News

On Monday, May 25th at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. in South, JWB Jewish Chaplains Council®, a program of the JCC Association of North America, is spearheading  the first-ever National Jewish Community Observance of Memorial Day, a commemoration that will be live-streamed on the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council Facebook… Read more »

Due to a trucking mishap, the May 15 issue of the AJP will be delivered on Saturday, May 16. We regret the inconvenience. In the meantime, browse the site or read the digital replica here.… Read more »

A new PBS documentary, “Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations” will premiere May 26. The film, which will air at 9 p.m. on Arizona Public Media’s channel 6, explores the rise and spread of anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe in recent years. The project has been underway for more than… Read more »

Contemplative, compassionate, collaborative: these are some of the words friends and colleagues use to describe Stuart Mellan, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, who is retiring at the end of this month after more than a quarter century leading the organization. The coronavirus pandemic and… Read more »

To ease loneliness caused by COVID-19 social distancing during Passover this year, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation organized a Passover ‘Potluck’ held via Zoom on April 13, one of the intermediate days of the holiday.

As part of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and Jewish Community Foundation response to the coronavirus pandemic, staff and volunteers have made more than 1,300 social welfare phone calls to members of the community. The project is ongoing. “It started with my desire to reach out to donors of… Read more »

The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law on March 27 provides automatic suspension of principal and interest payments on federally held student loans from March 13 through Sept. 30. There is no fee to suspend your loans and you do not need to apply… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center has been offering a variety of virtual classes and programs at www.tucsonjcc.org to help people stay physically fit, mentally sharp, and spiritually focused while the facility is closed as a preventative measure due to the coronavirus. “You can stay active in your own home! Here… Read more »

Last week, the Jewish Community Pandemic Relief Fund approved an allocation of $25,000 to the Community Food Bank to rescue over 30,000 meals from the international border that otherwise were destined for the landfill. The fund also allocated an additional $20,000 to Interfaith Community Services for emergency financial assistance… Read more »

Two Tucson teens, Gabe Friedman and Rachel Rudner, have been elected to the BBYO Mountain Region board. Friedman is the 73rd regional aleph godol (BBYO AZA president), overseeing the engagement of Jewish teens across Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Also part of the teen team responsible for the BBYO On… Read more »

Warm weather may lead to more outdoor activities, but be aware of rattlesnakes, cautions the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center located in the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. So far this year, 36 rattlesnake bites have been reported to AzPDIC. Twenty-four of those bites occurred in April, up… Read more »

The University of Arizona has started analyzing blood samples from hundreds of thousands of Arizonans to determine who has developed antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19. The state of Arizona is providing $3.5 million to test 250,000 health care workers and first responders throughout Arizona. To lay the foundation… Read more »

(JTA) — Regulars at the synagogue in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine call its main hallway “the traffic jam.” The term, often uttered with an eye roll, refers to the bottleneck that forms several times a day outside the offices of the popular synagogue, housed in a 1930s Bauhaus… Read more »

(JTA) — The Central Council of Jews in Germany has launched a “Meet a Jew” project designed to increase contact between non-Jews and Jews in Germany, who make up 0.2 percent of the population. One of the project’s over 300 Jewish volunteers from different denominational backgrounds are paired with… Read more »

(JTA) — At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, and as recently as a couple weeks ago, some Jewish camps had hoped they could run for part of the summer. For a growing number of camps, that hope now appears to be vanishing. Two Conservative Ramah camps look increasingly… Read more »

(JTA) – Two weeks after announcing the cancelation of its summer programs in the United States and Israel, the Union for Reform Judaism announced staff layoffs Wednesday. Approximately 60 full-time employees, constituting 20% of the organization’s staff, were laid off. The organization also implemented a temporary pay reduction between… Read more »

(JTA) — The Senate has introduced legislation to enhance partnerships between American and Israeli companies on COVID-19 projects, thus lessening U.S. dependence on China for life-saving medications and treatments. The bipartisan legislation was introduced on Wednesday as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a whirlwind eight-hour visit to Israel, criticized… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Letters signed by senators and U.S. House of Representatives from both parties urge Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to protect Israelis from International Criminal Court prosecution. The letters, which have strong backing from the prominent Israel lobby AIPAC, note the recent ICC decision to accept “Palestine”… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — On the first day that Israel’s schools reopened nine weeks after closing to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Kalanit Taub’s 8-year-old daughter stayed home. As a third-grader, her classes were among the first wave of those to resume. But her 10-year-old brother’s classes hadn’t yet… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli soldier was seriously injured in a car-ramming attack Thursday in the West Bank as violence there escalates. Israeli troops shot the Palestinian driver as he “drove quickly toward IDF soldiers next to a military post” in an apparent deliberate attack, the Israel Defense Forces… Read more »

(JTA) — Portugal’s ruling Socialist Party says it wants to stop giving citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews, partly because the application process has turned into a business venture. The announcement came in a draft amendment submitted Monday by the party to a 2015 law that ensured the naturalization… Read more »