News

Federation set to honor ‘stars’ at annual awards celebration

Donna Moser and Audrey Brooks

Women of the Year Audrey Brooks and Donna Moser and Man of the Year Steve Kippur head the list of 2015 award winners the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will honor at its annual meeting and awards celebration, which will be held Thursday, May 7 at 7 p.m. at… Read more »

‘Music of the Night’ dinner to honor cantor

Cantor Janece Cohen

To mark Cantor Janece Cohen’s 25 years of service as a congregational cantor, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is granting her a Doctorate of Sacred Music, Honoris Causa. On Saturday, May 9, Congregation Or Chadash will honor Cohen for this achievement with a gala dinner. Cohen has been… Read more »

More than 40 years later, Munich 11 will get Olympic moment of silence

American weightlifter David Berger was one of 11 members of the Israeli team killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. (Courtesy Barbara Berger)

Security was lax entering and leaving the 1972 Olympic Village in Munich. Barbara Berger knows this firsthand, because she was there on Sept. 3, 1972 to watch her 28-year-old brother, David Berger, an American, lift weights as a member of the Israeli Olympic team. The next morning, Berger and… Read more »

Anshei Israel to mark 85 years of community building

Rabbi Arthur Oleisky

You may not know this, but every anniversary is (according to a tradition probably created by Hallmark) associated with a particular gift — paper for the first, tin for the 10th, diamonds for the 60th. The 85th anniversary is the diamond and sapphire anniversary. Both stones because, let’s face… Read more »

At Cindy Wool seminar, cancer biographer speaks of old treatments, new hope

Siddhartha Mukherjee (Copyright Deborah Feingold)

Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., presented cancer’s story of major tragedy and future hope to more than 400 people at the Sixth Annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Medicine at the Fox Tucson Theatre on March 31. The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography… Read more »

Consul to promote Arizona-Israel tech alliance

David Siegel

Tech Parks Arizona will host the Consul General of Israel, David Siegel, on April 29 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, 1245 E 2nd St. Siegel’s talk will be part of a briefing on the Tech Parks Arizona Global Advantage business attraction program… Read more »

JFSA officers to be ratified at annual meeting

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s board development committee, chaired by Shelly Silverman, has recommended the following slate of officers for the 2015-2016 program year: Tom Warne, chair; Eric Schindler, vice chair/board development chair; Helaine Levy, vice chair; Jim Wezelman, treasurer/secretary; Kathryn Unger, immediate past chair. Nominated as directors… Read more »

Stanford student accuses group of anti-Semitic question

(J. weekly via JTA) — A junior at Stanford University who is running for the student senate says she faced anti-Semitic questioning from a student group whose endorsement she was seeking. During a March 13 interview in front of eight members of the university’s Students of Color Coalition, Molly… Read more »

When El Al flew to Tehran — and 9 other things you may not know about Israel’s past

Golda Meir, shown in January 1964, was not the world's first female prime minister. (Wikimedia Commons)

(JTA) — Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on April 23. In honor of the Jewish state’s 67th birthday, we present, in no particular order, 10 little-known aspects of its history. El Al used to fly to Tehran. Iran and Israel enjoyed mostly good relations up until the Islamic revolution… Read more »

Clinton weighs loyalty to Obama with distinctions on Israel issues

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Hillary Clinton does not appear until 90 seconds into the two-minute video rolling out her campaign. No one among the bright and diverse array of everyday Americans in that video mentions foreign policy. Or Barack Obama. Jewish Democrats say the video released this weekend is emblematic… Read more »

Le Pen picks fight with father amid party’s surging Jewish support

National Front leader Marine Le Pen speaking with reporters following a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, Jan. 9, 2015. (Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

(JTA) — At 27, David Rachline is the youngest senator in the history of France’s Fifth Republic and a rising force within the country’s third largest party. A university dropout and the son of a Jewish Socialist Party activist, Rachline crushed his opponents in the 2014 mayoral elections in… Read more »

Some good news coming out of France’s Jewish community: top-ranked schools

Girls study in a Jewish school in Sarcelles, France, Oct. 3, 2010. (Serge Attal/FLASH90)

.(JTA) —When mainstream French media report about Jewish schools, it’s usually not good news. Sometimes, the reports are about controversies surrounding public funding of such institutions in a country with a strong separation between religion and state. More often, the news is in the context of security around Jewish schools,… Read more »

Competing views of Iran deal highlight challenges ahead

President Barack Obama has said that Iran should be granted sanctions relief only once it begins to implement a nuclear accord. (Chip Semodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Now that the outline for an Iran nuclear agreement has been released — or, more precisely, two outlines, one by Iran, the other by the Obama administration — major gaps have emerged that will need to be resolved ahead of a June 30 deadline for a… Read more »

First in line for Portuguese citizenship: Jewish dreamers and fortune seekers

Congregants praying at the Kadoorie Synagogue in Porto, Portugal, May 2014. (Courtesy of the Jewish community of Porto)

(JTA) — Hunched over a monument for thousands of Jews killed in a 1506 massacre in Lisbon, Danielle Karo (not her real name) felt a swelling in her eyes. To Karo, an American poet and business analyst who is descended from one of Sephardic Jewry’s greatest sages, the massacre… Read more »

U.S. and Israel escalate war of words over Iran

(JTA) – Israel and the Obama administration have stepped up their war of words over the framework agreement that aims to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for a gradual rollback of sanctions. President Barack Obama made his most detailed effort yet to persuade skeptics of the accord reached… Read more »

Obama and Netanyahu dig in for fight over Iran deal

(JTA) — For President Obama, the framework agreement reached Thursday with Iran is a “historic understanding” that does more to roll back Tehran’s nuclear program than any possible alternative and avoids the risk of a destructive war in the Middle East. But to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s… Read more »

Israel 67 fest will cap week of celebrations

A parade led by the University of Arizona marching band kicks off Tucson’s 2013 Israel Festival.

Blue and white Israeli flags waving on the campus of the Tucson Jewish Community Center will soon signal “Tucson Celebrates Israel,” a week of community-wide commemorations and festivities. From April 19 to 26, Tucson community members are invited to participate in events ranging from a 7 p.m. screening of… Read more »

Liberation is focus for Tucson’s Yom HaShoah commemoration

This year’s Yom HaShoah community-wide Holocaust commemoration, exploring the many dimensions of liberation from the perspective of liberators and the liberated, will take place on Sunday, April 19 at 2 p.m. at Congregation Anshei Israel. “May I see the other ladies?” he asked. “Ladies!” my brain repeated. He probably… Read more »

Hadassah lunch will feature chaplain’s talk

Pinchas Zohm

Pinchas Zohav, a Jewish chaplain and counselor, will present “Relationships Thrive Within a We-ality, not a Me-ality” at Hadassah Southern Arizona’s luncheon on Sunday, May 3 at noon at the Lodge on the Desert, 306 N. Alvernon Way. Zohav is the author of “Creating an Extraordinary Relationship: The Art… Read more »