News

TEL AVIV (JTA) — In 2012, Anna Varsanyi was married in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony conducted through Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. Two years later, the Hungarian immigrant has made a life in Israel, settling with her husband in the central city of Modiin and working a desk job in a… Read more »

Yashar Lachayal's Leon Blankrot, in black, handing out aid packages with cold-weather gear to an all-Druze Israeli army unit, Nov. 28, 2014. (Courtesy Yashar Lachayal)

(JTA) — When the season’s first snowstorm descended on Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights a few weeks ago, it didn’t take long before M, a career sergeant in the Israel Defense Forces, received a phone call from Leon Blankrot. “What do you need to keep warm?” asked Blankrot,… Read more »

Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni has joined forces with Isaac Herzog of Labor to form a joint slate in the upcoming Israeli elections. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — In the latest episode of the satirical show “State of the Nation,” the zingers aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weren’t coming from the comedians. Tzipi Livni, who until last month was Netanyahu’s justice minister, called the prime minister a “zero” on the program… Read more »

Members of the Lugansk Jewish community standing in front of their synagogue's Torah ark, Dec. 11, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

LUGANSK, Ukraine (JTA) — In an unheated synagogue with no running water, a dozen Jews are trying to keep warm as temperatures here veer toward the single digits. Not moving too much helps keep the warmth under their thick coats, they say, a technique developed as the group gathered… Read more »

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, Kavana (Andy Ahlstrom)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — A decade ago in Los Angeles, two organizations opened their doors with a call to prayer — or they would have if they had any doors to open. Ikar, led by Rabbi Sharon Brous, and Nashuva, led by Rabbi Naomi Levy, were conceived separately. But… Read more »

Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish men during prayer at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of Chabad in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 24, 2013. (Mendy Hechtman/FLASH90)

NEW YORK (The Jewish Week via JTA) — Just three weeks after terrorists killed four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, a man entered a Brooklyn shul and stabbed a 22-year-old Israeli student. New York police officers fatally shot the 49-year-old assailant, who reportedly shouted “Kill the Jews.” At a… Read more »

This week we have learned that Adam Everett Livvix, a 30-year-old from Texas, was arrested in Israel for allegedly plotting to attack the Dome of the Rock with explosives. Thanks to the collaboration between Israeli security agencies and the FBI, an incident of colossal implications was prevented. The Palestinians,… Read more »

LOD, Israel (JTA) — He says he’s a leader of a “Zionist settlement” movement, but Raz Sofer’s home is no West Bank outpost. Sofer, 25, is the manager of a 100-member student village in this mixed Jewish-Arab city in central Israel. The village, comprised of several apartment complexes, offers… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The stabbing of a rabbinical student at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in New York underscores three things that Jewish security officials have been urging in recent years: Be alert for copycats, cooperate with law enforcement and don’t stay away from shul. American Jewish community officials have been on… Read more »

Ashton Carter, at podium, delivering remarks at the White House after being nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next defense secretary, Dec. 5, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ashton Carter has championed the sale to Israel of state-of-the-art combat aircraft, has aligned himself with Iran hawks and was observed becoming misty-eyed when serenaded by Israeli soldiers. Carter, 60, President Obama’s secretary of defense nominee, has been depicted in the media as the un-Chuck Hagel:… Read more »

New U.S. citizen Tommy Fred Taye, flanked by his wife, Bennetta Grant (left), and daughter, Secret Taye, displays his certificate of naturalization at the Evo A. Deconcini U.S. Courthouse in Tucson on Nov. 21. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Amid kudos and controversy following President Barack Obama’s Nov. 20 directive stalling deportation for up to 5 million undocumented immigrants — allowing many to work legally — Tommy Fred Taye became a U.S. citizen. “I never knew that it was Jewish people who were bringing me here,” Taye, now… Read more »

Ahuvah (Amanda) Gipson, left, and other members of the Bet Januka congregation located at Naval Station Rota in southern Spain, July 30, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

ROTA, Spain (JTA) — While setting up a synagogue at the American naval base where she works, Ahuvah (Amanda) Gipson made something of a bitter-sweet discovery. Rifling through a storage area at the sprawling American-Spanish military complex Naval Station Rota in 2012, Gipson, a former naval outreach professional who… Read more »

Hillary Rodham Clinton, with Haim Saban, making a point at the entertainment mogul's eponymous annual forum, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2014. (Peter Halmagyi)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — From the drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace to nuclear talks with Iran, Hillary Rodham Clinton is endorsing President Obama’s Israel-related positions. Clinton, who was Obama’s secretary of state during his first term, spoke Friday night with Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who through the Brookings Institution… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will conduct a study about the service needs and challenges faced by families in the Jewish community who are caring for a young or adult child with special needs, including vision, movement, thinking, remembering, learning, communicating, hearing, mental health and social relationship disabilities. The… Read more »

Chicago, "The Blues" collage by Andy Burgess

Local artist Andrew Burgess will hold his first open studio event at 5634 E. Linden Street on Sunday, Dec. 14 from 2 to 7:30 p.m. “I grew up in North London in Golders Green, a strong Jewish area. My family celebrated all the Jewish festivals and my mum made… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El will dedicate the Rebecca Katz Family Library and Youth Center on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 4:30 p.m. The facility honors the memory of Katz, who died at age 22 in 2010. Developing the library and establishing a fund for its upkeep and growth has been a labor… Read more »

The Velocity Circus/ Circus School of Arizona will headline Chabad of Tucson’s Cirque du Chanukah celebration on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 5:30 p.m. at Castlehill Country Day School, 3225 N Craycroft Road (The Gregory School entrance). Circus leader Rachel Stegman will be joined by local artists in presenting the event’s… Read more »

Raisa Moroz, JFCS Holocaust survivors program manager (left), talks with Yuliya Genina, a survivor from Ukraine. (Nancy Ben-Asher Ozeri/AJP)

Sitting at the kitchen table of her homey midtown apartment, Yuliya Genina offers cookies and then begins to tell her story. “People don’t know what it means, exactly, war. But we from the former Soviet Union know exactly what is war,” she says. “We are the last generation who… Read more »

Tucsonan Abe Rosin at a rest stop during the Jerusalem to Eilat 2014 Israel Ride

Abe Rosin saw a different side of Israel by bicycling 250 miles from Jerusalem to Eilat, Nov. 5 to 12. The retired engineer and dual American/Israeli citizen made aliyah in 1976 and lived in Israel for 20 years before moving to Tucson in 1999. “I’ve been an athlete all… Read more »

“Listening to Beauty,” watercolor by Marcie Feldman

The Tucson Jewish Com­munity Center Fine Art Gallery will present local artist Marcie Feldman with an exhibit of new watercolors, “Tell Me A Story,” Dec. 12-Jan. 18. A recent transplant to Tucson, Feldman says, “The need to create, to tell a story, comes from a place magical and primal.… Read more »