yaakov, in northern Israel, Nov. 23, 2016. (Emil Salman/Pool)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – As the wildfires that raged across this country for nearly a week were subdued Sunday, Israelis surveyed the devastation in search of answers. The fires, which continued to flare Sunday evening, consumed as many as 32,000 acres of forest and brush across the country – an area more… Read more »

Top US firefighters ‘dropped everything’ to help Israel battle the blazes

An Israeli firefighter helps acquaint his American colleagues with Israeli equipment at the fire station in Herzliya, Nov. 27, 2016. (Courtesy of the Emergency Volunteers Project)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Call them Israel’s American volunteer fire brigade. Dozens of firefighters from across the United States put their lives on hold – leaving behind jobs and families – to help subdue the wildfires that swept Israel over the past week. While they all share a love of… Read more »

Israel on fire; Shin Bet investigating possibility of fire terrorism

Fire in the community of Talmon, Binyamin (Hillel Maeir/TPS)

Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh said Thursday that “several” individuals have been arrested on suspicion that they were involved in arson attacks over the past several days, and Shin Bet (Israel Security Officials) said the agency is investigating the possibility that several of the fires were actual terror attacks, nationalistically motivated.… Read more »

Keith Ellison’s ascent signals the Democrats’ willingness to redefine ‘pro-Israel’

Rep. Keith Ellison, D- Minn., at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, May 24, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The most shocking thing about talk of Keith Ellison’s Israel record as he rises within the Democratic Party is how few think it’s shocking. Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, despite a record of tough criticism of Israel… Read more »

Jewish groups fret as Republicans retreat from two-state solution

From left to right: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 3, 2015. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — In recent months, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have each emphasized what in recent years hardly needed emphasizing: mainstream Jewish support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reiterations of support signify a concern… Read more »

Bannon rejects, and supplies ammunition to, those who label him anti-Semitic

Stephen Bannon talking about immigration issues with a caller while hosting Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 20, 2016. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Stephen Bannon, in his first interviews since Donald Trump named him a top White House aide, denied being anti-Semitic or a white nationalist. At the same time, he continued to advance a theory of “globalist” conspiracy that echoes centuries-old anti-Semitic libels, but without any mention of Jews.… Read more »

JTA: Is Europe’s far right experiencing a ‘Trump effect’?

French National Front leader Marine Le Pen thinks Donald Trump’s victory heralds the upset she is seeking in her own campaign. (Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

(JTA) — European far-right politicians were quick to hold up Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election as a harbinger of their own impending triumphs. Marine Le Pen, head of France’s far-right party, said that what Europeans call “the Trump effect” — that is, right-wing nationalism fueled by anger toward… Read more »

One Ruth Gruber says goodbye to another

The pioneering photojournalist Ruth Gruber, left, and the longtime JTA European correspondent Ruth Ellen Gruber met at a book launch party in 1992. (Courtesy of Ruth Ellen Gruber)

  (JTA) – When you share a name with someone you respect and admire, you always try to live up to the connection, because sometimes outsiders aren’t aware of the difference. That’s how it was for decades with me and Ruth Gruber, the noted photojournalist, reporter and author who… Read more »

At first Jewish Comic Con, artists and geeks revel in tradition

A man examining a comic book for sale at the inaugural Jewish Comic Con, held at Congregation Kol Israel, a Brooklyn synagogue, Nov. 13, 2016. (Ben Sales)

NEW YORK (JTA) — After Brett Parker’s great-grandfather fled the pogroms in Europe and came to the United States, he opened a drug store where he sold comic books. Each week he would give his grandson, Parker’s father, five comic books to take home. Growing up during the early… Read more »

Alt-right conference in Washington quotes Nazi propaganda, says media protects Jews

Left to right: Discussion panelists Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor, Kevin MacDonald, “Millenial Woes” (thats the name he goes by) and Richard Spencer at an alt-right conference hosted by the National Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Nov. 18, 2016. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

(JTA) — Speakers at an event of the white supremacist think tank the National Policy Institute quoted Nazi propaganda and said the media protects Jewish interests. The day-long event of speeches and panel discussions attended by about 200 people was held Saturday in Washington, D.C. The New York Times… Read more »

In post-coup Turkey, Jews plan their future abroad

Turkish Jewish businesswoman Betty, left, and her friend Suzette at a cafe in Istanbul, Nov. 4, 2016. They asked that their last names not be used for security reasons. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

ISTANBUL (JTA) — At a chic café overlooking the Bosphorus, two Turkish Jewish women are discussing their plans to emigrate when the call to Friday prayers blasts from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque. Unable to talk over the deafening singing that fills the café in the Bebek neighborhood… Read more »

Meet the 3 firebrands Donald Trump is naming to national security posts

Top left, clockwise, Mike Pompeo, Michael Flynn, Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions (Pompeo photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images; Flynn photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Trump photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Sessions photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Controversial pasts with incendiary statements and a fierce loyalty to the president-elect. Judging from the announcements Donald Trump is expected to make Friday, his White House and Cabinet is likelier to look a lot more like Stephen Bannon than Reince Priebus. Those are, respectively, Trump’s top… Read more »

In focus 11.18.16

Holocaust survivors’ book reading On Wednesday, Nov. 9, the Jewish History Museum hosted Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona for a morning of readings from JFCS’s book, “To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona.” Five of the survivors featured in the book read excerpts from… Read more »