News

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 »

(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 »

(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 »

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 »

(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 »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Jewish leaders expected President Barack Obama to sell them hard on the Iran nuclear deal. Instead, participants in two White House meetings on Monday said he offered a softer pitch on how deeply he cares for Israel and the Jewish people. “He tried to explain he… Read more »

.(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 »

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 »

(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 »

(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 »

(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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Temple Emanu-El will honor congregants Ruth and Stephen Dickstein for their contributions to the synagogue and the Tucson community with a gala dinner on Saturday, May 16. The theme of the event is “Our World Rests on Three Pillars: Learning, Worship, and Acts of Lovingkindness.” Steve and Ruth met… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – In 20 years, there will be more Muslims in North America than Jews, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The report, which was released Thursday, also found that more American Jews are leaving Judaism than non-Jews are joining the Jewish people. According to… Read more »

When Steve Landau started Everyone Runs, Everyone Walks 10 years ago, he hoped to provide runners of all levels with a race that they could finish and feel positive about. “I went to other races and I would hear runners say that they weren’t good enough to finish in… Read more »

Eugene Yelchin

Who knew seven years ago that the Tucson Festival of Books would rank as one of the top celebrations of authors and reading in the United States? Kudos to its founders, Bill and Brenda Viner, members of the Tucson Jewish community, and Bruce Beach, Frank Farias and John Humenik.… Read more »

Known to the world as “The Fonz,” the character he played for a decade on TV’s “Happy Days,” Henry Winkler fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming an actor. He won two Golden Globe Awards, received three Emmy nominations and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fonzie’s… Read more »

(JTA) — Masha Shumatskaya never imagined she would be a war refugee, even after that first night last spring when she dragged the mattress off her bed and into her windowless hallway to protect herself from flying glass in the event a bomb shattered her windows. But after weeks… Read more »