News

The Young Women’s Cabinet of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its fourth annual Mahj and Mitzvahs event on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Tucson Hebrew Academy. Mah jongg players of all levels, including beginners, are welcome. Participants will make care packages to donate to the… Read more »

Rabbi Israel and Esther Becker of Southwest Torah Institute and Congregation Chofetz Chayim will host a “Love of the Land” orientation meeting Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. to introduce their third Tucson Jewish community Israel trip, which is slated for May 22 through June 5, 2016. Refreshments will… Read more »

Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear weapon in the near future; the most recent Iranian nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, makes it so. This was the consensus of a panel of University of Arizona professors who met Thursday, Sept. 17, to… Read more »

LESBOS, Greece (JTA) — As the small rubber dinghy crowded with Syrians and Afghans emerged from the midnight-black sea to land on a desolate pebble beach, the first people to greet the bewildered and frightened refugees were two Israelis. “Does anyone need a doctor?” Majeda Kardosh, 27, a nurse… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For Israelis, the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur have turned into days of violence. Unrest has swelled in Jerusalem following an Israeli ban on a protest group at the Temple Mount, the holy site known to Muslims as the Haram… Read more »

(JTA) — Even at his remote sheep pasture in the Austrian countryside, Hans Breuer was too disturbed by the plight of the Syrian refugees streaming into his country to go about his daily routine. Especially troubling to Breuer, a 61-year-old Jewish shepherd and singer of Yiddish songs, were the overcrowded conditions at… Read more »

(Heritage Florida Jewish News via JTA) – It all started with a little bump on his neck. Now Jason Mendelsohn is on a mission to conquer cancer and spread the word about human papilloma virus-related cancer, or HPV. In April 2014, Mendelsohn was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, which… Read more »

Richard Joel

NEW YORK (JTA) — Richard Joel, the president of Yeshiva University, announced that he will step down by the end of his current term. Joel, 65, made the announcement Sept. 10 in an email sent to Y.U. staff, students and alumni, and obtained by JTA. His term is set… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – A small government agency for preserving European historical sites has been accused of criminal malfeasance, roiling Jewish community officials who say the agency has played a critical role in memorializing Europe’s Jewish past. The controversy surrounding the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad offers a… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) — When supporters of the anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement and right-wing extremists in the former East Germany started demonstrating by the tens of thousands this year against foreigners and “American Zionist” policies, I got mad. When the first refugee homes in Germany were set on fire, I was shocked. When… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Writing from his jail cell last week, just days before the Jewish New Year, Rabbi Barry Freundel said he was sorry. It was the rabbi’s first public statement since his arrest almost a year ago and his subsequent sentencing to 6-and-1/2 years behind bars for secretly filming women undressing in… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Secular and haredi Orthodox Israelis differ on many things, but there’s one thing both sides agree on: When it comes to religious affairs, the government is failing. That’s one of the findings of an annual survey of Israeli religious identification and attitudes toward religious policy released… Read more »

ASSADS, Morocco (JTA) — We had to cross the gorge, and the only way was to walk single file on a narrow concrete gutter, maybe a foot wide, that bridged the two cliffs. Below us was a long, perilous drop onto the rocky depths. I was traveling deep into the rural communities of… Read more »

(JTA) — On Saturday, the Spanish language television network Univision will host the final broadcast of “Sábado Gigante.” With 53 years on TV, the world’s longest-running variety show is an eclectic, strange mashup of a game show, a talk show and live entertainment. There are singing competitions — the poor-performing contestants are… Read more »

ASSADS, Morocco (JTA) — Why the Jews want etrogs, Mohammed Douch does not entirely understand. What he does know is that they are his main customers. Each August and September, Jewish merchants come from around the world to his remote grove in the highlands of Morocco — an hourlong hike through… Read more »

ANAHEIM, Calif. (JTA) — Arab Americans advocating on behalf of Syrian refugees have found some unlikely allies in their effort to resettle families from the war-torn nation: influential Jewish groups.   Over the last few days, HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, launched a petition drive calling on President… Read more »

(JTA) — On Aug. 30, at age 82, noted neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks succumbed to a cancer that first plagued him nearly a decade ago, paused, and recently reappeared. One of his last essays, published posthumously, appears in the Sept. 14 issue of The New Yorker and… Read more »

(TAZPIT) – A statistical survey conducted by Smith Consulting Co. for the NGO, ‘Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality’ has revealed the changes in the  distribution of Israeli Jewish citizens according to the different religious denominations they identify with. The Hiddush NGO publishes its annual Religion-State Index every… Read more »

To meet the needs of the deaf and severely hearing-impaired, Temple Emanu-El is offering American Sign Language interpretation at all of its High Holy Day services this year. Rabbi Batsheva Appel organized a workshop for ASL interpretation in Jewish settings at the beginning of August. Thirteen interpreters attended the… Read more »

Asher Susser

Asher Susser, Stein Professor of Modern Israel Studies at the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, will lead a lunch and learn on “Iran, the Arabs and Israel” on Wednesday, Sept. 16, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Weintraub Israel… Read more »