Marian Lupu Updated Aug. 26,2016 Marian Lupu, born Hannah Marian Koffman, 91, died Aug. 14, 2016. Born in Chicago, Lupu received a master’s degree from the University of Chicago. She married Charles Lupu in 1948 and settled in Tucson in 1966. She was the founding executive director of the Pima Council… Read more »
New York City Mayor David Dinkins, fourth from right, looks on while a Hasidic Jew and a black man argue during riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991. (Anthony Pescatore/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Much has changed in Crown Heights in the past 25 years, since the accidental death of a black boy touched off three days of rioting in which black youths attacked religious Jews in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Many called it a riot. Some Jews call the events of… Read more »
A statue of Stepan Bandera in Lviv, Ukraine, September 2014. (Courtesy of Andrey Syasko)
(JTA) — When Vladimir Putin grabbed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, the Russian president claimed it was to protect minorities from anti-Semitic fascists whom Putin maintained were behind the revolution that year that ousted his ally in Kiev, former President Viktor Yanukovych. But a physicist named Josef Zissels, who heads one… Read more »
Aly Raisman competing in the floor exercise at the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 24, 2015. (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Aly Raisman won the Olympic silver medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around in Rio de Janeiro. The Jewish competitor from Needham, Massachusetts, finished second behind her American teammate Simon Biles on Thursday. Raisman, 22, is the U.S. squad’s captain and was a key part of its gold medal… Read more »
Henry Gross co-founded the ’50s revival group Sha Na Na but may be best known for his 1976 solo hit, “Shannon.” He will bring his one-man show to Tucson Sept. 10.
In his own words, Henry Gross’ life has been “kind of an unusual journey.” He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1951 to a musical family, so it was no surprise when he picked up the guitar at age 12. When he was 18, Gross and a few friends… Read more »
Tucson Jewish Community Center Maccabi Games participants and friends (in white and turquoise T-shirts) play with special needs campers in Columbus, Ohio. Back row (L-R): Oren Riback (delegation head), Max Silverman, Zach Giles, Dimitri Rally (Palo Alto), Zamy (Jake) Zwinger, Jake Blumenthal, Adam Rudy (Louisville). Front: Avin Kreisler, Matthew Gurovich (Palo Alto) and Henry Abrams. Dakota Kordsiemon (basketball coach) is kneeling on the right. (Courtesy Oren Riback)
Thirteen teen athletes represented the Tucson Jewish Community Center at the JCC Maccabi Games in Columbus, Ohio, July 24-29. It was Tucson’s return to the games after a three-year absence due to scheduling conflicts with local schools’ early start dates. Despite the lag, the Tucson boys’ basketball team members… Read more »
Members of Congregation Anshei Israel’s “off the beaten path” Israel mission in June harvested leeks for Leket Israel, an organization that distributes surplus food to the needy. (L-R): Aaron Leonard, Rabbi Robert Eisen, Ron Gray, Margo Gray, Katherine Leonard, Ann Anovitz, Michelle Sigafus, Eugene Kellogg, Michael Schoenholz, Paul Hoffman. Seated, Aurora Kellogg (Courtesy Rabbi Robert Eisen)
Congregation Anshei Israel’s 11-day mission to Israel in June was no ordinary tourist trip. Instead of focusing on history and popular sites, the itinerary delved into the culture, problems, agriculture and technology of modern Israel. Rabbi Robert Eisen says that this is the fourth time he has taken congregation… Read more »
Tucsonan Billie Kozolchyk, right, with Adela Dworin, vice president of the Patronato de la casa de la comunidad Hebrea de Cuba in Havana, the equivalent of a Jewish federation in the United States. (Courtesy Billie Kozolchyk)
So we went to Cuba. Big deal, you say? Everybody’s going to Cuba. It seems not a single U.S. institution, big or small, isn’t arranging tours and oh yes, cruises, too. But our trip was different. My husband, Boris, had left his native Cuba pre-Fidel in 1956, to continue… Read more »
Madyssen Zarin, left, with her twin sister, Rachael, and mother, Patricia (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)
Update: Nefesh B’Nefesh provided this photo of “soon to be IDF soldiers” arriving in Israel Aug. 17. We’re pretty sure we spotted Madyssen Zarin on the far right. Madyssen Zarin is not someone who sits and watches the world go by. She is leaping into the future by making… Read more »
Joy Ladin Hadassah Southern Arizona will present a panel discussion, “Shhh … Our Matriarchs Are Speaking,” with three women, Joy Ladin, Ph.D., of Yeshiva University, and local Rabbis Batsheva Appel and Stephanie Aaron, on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 3 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Ladin is the author… Read more »
Rabbi Moshe Schonbrun, who recently came to Tucson as rabbi for Jewish Arizonans on Campus at the University of Arizona, says after he and his wife, Esti, were married, they decided to put all of their efforts into maximizing their positive impact on the Jewish community. After meeting the… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center has launched a year-round J-Rays Swim School created by Brandon Rannebarger, the J’s aquatics director and head swim coach. The school will work primarily with children ages 3-14 years in private or group lessons for any skill level, with a constructive play curriculum. It… Read more »
Temple Emanu-El will offer its 17th year of free Taste of Judaism classes beginning next month. The program explores Judaism in three two-hour sessions on Jewish spirituality, values and community, taught by Temple Emanu-El’s rabbis. In Tucson, the national outreach program, open to all, has had over 5,800 participants… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said Donald Trump’s suggestion that gun rights advocates could “do” something about Hillary Clinton recalled the incitement to violence reported in the months prior to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. “I instantly thought about Rabin and Israel,” Malloy, a Democrat, said Tuesday… Read more »
Donald Trump speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2016 Policy Conference at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC, March 21, 2016. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – On behalf of Donald Trump, Republicans last week launched a get-out-the-vote campaign geared to Americans living in Israel. The initiative, which began Aug. 1, has unprecedented funding and local strategic support. The effort by Republicans Overseas Israel, the main group supporting the party here, reflects it leaders’ conviction… Read more »
Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. secretary of state, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger being interviewed by Charlie Rose at the State Department in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2011. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – If Hillary Clinton is indeed courting Henry Kissinger, what happens to her relationship with Bernie Sanders? Reports that the Democratic presidential nominee is actively pursuing endorsements from Kissinger, who like her is a former secretary of state, and other former Republican officials have raised alarms on… Read more »
Demonstrators protest outside the Spanish Government Delegation in Barcelona, Oct. 20, 2015. (Albert Llop/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Only last year, Spain was still the undisputed bastion for the BDS movement in Europe. Some 50 Spanish municipalities had passed resolutions in recent years endorsing BDS — an acronym for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — more than in any other European country. Relying on backing from a… Read more »
The Jewish community in New York holding a rally for the Black Lives Matter movement outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, July 28, 2016. (Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The co-author of the Black Lives Matter platform passage accusing Israel of “genocide” defended the term, saying Israel’s actions fit in its wider definition. Ben Ndugga-Kabuye co-authored the statement along with Rachel Gilmer, the former board member of a Zionist youth group. Ndugga-Kabuye told JTA… Read more »
The Challah for Hunger chapter at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will participate in the Campus Hunger Project, a national advocacy and research project announced July 29 at Challah for Hunger’s annual leadership summit at West Chester University. In its first year, the Campus Hunger Project will train 80… Read more »
Jonathan Greenblatt (Courtesy of the ADL)
NEW YORK (JTA) — For more than a century, the Anti-Defamation League has been known as a group that combats anti-Semitism. But one year after taking the group’s helm, Jonathan Greenblatt wants it to focus on more than just the Jews. Greenblatt’s predecessor as ADL national director, Abraham Foxman,… Read more »
