Susan Claassen (left) as Edith Head with Joan Rivers in London in 2008. Susan Claassen, actress and managing artistic director of the Invisible Theatre, first met comedian Joan Rivers, who died Sept. 4 at the age of 81, in 2008. “It was a dream come true,” says Claassen. “She had been performing her brilliant show ‘A Work in Progress by a Life… Read more »
Roberta Bracker Growing up in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles, Roberta Bracker, now 76, took being part of a Jewish community for granted. At her high school, all of the kids were Jewish. Bracker’s mother wanted her three daughters to be knowledgeable about music and Judaic studies. She envisioned her… Read more »
Ben Pozez and his wife, Amy, in New Orleans during the Jewish Federations of North America National Young Leadership Conference — TribeFest in March For Ben Pozez, involvement in the Jewish community is practically coded into his DNA. His grandparents, the late Shaol and Evie Pozez, were philanthropic and community leaders from the moment they arrived in Tucson in 1979. His parents, Mitch and Robin, have continued the tradition. So it was only… Read more »
Jack Cole Jack Cole’s path to leadership began when his life was transformed by Jewish Family & Children’s Services. He and his wife, Joan, adopted Davis, their youngest of three adopted children, through the agency. Cole was motivated to give back so that others could benefit from their services as well.… Read more »
Sarah Singer For Sarah Heisler Singer, volunteering in the Tucson Jewish community is all about giving back to those who have come before her, and paying that kindness forward for future generations. The mother of two (Celia, 3, and Levi, 8 months) is an attorney at Gadarian and Cacy, PLLC. She… Read more »
Marian Lupu Marian Lupu, now 89, founded the Pima Council on Aging in 1965. She didn’t retire as executive director until 2006, when she was 82. “If you love what you’re doing, why not?” Lupu asked the AJP. A pioneer in her field, Lupu took one of the first courses ever… Read more »
Adam Goldstein and his wife, Dana, at Young Jewish Tucson’s Roaring 20s-themed Hava Tequila event, Feb. 8. Adam Goldstein doesn’t see how unique his dedication to Tucson’s Jewish community is. Sitting at his kitchen table, he lists committee after committee he’s chaired, co-chaired, participated in or formed. He was the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Young Man of the Year in 2013. He’s been a member… Read more »
David S. Alberts David S. Alberts, M.D., has spent 40 years fighting cancer — and he’s not done yet. At age 74, he’s the full-time Regents Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, Nutritional Science, and Public Health at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. On July 1, 2013, he stepped down after a… Read more »
Amy Beyer (right) at a trade school in Tel Aviv for at-risk youth during a June 2010 Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona women’s mission to Israel. The young man made a pair of earrings that Beyer bought.
If home is where the heart is, then Amy Beyer’s heart beats to the rhythm of Jewish life in Tucson. “The Tucson Jewish community is home for me. It really feels like my extended family,” says Beyer, 36, who began her volunteering “career” at Young Jewish Tucson in 2002.… Read more »
Jewish House members, present and past, clockwise from left, John Yarmuth, Nita Lowey, Jerrold Nadler, Henry Waxman, Brad Sherman and Howard Berman. (house.gov) WASHINGTON (JTA) – From 31 in 2009 to a likely 19 in January, the unofficial Jewish caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives is shrinking fast. Jewish lawmakers have traditionally been the first stop for Jewish lobbyists seeking inroads for their issues, including Israel, preserving the social safety net,… Read more »
A Thai worker picking decorative flower leaves on the Kibbutz Sde Nitzan flower farm, near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, July 20, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90) TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Rosh Hashanah comes later this month, Israel’s Jewish farmers won’t just be celebrating the start of a new year. They’ll be marking a year in which they are prohibited from doing their jobs. Called Shmita, the Torah-mandated, yearlong farming hiatus is felt across Israel,… Read more »
Chloe Valdary called her AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel "life changing." (Lauren Clarice Cross) (JTA) — Growing up in New Orleans, Chloe Valdary kept kosher, studied the Jewish Bible and celebrated Jewish holidays with festive meals. In recent years she has become an outspoken pro-Israel campus activist, contributing regularly to the Jewish press, and speaking and posting widely about the merits of the… Read more »
Iraqi families who fled ISIS fighters near the Iraqi city of Mosul prepare to sleep on the ground near the Khazair temporary displacement camp in a Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq, July 3, 2014. (Spencer Platt/Getty) (JTA) – Between this summer’s war in Gaza and gains by Islamic militants in Iraq, Syria and Libya, there’s still plenty of cause these days for pessimism about the Middle East. But there’s also some good news for Israel. If it wasn’t obvious before, the conflagrations have driven home… Read more »
(JTA) – A prominent rabbi whose outspoken criticism of Israel became too divisive for his congregation announced this week that he is resigning his pulpit. Brant Rosen, rabbi at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Ill., made the announcement Tuesday. Aside from his pulpit position, which he has held… Read more »
University of Central Florida student Melissa Catalanotto (L.), president of the UCF Society of Professional Journalists attends a candlelight vigil held for journalist Steven Sotloff on Sept. 3, 2014 at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. (Gerardo Mora/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) – Don’t bring it up. If it comes up, change the subject. If you can’t change the subject, consider an outright denial. Those are some of the strategies used by Jewish reporters working in the Arab and Muslim Middle East to conceal their religious heritage. The dangers… Read more »
Rafat Ayasha, 20, was one of the approximately 1,500 Arab-Israelis arrested for involvement in protests against Israel's operation in Gaza. (Ben Sales/JTA) BEERSHEBA, Israel (JTA) — Handcuffed to a wooden chair in the middle of the night, Rafat Awaysha still wasn’t sure what crime he had committed. He had announced a demonstration against the war in Gaza in a July 11 Facebook post. Soon afterward, he received a call from the… Read more »
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Barack Obama meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., March 3, 2014. (Andrew Harper-Pool/Getty Images) (JTA) – All is not well in the U.S.-Israel relationship. Somehow, the 50 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas frayed ties between Washington and Jerusalem. How did this happen? In part, the contretemps stems from the divergent ways that the Israeli and U.S. administrations view the Gaza war.… Read more »
Clifford Odets, 1935 Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing,” about a Jewish immigrant family in the Bronx during the Great Depression, is an American masterpiece, says Cynthia Meier, managing director of Tucson’s Rogue Theatre, which will stage the play next month. Originally performed in 1935 by the Group Theatre, directed by Harold Clurman,… Read more »
Melissa Suzanne Klein and Matthew Loren Landau were married on March 23, 2014 at Reflections at the Buttes in Tucson, with Rabbi Thomas Louchheim of Congregation Or Chadash officiating. Melissa is the daughter of Cindy Klein of Grass Lake, Mich., and Steve Klein of Tucson. She received a Bachelor… Read more »
Rabbi Israel Becker of Tucson (left) and former Chief Rabbi of Israel Meir Lau in Tel Aviv in May One winter night in the mid-1960s, when I was a young teenager, the stage was set for a very important meeting in Israel this past May. Unbeknownst to me, the true genesis for this meeting had begun some 80 years ago. On that winter night, a man arrived at… Read more »
