Rabbi Thomas Louchheim Rabbi Thomas Louchheim of Congregation Or Chadash was one of the 10 Tucson clergy who took part in an interfaith “Why Marriage Matters Arizona” event, voicing support for the freedom for all couples to be able to marry, on Tuesday, May 27 at 6 p.m. at Casas Adobes Congregational… Read more »
BRUSSELS (JTA) — The cold determination with which the shooter at Belgium’s Jewish museum murdered four people shocked many Belgians, but local Jewish leaders have long anticipated the possibility of such an attack on their community. The shooter who entered the Jewish Museum of Belgium on Saturday in central… Read more »
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — At an empty Chabad school near the banks of the Dnieper River here in Ukraine’s capital city, six uniformed Jews with handguns and bulletproof vests are practicing urban warfare. Leading the training last week is a brawny man who at irregular intervals barks Hebrew-language commands… Read more »
Pope Francis touches the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank on his way to celebrate a mass in Manger Square in Bethlehem, May 25, 2014. (Nour Shamaly/POOL/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Perhaps the most lasting image from Pope Francis’ trip to Israel and the West Bank will be the pontiff praying, eyes closed, with his head against a wall. It wasn’t the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site and a necessary stop for visiting dignitaries. It… Read more »
Adults and children participating in a silent vigil outside the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels for the four victims of a shooting there by an unidentified gunman, May 25, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) BRUSSELS (JTA) — Hunched over a small island of memorial candles for the victims of the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Paul Ambach is lost in thought. “Once again, Jewish blood in Belgium, which is no longer Belgium,” said Ambach, a well-known Jewish musician from Antwerp, as… Read more »
The March of the Living Western region delegation approaches the memorial at the Majdanek concentration camp. In front, (L-R): Hallie Goldstein, Kelsey Luria and Gabby Levy (Tucson Hebrew High Facebook page) The beauty of the Polish countryside was eerie, says Cameron Busby, one of 12 Tucson teens to participate in this year’s March of the Living, an annual education program that unites Jewish teens worldwide in Poland on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to march between the Auschwitz and Birkenau… Read more »
One small step by Israelis could become a giant leap for the State of Israel. At a Tel Aviv University laboratory, a team of 20 Israelis is building a spacecraft they believe will make Israel only the fourth country — after the United States, Russia and China — to… Read more »
Jon Ben-Asher, Tucson Hebrew Academy’s new interim head of school, is off and running. He attended THA in the late 1970s and early ’80s and recalls being assigned to watch Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” as homework. “Cosmos” is back on TV, modernized and even more spectacular. So is Ben-Asher’s view… Read more »
Ernesto Portillo, Jr., left, a columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, facilitates a panel discussion at the Jewish Community Relations Council's private screening of "The Dream is Now" on May 13 at the Loft Cinema. “The Dream is Now,” a documentary depicting the plight of young undocumented immigrants, was shown at a private screening for members of the Jewish and Latino communities on May 13 at the Loft Cinema. Following the film, four undocumented college students told their stories about living in America —… Read more »
University of Arizona graduate student Molly Keenan at Masada during her Birthright Israel trip in January. (Courtesy Molly Keenan) Molly Keenan smiles and shakes her head with disbelief at all the work that went into hosting her first Passover Seder last month, which she did with encouragement from NEXT, Birthright Israel’s program for alumni of the free Israel trip. “I’m a procrastinator, and I was kicking myself two… Read more »
Marilyn Heins, M.D. Summer activities? The good news is that parents and children have lots of choices: day camp, sleepaway camp, summer school, sports teams, music lessons, family vacations, visits from relatives, unaccompanied plane travel for children to visit relatives. The bad news is many choices means much logistical planning. Before you… Read more »
Elderly Ukrainians receive food packages at the Hesed social welfare center in Donetsk run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. (Courtesy JDC) (JTA) — At the end of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the classic musical celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Tevye and his family flee their village of Anatevka for a better and safer life. In reality, however, not everybody left. Today, several hundred thousand Jews still live in Ukraine,… Read more »
Equestrian show jumper and Olympic hopeful Danielle Goldstein practicing her routine in central Israel, May 12, 2014. (Ben Sales) YAGUR, Israel (JTA) — The crowd was sparse and admission was free. Pop music from 10 years ago blared from loudspeakers. A few families sat on bleachers near the athletes, who hopped over a low fence when it was time to compete. The Israeli Equestrian Championships wasn’t the most… Read more »
Shooters shoot. (R to L: Les Hajnal, Lea Rosenfeld, Doris Wise Montrose, etc.)
(Anthony Weiss/JTA) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It’s a sunny morning in Southern California and Lea Rosenfeld, a soft-spoken, bespectacled woman who looks like a Jewish grandmother, squares her feet, faces her target and squeezes off five shots with a handgun. All of them miss. “I never even held a gun in… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks with Pope Francis during their meeting at the Vatican, Dec. 2, 2013. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash90) ROME (JTA) – With a rabbi and a Muslim sheik as his travel companions, Pope Francis is heading to the Middle East with what he hopes will be a powerful message of interfaith respect. It will be the first time that leaders of other faiths are part of an… Read more »
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking at the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum, May 14, 2014. (Ronald Sachs) WASHINGTON (JTA) – A month before her foreign policy autobiography, “Hard Choices,” hits the bookstores, Hillary Rodham Clinton made an easy choice: She pitched her diplomatic credentials to a friendly Jewish audience. Clinton’s speech to the American Jewish Committee on May 14 was meant to send a signal to… Read more »
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras speaks in a synagogue in Thessaloniki in March 2013, the first visit by a sitting prime minister to a Greek shul in more than a century. (Gavin Rabinowitz) ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — When the Anti-Defamation League published its global anti-Semitism survey last week, Greece, the cradle of democracy, captured the ignominious title of most anti-Semitic country in Europe. With 69 percent of Greeks espousing anti-Semitic views, according to the survey, Greece was on par with Saudi Arabia,… Read more »
Some 250 supporters of the far-right National Democratic Party marching on May Day in Rostock, Germany, are accompanied by riot police, May 1, 2014. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) BERLIN (JTA) — Armed with ropes and long sticks, a group of teens in Germany’s capital headed out under the cover of night. Their goal: to tear down from lampposts the campaign posters of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. The young people are one small posse among those who… Read more »
Months after outbreak of anti-government protests, and days before Ukrainians head to the polls to elect a new president, central Kiev still has the feel of a war zone. (Cnaan Liphshiz) KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — Even in normal times, Kiev can feel like a city perpetually under construction. Potholes are “fixed” with flimsy coverings, ramshackle scaffolding clings precariously to the sides of buildings, and tangles of electric wires seem ever ready to combust. But since the outbreak of anti-government protests… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — The last time New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at a venue attended by Sheldon Adelson, he alienated the Republican Party mega-donor and other hawkish pro-Israel Jews by referring to the West Bank as “the occupied territories.” Sunday night at a gala awards program in… Read more »
