Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrivies at his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Dec. 25, 2016. (Dan Balilty/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Emotions are running high following the Obama administration’s decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Here are seven questions aimed at making sense of what went down and what it could mean moving forward. 1. Did Obama… Read more »
Samantha Power, center, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, at the Security Council meeting in New York, Dec. 23, 2016. (Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ahead of the unknowns a Trump administration will bring to American Middle East policy, the Obama administration allowed a bracing reminderon Friday that the international community does not recognize the validity of Israel’s presence in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. The U.S. abstention on the U.N. Security Council… Read more »
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second from right, chairs the weekly Israeli Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Dec. 25, 2016. (Dan Balilty/AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects a “new era” when U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month. He said as much at a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony Saturday, where he addressed the United Nations Security Council resolution passed a day earlier against Israeli settlements in the… Read more »
Fireworks explodE over the Rhine River during a New Year's party in Cologne, Germany, Jan. 1, 2014. (Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images)
(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 »
Mourners lay flowers and candles at a makeshift memorial in Berlin near the site where two days earlier, a man drove a heavy truck into a Christmas market in an apparent terrorist attack, Dec. 21, 2016. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
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 »
A menorah in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Dec. 16, 2014. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
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 »
Ambassadors of countries that aided Israel during its recent forest fires pose with officials of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at a Hanukkah party at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Dec. 14, 2016. (Conference of Presidents)
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 »
Donald Trump, center, along with his attorney David Friedman, left, exit the Federal Building following their appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. (Bradley C Bower/Bloomberg News via Getty Images)
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 »
Syrians fleeing violence in Aleppo arrive in the city's Fardos neighborhood after government troops retook the area from rebel fighters, Dec. 13, 2016. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
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 »
Abdul Rashid Abdullah of the National American Muslim Association on Scouting speak at a Muslim-Jewish gathering in Washington, D.C., while Rabbi David Shneyer of Kehila Chadasha looks on, Dec. 11, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
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 »
Trees aflame in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, Nov. 25, 2016. (Gili Yaari /Flash90)
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 touring exhibit created by MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and housed in a 53-foot double trailer, reveals the diverse faces of people facing food insecurity in America.
“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 at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv
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 »
A scene from ‘The Pickle Recipe’
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 »
Adam Nimoy with his father, Leonard Nimoy, in a scene from the film “For the Love of Spock”
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
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 »
