Rabbi Richard Safran (Phyllis Braun/AJP)
The saddest event in Rabbi Richard Safran’s life was probably the death of his wife of 60 years, Lois, two years ago. “I shared everything with my life partner. Sometimes it’s overwhelming” to be alone,” says Safran, but that hasn’t stopped him from helping others navigate difficult times, or… Read more »
Rachel Leah Mittleman Women’s learning has been added to the Southwest Torah Institute’s long-running Dr. Paul W. Hoffert Spirit Program, which returns to Tucson Sunday, July 19, through Sunday, Aug. 2. This year’s program, entitled “Torah By Appointment,” allows participants to schedule individual and group appointments with four rabbinic students from the… Read more »
President Barack Obama teleconferencing about the Iran nuclear talks from the White House with Secretary of State John Kerry, March 31, 2015. (Pete Souza/Flickr)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Years before it is deemed a success or a failure, a nuclear deal between Iran and the major powers could unleash far-reaching changes in the region. Much of the focus in Congress and the media in recent weeks has been on whether the deal would inhibit… Read more »
Greeks waiting in line outside a shuttered bank to withdraw their daily allowance of 60 euros. (Gavin Rabinowitz)
ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — For 55 needy Jewish families, a cash welfare payment is the only thing that gets them through the month. But when they came to the Athens Jewish Community last week for their July assistance, they were given only a portion of the payment in cash… Read more »
Irene M. Sarver, a longtime Jewish community and civic leader, died July 6, 2015. She was 95. Mrs. Sarver served on the boards and was a member of countless organizations, including Jewish Family & Children’s Services, Hadassah, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona,… Read more »
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi speaks during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (unseen) in Berlin, Germany on June 3, 2015. (Adam Berry/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – A nuclear deal between Iran and the major world powers is due to be finalized by Tuesday. Until now, critics of the emerging deal have argued that it’s bad, getting worse, but it could be improved. Once negotiators on both sides come up with a final deal,… Read more »
Jewish gay rights activist Frank Kameny shaking hands with President Barack Obama after the president signed a memorandum extending federal benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, June 2009. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — On July 4, 1965, 40 people gathered outside this city’s Independence Hall for the first Annual Reminder demonstration on behalf of civil rights for gays. For this weekend’s 50-year commemoration, thousands attended a ceremony that included a reenactment of the initial protest. The milestone, which comes… Read more »
Nicholas Winton at a London event honoring him in September 2009. (Peter Maciarmid/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Last week’s passing of Nicholas Winton, the London stockbroker who rescued more than 600 Jewish children from the Nazis on the eve of World War II, has drawn attention to the phenomenon of ordinary individuals who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. Winton‘s… Read more »
A pro-government demonstrator holds aloft a picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Tehran University, on June 19, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers, it’s deadline time, and skeptics on both sides are laying out red lines in a bid to shape a final deal. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who had been wary of the talks, last week outlined his… Read more »
B’nai B’rith Sahauro Lodge, which has been putting gravestones on 21 previously unmarked graves in the B’nai B’rith section of Evergreen Cemetery, will hold a service there on Friday, July 10 at 9:30 a.m., to honor the dead. Cantor Avraham Alpert of Congregation Bet Shalom will lead the service… Read more »
Same-sex marriage supporters celebrate outside the supreme court on June 26, 2015. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – How often do you get the opportunity to pack “109 years,” #LoveWins and the rainbow colors into 140 characters? That’s how the American Jewish Committee celebrated the Supreme Court ruling Friday extending marriage rights to gays throughout the United States. “For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty… Read more »
Michael Oren, shown speaking at the Holocaust Day of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in 2010, caused a stir with accusations against President Obama in an Op-Ed. (Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, caused a stir last week by publicly accusing President Barack Obama of abandoning the two core principles that undergird the U.S.-Israel relationship: no public disagreements and no surprises. But should there be no public disagreements – “no daylight,” in diplomatic… Read more »
Therapist Zehava Baruch counsels Ethiopian immigrants Fanta (left) and Weinishe at the welfare department in Kiryat Malachi, Israel. A 2015 grant from the Jewish Community Foundation and Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona to the Kiryat Malachi welfare department will focus on preventing Ethiopian family violence. (AJP file photo)
The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona recently awarded 24 grants totaling $369,817 through its community grants program. These grants are made in three impact areas: Tucson Jewish community, Israel and global Jewry, and Tucson general community. The local Jewish and Israel grants are administered in alignment with the… Read more »
Carlos Hernandez Upcoming changes in the way the state of Arizona will manage behavioral health services funded by Medicaid present an opportunity for Jewish Family & Children’s Services to expand its services, along with a challenge to “improve and enhance our infrastructure” to meet compliance requirements, says JFCS President and CEO… Read more »
Dar Katz (left) and Shachaf Shahar with Camp J campers at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
(Julie Zorn/TJCC)
As Camp J shlichot (Israeli emissaries), Shachaf Shahar and Dar Katz are here to share their love and knowledge of Israel and Jewish culture with the campers at the Tucson Jewish Community Center this summer. Shahar, 22, is from Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz in Tucson’s Partnership2Gether region in southern… Read more »
Eve Rosenberg at the Bureau of Land Management campsite at Ajo Way and San Joaquin Road, before setting out for the final day of the Migrant Trail, May 31. (Deborah Mayaan)
When I joined the Migrant Trail for the last day of its 12th annual week-long solidarity walk from El Sásabe, Sonora, Mexico, to Tucson, we stepped single-file along Ajo Highway in a walking meditation. Periodically, we called out names of those who had died crossing our Sonoran Desert. Some… Read more »
A view of a street in the Golders Green neighborhood of London, June 19, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
LONDON (JTA) — Like many European Jews, Stephen Lever has mostly stopped wearing his yarmulke on the street in recent years. A Londoner, Lever said he fears joining the hundreds of Jews accosted annually in his native United Kingdom, often by Muslim or Arab extremists seeking to exact retribution… Read more »
Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, with her husband, Bill Clinton, at a memorial dinner for Yitzhak Rabin at the center named for the slain Israeli leader in Tel Aviv, Nov. 14, 2005. (Pavel Wolberg/Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – From the man who married her grandmother to the man who married her daughter, from working a room full of bar mitzvah guests on behalf of her husband’s political career to headlining major pro-Israel events during her own, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s journey has never wandered far from Jews. Clinton’s Jewish encounters have… Read more »
A Palestinian child amid the rubble of buildings in Gaza City that were destroyed during the summer of 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, June 22, 2015. (Aaed Tayeh/Flash90)
(JTA) – This time, Israel and its supporters came prepared. Anticipating what they believed would be an unfair U.N. report on last summer’s Gaza War, the Israeli government and friendly groups in the United States were ready with at least three reports they say better reflects the reality of… Read more »
Collectives of European immigrants, soon known as kibbutzim, were an early building block of the Zionist movement. (Courtesy of Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East now appears a permanent condition, but it didn’t have to be that way, according to a one-hour PBS special premiering on June 30. “1913: The Seeds of Conflict” traces the relationship between the two Semitic tribes… Read more »
