Young people sit a cafe table set up amid the snow on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road on Dec. 15, 2013. (Hadas Parush/Flash 90) Only about 20 minutes outside of the city did it begin to appear — patches of white on the rough hills abutting the road, sprinklings of flakes on the pines. By the time our bus reached Mevasseret Tzion, near Jerusalem, the snow was blanketing the ground, building up in… Read more »
The city of Rahat is the largest Bedouin settlement in Israel. (Yossi Zamir/Flash 90) WADI AL-NAAM, Israel (JTA) – In this unofficial Bedouin town of 14,000 not far from Beersheva in the Negev Desert, families live in clusters of shanties with intermittent electricity provided by generators or solar panels. A communal structure has soft plastic walls and dirt floors, with a small pit… Read more »
Ariel Kandel, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel's France operations, at his Paris office on Dec. 11, 2013. (Cnaan Liphshiz) PARIS (JTA) — In an overcrowded conference room in the heart of Paris’ 14th arrondissement, a hundred French Jews are losing their patience. They have gathered at the Paris office of the Jewish Agency for Israel for a lecture on immigrating to Israel, but the agency staff is running… Read more »
The board at the Hillel chapter of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania is openly rejecting quidelines on Israel debate adopted by the international umbrella group. (Wikicommons) NEW YORK (JTA) — With an estimated Jewish population of 275 undergraduates, the Quaker-founded Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia is home to one of the smaller Hillel chapters in the country. But that hasn’t stopped student activists at the small suburban school from picking a fight of potentially epic proportions with… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry holding a joint news conference in Jerusalem, Dec. 5, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/FLASH90) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Amid simmering tensions over Iran policy, the Obama and Netanyahu governments appear to have quietly forged common ground in recent weeks on Israeli-Palestinian talks, with the United States accepting that a possible “framework” agreement might not address every outstanding issue in the negotiations. Such an agreement,… Read more »
Demonstrators gathered on Nov. 30, 2013 in the southern Israeli town of Hura during a protest against the government's plan to resettle some 30,000 Bedouin residents of the Negev. (David Buimovitch/Flash 90) (JTA) — They can’t agree on the project’s goal. They can’t agree on who supports it. They can’t even agree on its name. But when it comes to the Israeli government’s plan to relocate 30,000 Negev Bedouin, representatives and allies of the Bedouin community agree with the right wing… Read more »
Protesters against the Ukrainian government cheering a speaker in Kiev's Independence Square, Dec. 5, 2013. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) (JTA) — On the last evening in November, at least 31 protesters were taken into custody and dozens treated for injuries following a violent confrontation with Ukrainian police in Kiev’s Independence Square. But that wasn’t enough to intimidate the crowds who have occupied the main square of the capital… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to the deal between Iran and major powers, Israel and the pro-Israel community are retreating from a strategy of confrontation and working instead to influence the contours of a final agreement. In a conference call last week, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For 90 minutes in a packed hotel conference room in the heart of Washington, Israel was the colonizer, the settler state, the perpetuator of apartheid. As the annual meeting this weekend of the American Studies Association demonstrated, participants who favored boycotting Israeli universities far outnumbered those opposed.… Read more »
Crown Heights resident Pinchas Woolstone says the neighborhood is 'light years away" from the era of the riots. (Julie Wiener) NEW YORK (JTA) — Chava, a student at a Chabad seminary, has lived in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn for six years, but it’s only in the past few days that she started carrying pepper spray in her handbag. Her younger brother gave her the deterrent after news… Read more »
Renee Bailey When Renee Bailey was 10 years old her mother, a registered nurse, thought she was a picky eater. “My mom saw me in a play, I think it was Yankee Doodle Dandy, and I was way shorter than the other kids,” recalls Bailey, now 36. “We went to an… Read more »
Itzik Becher Itzik Becher, the new development director of UApresents, started singing in Israel when he was 17. He’s been singing about the arts ever since. After arriving at the University of Arizona in January, Becher discovered that “in Tucson people look at the arts like any other necessity. The arts… Read more »
The late philanthropist Mendel Kaplan showing late South African President Nelson Mandela around the South African Jewish Museum, which was opened by Mandela in 2000. (Shawn Benjamin/Ark Images) CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) — In the early 1940s, at a time when it was virtually impossible for a South African of color to secure a professional apprenticeship, the Jewish law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman gave a young black man a job as a clerk. It was… Read more »
Emily and Benjamin Ellentuck enjoy a craft project during the Global Day of Jewish Learning. (Renee Claire) As part of the Global Day of Jewish Learning on Sunday, Nov. 17, the PJ Library and the Tucson Jewish Community Center cosponsored an afternoon of young children’s events at the JCC. The focus was Shabbat family practice and there were plenty of hands-on activities to capture the attention… Read more »
Yael Schwob Yael Schwob, 21, of Rekhasim, Israel, suffers from arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a rare congenital disease that can cause severe bleeding episodes. The condition is difficult to treat and can be fatal. Yael’s AVM has manifested on her face, disfiguring her extensively. She and her father, Rabbi Yaakov Schwob, are… Read more »
Sarah Ashford The following is taken from a talk Sarah L. Ashford gave in September when she accepted the Daniel Moreno Recovery Award from the Aurora Foundation on behalf of her family. Her parents, Daniel Ashford and Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford, are both natives of Nogales, Ariz. Sarah is a descendant of… Read more »
Susan and Alan Kendal at milepost marker in the Golan Heights In November, 33 Tucsonans traveled to Israel under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona — some for the first time, some for the 35th time, and everything in between. The mission was personalized to accommodate these varying degrees of experience, with optional side trips to Petra… Read more »
Eileen Warshaw Eileen Warshaw is stepping down at the end of January as executive director of the Jewish History Museum, an institution she helped create. “I am retiring because a decade of commitment here has laid a great foundation. Now it’s time for new energy, new thoughts, new programming to come… Read more »
Building on the success of the Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition, a program founded almost 10 years ago by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the office of U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, the JCRC is seeking new ways to strengthen relations between the Jewish… Read more »
Deborah Dash Moore The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’ Shaol and Louis Pozez Memorial Lectureship Series will present “Walkers in the City: Young Jewish Women with Cameras” with Deborah Dash Moore on Monday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Beginning in the 1930s, Jewish photographers established a… Read more »
