(Chase Cohen/Tucson Jewish Community Center)
Tucked away in an upstairs corner of the Tucson Jewish Community Center sits a room that would make any kid’s eyes light up. That’s where a new, huge jungle gym lives. Donated by the Diamondbacks baseball team, the structure features tubes and slides and soft climbing stairs. An oversized,… Read more »
In the wake of a protest against a reception featuring an Israeli community group at a recent LGBTQ conference, there has been widespread controversy. We have read blog posts and articles, watched videos of the protest, and heard from friends and allies who were present at the demonstration. Yet, what was… Read more »
Volunteers working the phones at a suburban Las Vegas office of the Hillary Clinton campaign while watching a debate between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, Feb. 11, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
LAS VEGAS (JTA) – Jewish voters in Nevada suffer the same affliction as anyone else ahead of caucuses in the presidential race: No one is quite sure how the damn system works. “A big part of what we do is to educate people about what a caucus is,” said… Read more »
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks at Agudath Israel's
annual dinner at the New York Hilton, June 1, 2008. (Menachem Adelman)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Justice Antonin Scalia was a larger-than-life presence on the Supreme Court, where he championed a conservative judicial approach for three decades. He was found dead on Saturday at a resort in West Texas at the age of 79. Scalia‘s outsize personality left an impression off the bench,… Read more »
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia addresses the Legal Services Corp.'s 40th anniversary conference luncheon in Washington, D.C., Sept. 15, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s a matter of dispute as to whether Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday, was the Supreme Court’s most conservative jurist. Some think Clarence Thomas deserves the title, while others say Samuel Alito may soon claim it. Scalia was, however, the conservative jurist likeliest to stir passions… Read more »
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia waits to be introduced to speak
at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., Oct. 2,
2012. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(JTA) — With the sudden passing this weekend of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court is now split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives, throwing into doubt how the court will rule on a raft of cases — including several watched by Jewish organizations. Scalia, who was 79, is being… Read more »
From left, Nathan Lewin, Sima Soumekhian, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Marc Zweben at the Char Bar in Washington, D.C., the kosher restaurant owned by Soumekhian and Zweben, May 2015. (Alyza Lewin)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – “When there was no Jewish justice on the Supreme Court,” Antonin “Nino”Scalia told me, “I considered myself the Jewish justice.” After Abe Fortas resigned in May 1969, there would be no Jewish justice on the court for nearly a quarter of a century, until President… Read more »
An oil rig in the Tamar natural gas field off the Israeli coast, June 23, 2014. (Moshe Shai/Flash 90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – After years of false starts, Israeli negotiators went to Geneva last week for talks aimed at ending a long-running conflict with a regional adversary. It’s not the Palestinians. It’s Turkey. Once a key partner of Israel, Turkey in recent years has been a thorn in… Read more »
At Daluva, bún chả — a traditional Vietnamese dish of grilled pork and noodles — is made with falafel. (Courtesy of Daluva)
HANOI, Vietnam (JTA) — Shahar Lubin earned his culinary chops in Israel and, later the United States, cooking his way through more than 20 restaurants, starting at the age of 16. Still, it was a leap when he moved to Vietnam and opened a restaurant of his own. “I… Read more »
Libby Kahane, wife of the slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, now has a grandson in prison for heading an extremist group. (Courtesy of Libby Kahane)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Her husband was assassinated and her grandson is in prison. But Libby Kahane, widow of the late far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane, has remained faithful to her husband’s ideology. She repeats his call for Israel to expel its Arab population. She believes the Israeli left, Jewish media… Read more »
Turkish Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, right, talking to congregants outside Kadoorie - Mekor Haim synagogue in Porto, Portugal, Jan. 29, 2016 (Cnaan Liphshiz)
PORTO, Portugal (JTA) — Five years ago, this city’s tiny Jewish community was so strapped for cash it couldn’t afford to fix the deep cracks in its synagogue’s moldy ceiling. The Jewish Community of Porto was also too poor to hire a full-time rabbi because of its small size… Read more »
Women of the Wall praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Jan. 2, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)
(JTA) – On the morning of Dec. 1, 1988, a group of about 70 Jewish women entered the sacred space of the Western Wall. The women represented all the major streams of Judaism. Some wore prayer shawls or kippahs. Some did not. One woman cradled a Torah in her… Read more »
Bernie Sanders making his victory speech in Concord after winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Feb. 9, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Bernie Sanders is having a month of historic firsts. In New Hampshire on Tuesday night, he handily won the Democratic Party contest, becoming the first Jew to win a presidential primary. In Iowa, he became the first Jewish presidential candidate — the first non-Christian, even… Read more »
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., speaking at a Get Out the Vote rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 8, 2016. (Meredith Dake-O'Connor/CQ Roll Call)
(JTA) – Bernie Sanders made history Tuesday night when he became the first Jewish candidate in U.S. history to win a presidential primary election. With the vote results in New Hampshire still trickling in, the Independent senator from Vermont was projected to handily defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in… Read more »
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waving on election day in Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 9, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Maybe now that Bernie Sanders has become the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary he’ll start getting the Joe Lieberman treatment. Back in 2000, Al Gore’s decision to tap Lieberman as his running mate set off what felt like a months-long national bar mitzvah… Read more »
A photo of Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim as it was in 1963, when Bernie Sanders volunteered there for several months. (Ben Sales)
SHAAR HAAMAKIM, Israel (JTA) — Every morning, Bernie Sanders would wake up at 4:10 a.m. to pick apples and pears. Leaving the cabin he shared with a few other American college student volunteers, Sanders would have a quick bite of bread before heading out to the orchard. After 2… Read more »
A Hanukkah celebration at the Kitchen in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2015. (Q Lam)
NEW YORK (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern. She set about harvesting email addresses and putting out the… Read more »
Jonathan Greenblatt, left, with the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, October 2015. (Courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Framed by a slide of two young guys in jeans and tees playing ping-pong on the Facebook campus, Jonathan Greenblatt described an event hosted by the social media behemoth in Palo Alto, California, the week before. “Some of the stuff we’ve done has been really exciting, like… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is recruiting young Jewish athletes, ages 13-16, for the 2016 JCC Maccabi Games to be held this summer in Columbus, Ohio. The Tucson J hopes to register 20-25 teens by March 11, with practice starting at the end of March. The games will feature… Read more »
Young Leadership of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its fifth annual Hava Tequila event, “Party Royale,” on Saturday, Feb. 20 beginning at 8 p.m. at Playground, 278 E. Congress St. The James Bond-themed event for ages 21 and over will include hors d’ouevres, drinks, a DJ… Read more »
