Congressional Democrats join Bend the Arc to lobby on Capitol Hill for a tax hike on those with annual incomes of $250,000 or more, Dec. 20, 2012. (Courtesy Bend the Arc) WASHINGTON (JTA) — What will be cut? And who will pay? These are the two facets of the “fiscal cliff” debate in Washington, as President Obama and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives wrangle over what mix of cuts and revenue increases should be part of a deficit reduction… Read more »
Sharon Megdal (third from left) toasts “L’Chaim”with desalinated seawater with her colleagues at a desalination plant in Hadera, Israel. University of Arizona Distinguished Outreach Professor Sharon Megdal grew up in Irvington, N.J., where scarcity of water wasn’t a problem. After she settled in Tucson in the late 1970s, her perspective began to change. “I lived here a dozen years before becoming immersed in water,” says Megdal, who started… Read more »
A family reunites outside the New Jersey home of Elise and Hal Hirshberg, parents of Tucsonan Amy Lederman. Front row: (L-R) Sylvia Boris, Lederman, Lynn Pollan, Carol Lewis, Farida Deske, Elise Hirshberg, Myriam Nahmani. Back: Shelley Hirshberg, Bella Bernard, Jeff Hirshberg (Robert D. DeCuir) Since the beginning of time, in every culture, across every continent, one thing connects us all: the deeply human need to convey what is important to us from one generation to the next. The telling and retelling of the stories of our lives is essential to the creation of… Read more »
One of the oldest gowns in the Jewish History Museum exhibit was worn in 1702. The gown was shown in the museum’s first ketubah exhibit and was so fragile it was kept behind glass. It has since been restored at the Costume and Textile Study Center in Norfolk, England, and has been donated to the JHM permanent collection. Three dark-colored wedding gowns will be spotlighted in the Jewish History Museum’s Fifth Annual Ketubah exhibit, which opens Jan. 1, including a Virginia widow’s gown of black satin with a collar trim of white lace. The bride who wore it, Elizabeth Rachel Richardson, was a wealthy confederate widow, says… Read more »
Jeannie OpDyke Smith The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest Division will hold a campaign event on Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m., featuring Jeannie OpDyke Smith, the daughter of Polish rescuer Irene Gut OpDyke, who died in 2003. OpDyke received international recognition for her actions during the Holocaust while working for… Read more »
Dmitri Shostakovich The University of Arizona’s Center for Judaic Studies, School of Music and Center for the Study of American Ideals and Culture will present a free symposium and concert, “The Jewish Experience in Classical Music: Shostakovich and Asia,” on Sunday, Jan. 13. The symposium will look at the influence of… Read more »
Irving Berlin (Culver Pictures) Why has the Broadway musical proven to be such fertile territory for Jewish artists? From Broadway’s golden age, names like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim immediately come to mind. More recently, Broadway babies such as Stephen Schwartz, Marc Shaiman… Read more »
Rabbi David Nesenoff David Nesenoff, who filmed the video exposing the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views of longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, will speak Sunday, Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Young Israel. The lecture, “To Catch an Anti-Semite,” will kick off Chabad of Tucson’s 2013 lecture series. Nesenoff, ordained as… Read more »
Ruth Davis Ruth Davis will go anywhere to talk about the U.S. Constitution. Anywhere that people will listen, says the retired attorney, former public school teacher and counselor. Her next stop to discuss “The U.S. Project: In Our Words” will be Temple Emanu-El on Wednesday, Jan. 9 at 7 p.m., the… Read more »
Emilio Zweig and Noam Shahar in a scene from “The Chosen,” adapted by Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok from Potok’s novel set in Brooklyn in the 1940s. “The Chosen” will be performed at Live Theatre Workshop from Jan. 3-Feb. 9. For more information visit www.livetheatreworkshop.org. 
Zerach Greenfield writes the first letter of Congregation Anshei Israel’s new Torah with the Borin family. Seated (L-R): Anna Katz Lederman, Greenfield and Leon Lederman. Standing: Sara Borin, Tom Borin, Zach Singer and Stacey Singer. At right, Jonah Parnaby and Michael Jurkowitz (in camouflage jacket) look on. (Madeline Friedman) Each Hebrew letter has meaning, Zerach Greenfield, a sofer stam (scribe), said at the kick-off for Congregation Anshei Israel’s new Torah scroll on Dec. 16. That meaning is reflected in the way each letter is written in the Torah. For example, the letter aleph stands for eretz (earth) and… Read more »
Prof. Robert Eisen Congregation Anshei Israel will host Prof. Robert Eisen as its scholar-in-residence for the weekend of Jan. 11-12. Eisen’s work as a professor of religion and Jewish studies at George Washington University focuses on the interpretation of peace and violence in the three Abrahamic faiths. Why is it, asks Eisen,… Read more »
The Women’s Philanthropy Advisory Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is accepting applications for the Seventh Annual Bryna Zehngut Mitzvot Award, recognizing an outstanding Jewish teenage girl. The award, which honors the late Zehngut, will recognize a girl who is currently a high school junior or senior… Read more »
Recently, while browsing through news clips I have collected over the past 30-plus years, I came across a story I wrote when I was a very young reporter for The Jerusalem Post. “Dayan: Israel needs civilians in W. Bank,” the headline said. The story ran at the top left of… Read more »
A political ad for the Shas party portrays the secular Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and until recently Israel's foreign minister, as an Orthodox Jew. "Only a strong Shas will prevent assimilation," the ad says. (Ben Sales) HAIFA (JTA) — The debate was not televised. The participants did not sit on a stage in front of an auditorium under bright lights. Nor were Israel’s major candidates present. Instead, five representatives of Israeli political parties sat at a folding table in a classroom of perhaps 100 students… Read more »
Sen. John Kerry, pictured here addressing troops in Afghanistan in 2011, was nominated for U.S. secretary of state on Dec. 21, 2012. (U.S. Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan) WASHINGTON (JTA) — On a wintry day at a small Iowa shul in November of 2003, John Kerry got all verklempt. The man whose opponents had taken to depicting as aloof and patrician, whose campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination had been all but written off by that… Read more »
RAANANA, Israel (JTA) — From the outside, it looks like any other warehouse: imposing, gray and rectangular, with trucks idling outside and hundreds of crates stacked in the driveway. Inside, the largely empty main room, however, is a vegetable sorting machine and several large boxes of produce: carrots, pomelos… Read more »
Cranes at the Hula Valley in late autumn. (Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency) Some of the lesser known ‘tourists’ that visit Israel by the millions each year, are the 300 species of birds, which use Israel as a rest-stop as they migrate en route from Africa, Asia and Europe. For international bird watchers attending the Second International Hula Valley Bird Festival in… Read more »
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis will serve as Britain's next chief rabbi. (John Rifkin) LONDON (JTA) — Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has big shoes to fill. Appointed this week as the 11th British chief rabbi, he will succeed Jonathan Sacks, an internationally renowned author and public intellectual who speaks frequently on moral, philosophical and theological affairs. The widespread assumption among British Jews has long… Read more »
Anna Greenberg lights the Chanukah candles at the service of healing in her honor Dec. 5. (L-R) Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Wendy Weise Cohon, Anna, Bruce Greenberg, Burney Starks (behind Bruce), Aaron Greenberg, Alayne Greenberg, Joree Sowards, Tzadik Rosenberg-Greenberg (MartyJohnston/TJCC) “Anna-tude” – it’s a new word in the Tucson lexicon to describe the shining spirit of Anna Greenberg, 27, who has been fighting cancer with enormous courage and a wry sense of humor for more than a year. Anna was diagnosed with cancer in October 2011 after her dramatic… Read more »
