News

This year’s Israel Festival, an all-out extravaganza celebrating Israel’s 65th anniversary of independence, will be held Sunday, April 21, from noon to 6 p.m., on the Tucson Jewish Community Center/Tucson Hebrew Academy campus. Along with games, food and an Israel-inspired shuk (marketplace), the event will include a performance by… Read more »

Jim Belushi

Most family men spend weekends mowing the lawn or tinkering in the garage. Not Jim Belushi. He’s out almost every weekend, making audiences around the country laugh, performing with his improv troupe, the Chicago Board of Comedy. “Most guys, they golf on the weekend,” said Belushi, 58. “I go… Read more »

Author and journalist Iris Krasnow has written about women’s relationships and personal growth for 30 years. She will speak about “The Power of Passion in a Woman’s Life” at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy “Connections” brunch on March 3. The event will start at 10 a.m.… Read more »

Ann Kirschner, author of the acclaimed “Sala’s Gift” and the upcoming “Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp,” will be the keynote speaker in the Jewish History Museum’s Jewish Storytelling Festival. She will give a free lecture about her new book on Thursday, March… Read more »

Terri Freed, a local Brandeis National Committee volunteer, interacts with children during an after-school literacy enrichment project at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. (Courtesy Terri Freed)

About a year ago, the Tucson chapter of the Brandeis National Committee began discussing ways to bring more parents of young children into their fold. “We were told that the way to reach this age group was through their children,” says Roz Kraft, a co-leader of the Brandeis study… Read more »

Sarah (Sue) Raizes, a resident of The Fountains who will turn 100 in May, rolls dough for hamantaschen at the Saddlebrooke home of her daughter, Sharon Triester. Raizes, whose mother was also a prolific baker, favors traditional fillings such as lekvar (prune) but also “branched out to cherry,” says Triester.

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Despite living in an area under constant rocket fire from Gaza, Israeli Roni Keidar helps Palestinians from Gaza get emergency health care in Israel. Keidar will present “Nurturing Peace on the Gaza Border” on Thursday, March 7 at 6:30 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The free Heartbeat… Read more »

In response to Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) joined with the Union for Reform Judaism and several other Jewish organizations to create one coordinated campaign to raise relief funds for Israel. To date, the JFNA Terror Relief Fund has… Read more »

Operation Elijah, a community effort to ensure that every Jew in Southern Arizona has a seat at a Seder table for Pass­over, is seeking participants, both guest and hosts. If you are new to the community, single, a student, have no family in the area or are alone for… Read more »

Naomi Benaron

An acclaimed first-time novelist, an award-winning mystery writer, an internationally best-selling author and the reporter who wrote “A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State” will highlight the Brandeis National Committee’s 17th Annual Book & Author Events. The committee’s Tucson chapter… Read more »

Irving Olson, 99, with one of his water drop photographs (Renee Claire)

Irving Olson has been capturing photographic images for nearly 90 years. He continues to create pictures in a dark room, just not the “dark room” one typically associates with photo development. In a specially outfitted kitchenette in his Oro Valley home, Olson shuts out all light and digitally captures… Read more »

The grave of Ben Zygier in the main Jewish cemetery in Melbourne, where he was buried on Dec. 22, 2010 -- one week after he apparently hanged himself in Yigal Amir's cell at Ayalon Prison in Ramle. (Steve Yarrow)

SYDNEY (JTA) – As more details have seeped out about the mysterious life and death of Israel’s Prisoner X — identified last week by an Australian TV program as Ben Zygier — the wall of silence surrounding those who knew him has begun to show some cracks. On Tuesday,… Read more »

At Mazel Academy in Brooklyn, Torah scrolls were unrolled to dry after being damaged by the floodwaters from superstorm Sandy, Oct. 31, 2012. (Ben Harris/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — How essential is a house of worship to a neighborhood? That’s the crux of a question now exercising Congress as a bill advances that would provide direct relief to synagogues and churches damaged by superstorm Sandy last October. The bill, which passed the U.S. House of… Read more »

(L-R) Hebrew University students Bar, Yael and Amit comment on the Jan. 22 Israeli election during a night out on Ben Yehuda Street. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Sheila Wilensky was in Israel recently with the American Jewish Press Association After spending a week in Israel one thing is certain: discussion about politics is a national sport – and with more than 30 political parties running in the Jan. 22 election, it’s not surprising. I arrived in… Read more »

BERGENFIELD, N.J. (JTA) — Some years ago I was discussing David Hartman’s work with the renowned Israeli philosopher Aviezer Ravitsky. “Hartman is not a scholar,” Ravitsky said about his colleague in Department of Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University. “He is more than a scholar.” Indeed he was. Rabbi… Read more »

Men blowing shofars to help the unmarried find matches at the ceremony of the grave of Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel in a forest near Safed, Jan. 27, 2013. (Ben Sales/JTA)

AMUKAH, Israel (JTA) — They walked up a tree-lined path through stony hills to a square, white building — men in black hats, beards and frock coats; in T-shirts and jeans; in sweaters, slacks and velvet kippahs. They came by the hundreds — 19-year-olds looking for a match, 40-year-olds… Read more »

Eran, a gay Israeli-Frenchman, left, with son Elai-Gabriel and partner Jean-Louis at their Paris home, January 2013. (Courtesy Eran)

(JTA) — Wide-eyed and smiley, Elay-Gabriel seems utterly unaffected by the French media’s sudden interest in him. A dozen French journalists have visited the 18-month-old in recent months because he is trapped in a sort of legal limbo: He cannot obtain citizenship because the state does not recognize children… Read more »

Nick Muzin, left, consulting with then-Rep. Tim Scott at a forum in Charleston, S.C., hosted by Scott for Republican presidential candidates, August 2011. (Photo by Kay Fekete, courtesy of Nick Muzin)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – On a Saturday night following Shabbat, Nick Muzin arrayed on his dining room table what would turn out to be the winning strategy to elect the first black Republican to Congress from South Carolina in more than a century. The next night at the same table… Read more »

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — Next to the Modern Orthodox Orot Banot girls school in Beit Shemesh, fresh mounds of dirt and a huge hole in the ground indicate the spot where a community center is being built. Orot Banot was at the center of conflict between local haredi… Read more »

Israeli schoolchildren studying at Tel Aviv elementary school, 2010. (Moshe Shai/Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – An in-depth comparative study of Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks is offering some conclusions that already are making some Israeli government officials very unhappy: Palestinian textbooks do not have as much anti-Israel incitement as often portrayed. While this finding might appear to be welcome news for… Read more »