News

Four generations, including Oshrat Barel, director of Tucson’s Weintraub Israel Center (third from right), her grandmother, mother and daughters, celebrate Mimuna in Israel in April 2013.

As a first-generation Israeli of Moroccan descent, Oshrat Barel is bringing a personal touch to “Mimuna! Israeli-Moroccan Nights,” a traditional end-of-Passover celebration the Weintraub Israel Center and Temple Emanu-El will present on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the synagogue. The evening will include live music, Moroccan sweets… Read more »

Rosie Eilat Kahn and Terry Allen Perl, JFSA Woman and Man of the Year

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will honor its 2014 award winners at its annual meeting and awards celebration on Thursday, May 1 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “Feddy’s,” the custom metal and glass awards designed by Lynn Rae Lowe for the Federation, and other… Read more »

Ronnie Sebold

For more than 30 years Ronnie Sebold has been involved with the Tucson Hebrew Academy. She volunteered for 22 years, held two staff positions and her three children attended THA for a total of 19 years straight. Next month THA will honor Sebold at its annual Guardian Appreciation Brunch.… Read more »

Jonathan Ben-Asher

The Tucson Hebrew Academy board of trustees has appointed Jonathan Ben-Asher as interim head of school. To establish a strong transition, Ben-Asher started last week and will assume full leadership of the school in July. Arthur Yavelberg, the cur­rent head of school, is leaving to take a position in… Read more »

Secretary of State John Kerry testifies during aSenate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 8, 2014. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration is sticking with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for now despite a crisis that has threatened to scuttle talks. That’s the message U.S. officials were peddling as a top State Department team was in the region turning over the engine attempting to restart the… Read more »

Yair Lapid says he would leave the coalition if the Israeli government did not "exhaust all options" in its peace negotiations with the Palestinians. (Elad Gutman)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said he supports freezing settlement growth to help jump-start peace negotiations and vowed that his centrist Yesh Atid party would leave Israel’s governing coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were responsible for the collapse of the peace process. In an… Read more »

Manuel Valls, then the interior minister of France, arriving at a state dinner with his wife, Anne Gravoin, Sept. 3, 2013. (Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images)

(JTA) — Even among those who anticipated it, the intensity of anti-Semitic violence that hit France in 2002 was shocking. That year — the height of the second Palestinian intifada — synagogues and schools were torched, previously rare anti-Semitic beatings occurred in Paris and elsewhere, and a new generation… Read more »

A normal to-do list for a 13-year-old probably wouldn’t include a 30-city global headliner musical tour, but Ethan Bortnick is no average Jewish teen. Bortnick’s ability to enthrall audiences with his uncanny musical ear and astonishing talent on the piano has led him to be named as one of… Read more »

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, seen in the courtroom of the District Court in Tel Aviv on March 31, 2014 where he was convicted of taking bribes when he was Jerusalem's mayor. (Ido Erez/Pool/Flash 90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Now we know one thing for sure: Ehud Olmert will never again be prime minister of Israel. Olmert, who led Israel’s government from 2006 to 2009, was convicted Monday morning of taking bribes in the Holyland affair, a scandal involving the illegal construction of high-rise… Read more »

Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard during President Obama's visit to Jerusalem, March 19, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

 WASHINGTON (JTA) — Possibilities raised during efforts to resolve the current crisis over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks include freeing Jonathan Pollard, a partial settlement freeze, guarantees that Palestinians won’t push for international recognition and a mass prisoner release.  Officials close to the talks confirmed to JTA that U.S. Secretary of… Read more »

Demonstrators rally ouside of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby March 25, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — For 20 or so minutes last week, the issue of religious freedom was cast as a struggle between working women and Muslim and Jewish butchers. The pointed questions posed March 25 to the Obama administration’s chief lawyer by three U.S. Supreme Court justices got to the… Read more »

Herschel and Jill Rosenaweig (Chris Mooney)

Jill and Herschel Rosenzweig will be honored next month at the annual Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona Celebration of Caring luncheon. Jill is chair of the JFCS board and Herschel, a psychiatrist, has been a volunteer consultant to JFCS clinicians for more than 20 years. “This… Read more »

Myq Kaplan

Comedian Myq Kaplan has appeared on “The Tonight Show,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and his own Comedy Central Presents special. In 2010 he performed in Tucson in the Last Comic Standing Tour. Next month, he’s bringing his act back to… Read more »

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, March 29, 2014. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — The GOP Jewish faithful descended in force on Sin City, turning out in record numbers and striking a feisty, combative tone at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference. According to organizers, some 400 people attended the gathering, where they were feted with poker and golf… Read more »

(JTA) — The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has pitted Jewish leaders from both countries against each other, touching off a discordant exchange between prominent rabbis on opposite sides of the border. The discord had been brewing since the onset of the protests in Ukraine in November, but it… Read more »

Artifacts filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger found in his grandparents’ Tel Aviv apartment reveal a troubling story.

A special screening of “The Flat” will take place at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m. The documentary, in Hebrew/German/English with subtitles, was released in September 2011 in Israel, where it played continuously for 13 months. At age 98, director Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother… Read more »

Pima Community College has posted its Family Heritage Project website at www.pima.edu/community/the-arts/family-heritage.html. The project was conceived by Todd Poelstra, director of PCC’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in celebration of the musical’s themes of tradition and family. The project includes more than 125 photographs and stories submitted by… Read more »

Can you play a sad, beautiful Hebrew-speaking Israeli in her 30s? The Invisible Theatre will be holding auditions for this female character and two male characters on Sunday, March 30 at 5 p.m. for “Handle With Care,” a romantic comedy by Jason Odell Williams. The play will be part… Read more »

If you are looking for a community Passover Seder to attend this year, Tucson’s got you covered. There are first, second, third and seventh night Seders, several chocolate-based festivities and a chance to start the celebrating more than a week before the holiday officially begins. The 18 events below… Read more »

Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub

Depression may often seem like an epidemic in today’s so­­­ciety. Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, a rabbi and licensed therapist, will deliver the first keynote address, “The Dark Night of the Soul: Some Jewish Perspectives on Depression,” at the Interfaith Community Services “Faith Com­munities and Mental Illness” conference on April… Read more »