News

Art, video at Handmaker to mark success of ‘Tracing Roots’

Sharon Glassberg, left, director of the Coalition for Jewish Education at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, views internet research with Natalie Feldman, a Tucson Hebrew High student, and Gloria Lindsman, a resident at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, as part of the “Tracing Roots and Building Trees” program, April 17 at Handmaker. (Karen Schaffner/AJP)
May 12, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, Special to the AJP

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 15-year-old Erika Spivack sat next to 93-year-old Betty Light, searching online for any information she could find about Light. First stop: ancestry.com, where she unearthed an item as valuable as any buried treasure. “Did you go to East High School in Denver?” Spivack asked… Read more »

SEEKING KIN 3 decades later, remembering some special Sabbaths

Hillel Kuttler, right, and Avraham Rechtshafer meeting at a Jerusalem pizza shop for the first time since the mid-1980s. (Hillel Kuttler)
May 11, 2016 / Hillel Kuttler, JTA

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. JERUSALEM (JTA) – On a pleasant evening in this capital city, through the near darkness, I caught his wave from a half-block away. Soon we were standing together, smiling and clasping hands, two men who hadn’t seen… Read more »

At home in London, French Jews dread vote on leaving the EU

A menorah is lit in London's Trafalgar Square to mark the beginning of Hanukkah, Dec. 20, 2011. (Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images)
May 10, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

LONDON (JTA) — Less than two years after he moved his family from Paris to London, David Herz is already feeling at home in the United Kingdom. The co-founder of a communications agency, Herz is among thousands of French Jews who moved across the channel in recent years. He says… Read more »

Synagogue condos: If you lived here, you could be praying by now

The penthouse at 415 E. Sixth St., which will sit atop the historic Anshei Meseritz synagogue. (Courtesy of East River Partners)
May 8, 2016 / By Lucy Cohen Blatter, JTA

  NEW YORK (JTA) — If there’s one story that sums up the changes afoot on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a once heavily Jewish neighborhood, it’s the saga surrounding the Anshei Meseritz synagogue. The Orthodox shul at 415 E. Sixth St. is a relic of a time… Read more »

Smuggled out of ghetto, newly discovered photo trove turns out to be family of famous American scholars

After a documentary photographer stumbled upon Anushka Warshawski's photo album, it took some sleuthing to figure out who she was. (Courtesy of Richard Schofield)
May 6, 2016 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – When documentary photographer Richard Schofield stumbled upon a trove of unidentified prewar photographs in September 2013 in the storage room of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, he knew he had found something special. The photos, dating from about 1910 through 1940, were from a… Read more »

For Dutch property owners, Holocaust commemoration begins at home

Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma, left, tells visitors about a Jewish family that once lived at what is now her home in The Hague, May 1, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
May 2, 2016 /

  THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — After Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma discovered that Holocaust victims used to live in what is now her home, she began to think about them constantly. At night, van Gennep-Bouma imagined the former occupants preparing to turn in. And in the morning, she wondered where they had… Read more »

Orthodox activists and victims asking NY to change sex abuse reporting laws

Orthodox activists, like these protesting outside a Brooklyn yeshiva, are asking institutions to do more to report and investigate allegations of child sexual and physical abuse. (Courtesy of Chaim Levin)
May 2, 2016 / Debra Nussbaun-Cohen, JTA

  NEW YORK (JTA) – Advocates for sexual abuse victims in the Orthodox Jewish community will be descending on New York’s state capital on May 3 to lobby the legislature to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse offenses. A bill to change the statute of limitations… Read more »

JFSA to hold ‘Platinum Edition’ of annual awards celebration

Shelly Silverman (left) and Stuart Shatken are the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona's Woman and Man of the Year
April 28, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will launch a year of 70th anniversary celebrations at its annual meeting and awards celebration on Wednesday, May 11. The “Feddys Platinum Edition” event will be held at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Heading the list of those who will… Read more »

Chefs bringing flavors of Israel to Tucson festivities

(L-R) Chefs Yael Shamir, Maya Klein, Orli Varon Shushan and Sahar Refael from the Weintraub Israel Center’s Partnership2Gether region in Israel will spend a week in Tucson. (Courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)
April 28, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Four celebrity chefs from Israel will arrive in Tucson next month for the third annual Tucson Celebrates Israel Week, May 9-15. “Food is known to be a great bridge between people and cultures,” says Oshrat Barel, director of the Weintraub Israel Center, which organizes the festivities. Chefs Orli Varon… Read more »

Tucson students place in top 5 in Israeli tournament

(L-R) Gregory School students Daniel Leighou, Elaine Wright, Jaiveer Katariya, Moritz Gloesslein and Tianyi Zhu, with teacher Dennis Conner, took fourth place in the International Shalhevet Freier Physics Tournament at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel.
April 28, 2016 / Kaye Patchett, Special to the AJP

Earlier this month, a team of talented physics students from Tucson’s Gregory School placed fourth in the world in the April 5-6 International Shalhevet Freier Physics Tournament at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, where they displayed their outstanding skills in high-tech safecracking. Israel is an international leader in… Read more »

Downtown Shabbat: Hot music, cool venue draws more than millennials

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon (front) and the Armon Bizman band at a Late Night Downtown Shabbat at the Jewish History Museum on March 25. (Karen Schaffner/AJP)
April 28, 2016 / Charlotte Lowe, Special to the AJP

Tucson, a.k.a. the Old Pueblo, is known for its laid back attitude, not for bucking a trend. Enter Temple Emanu-El’s Late Night Downtown Shabbat, which is roping in the millennials coming of age in the 21st century, statistically a hard group to round up for synagogue participation. According to… Read more »

In Mexico City, finding a cohesive, timeless Jewish community

Members of Tucson’s Next Generation Men’s Group atop the Teotihuacan Pyramid in Mexico City. Top row (L-R): Rob Glazer, David Goldstein, Hillel Baldwin, Stuart Gross and Bobby Present. Center: Jeff Kay, Marty Waldbaum, Peter Marcus, Jeffrey Katz, James Wezelman and Steve Silverman. Bottom: Terry Perl, Danny Gasch, Tom Warne, Larry Gellman and Barry Weisband. Not pictured: Stuart Mellan, Gary Kippur, Dan Asia, David Hameroff and Jeff Katz. (Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
April 28, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, AJP Intern

Jeffrey Katz of Tucson, a retired physician, just came back from Mexico City and what he saw made quite an impression. “The most unique part (of the trip) was seeing how closely knit a Jewish community exists,” he says. “We were at what is described as a secular Jewish… Read more »

Great Adventure: How an amusement park goes Orthodox for Passover

Six Flags Great Adventure, an amusement park in New Jersey, on Passover becomes the site of an annual Orthodox Jewish pilgrimage. (Uriel Heilman)
April 27, 2016 /

JACKSON, N.J. (JTA) – Pinchas Cohen spent most of Monday wandering around Six Flags Great Adventure under a blazing sun, wearing a knee-length black coat and carrying a big box of shmura matzah under his arm. An imposing, Russian-born Chabad-Lubavitch Hasid who now lives in Brooklyn, Cohen came to… Read more »

In Nevada primary, a Muslim facing a Jew says he was passed over for his faith

Jesse Sbaih in his law office, April 8, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

HENDERSON, Nev. (JTA) – Come November, Nevadans in this suburban Las Vegas district may well elect to Congress Jacky Rosen, a software developer and president of her synagogue. A Jordanian-American lawyer says her win would be at his expense, and it’s because of his Muslim faith. But Jesse Sbaih isn’t blaming… Read more »

After weeks of brickbats, Bernie Sanders offers Hillary Clinton a bouquet

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders greet each other at the CNN Presidential Debate in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 14, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The combative tone in Bernie Sanders’ campaign statements faded on Tuesday evening to a softer pitch of suasion. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come,” Sanders’ statement began after his rival for… Read more »

Paul Ryan, out of the running for president, asks to be seen as foreign policy maven

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaking with reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., April 13, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
April 27, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Paul Ryan wants you to know he’s not running for president, he’s no fan of the Obama doctrine and he’s not a neoconservative. What the Wisconsin congressman wants to be, he suggested at an April 14 breakfast in his Capitol Hill offices with foreign policy reporters, is the leader of… Read more »