News

President Barack Obama, left, talking with Chief of Staff Jack Lew, center, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as they walk on the colonnade of the White House, shortly before the president announced Lew as hs nominee to replace Geithner as treasury secretary, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama believes prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace are “bleak,” but he still will urge both sides to avoid unilateral actions that might further damage a process he hopes will be back on track within a year. That was the message Obama delivered Thursday in a meeting… Read more »

Ipara Bolan (right) and Georgia Trester take part in an eyes-closed get-to-know-you exercise at the University of Arizona Hillel’s Avi Shabbat on Feb. 8. (Courtesy UA Hillel Foundation)

If a college student told you that as a child she studied violin with a strict Russian Jewish teacher, would you think that she’s Jewish … or Muslim? Participants at the University of Arizona’s second interfaith Avi Shabbat were surprised to discover that this childhood experience belonged to Ipara… Read more »

Israel Defense Forces soldiers visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum, as part of their training. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Sheila Wilensky was in Israel recently with the American Jewish Press Association. The new Yad Vashem museum, run by The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was packed when I visited on Jan. 14. I had toured the museum, which was established in 1953, with my daughter 20 years… Read more »

Dylan J. Williams, J Street director of government affairs (left) and Tucsonan Larry Gellman, J Street National Advisory Committee member, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, Feb 13 (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Israel’s current situation vis-a-vis the West Bank is untenable, and it’s even worse with Gaza, making movement toward a two-state solution ever more urgent. That was the message Dylan J. Williams, J Street’s director of government affairs, delivered in Tucson on Feb. 13 at a luncheon sponsored by Jewish… Read more »

Stained glass window representing Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, by Ami Shamir

Perach Yisroel, the Flower of Israel Mikveh at Congregation Chofetz Chayim, will dedicate new stained glass windows and unveil a metal logo sculpture on Sunday, March 17. “Since its opening in 2004, the Perach Yisroel Mikveh has proudly served all members of the Tucson Jewish community … regardless of… Read more »

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, shaking hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Venezuelan capital of Caracus, Nov. 27, 2009. (Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images)

(JTA) — For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran. There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search… Read more »

Manuel Trajtenberg, the chairman of the Council for Higher Education in Israel, will present a plan aimed at better integrating Israel's Arab minority into universities. (Council for Higher Education in Israel)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Unlike most economists, Manuel Trajtenberg does not spend his days cloistered in university classrooms and think tanks far from the public eye. The Tel Aviv University professor gained attention in 2011, in the aftermath of massive social protests that gripped Israel, when he led a… Read more »

Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has been a prime figure in negotiations to avoid the sequester, which pro-Israel advocates worry could imperil the security of the Jewish state. (Courtesy AIPAC)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Imminent threats threading through the rhetoric at AIPAC conferences is hardly new, but this year’s alarm raising had a unique wrinkle: In addition to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, the other danger targeted by the pro-Israel lobby was domestic — sequestration. The message hammered home… Read more »

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid hugging Jewish Home party chief Naftali Bennett following Lapid's first speech at the Knesset, Feb. 11, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90.JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When he emerged bruised but unbeaten following the Jan. 22 elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced some tough choices. Should he aim for a narrow, right-wing governing coalition comprised of haredi Orthodox, nationalist and religious Zionist parties that would give him a narrow majority… Read more »

Palestinian protesters throwing stones outside Israel's Ofer military prison in the West Bank, near Ramallah, Feb. 25, 2013. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinians were marching, rocks were flying, tires were burning and prisoners were hunger-striking. Prompted by accusations that Israel was responsible for the death of a Palestinian detainee while in an Israeli prison, West Bank Palestinians erupted last month in a wave of riots on a scale… Read more »

The Heron TP, Israel Aerospace Industries' largest drone, weighs five tons and can fly 50 consecutive hours. (Ben Sales/JTA)

AIRPORT CITY, Israel (JTA) — An Israeli soldier sits in an office chair in an air-conditioned metal chamber staring at two screens side by side. One shows a map with a moving dot. The other displays a video feed. Next to the soldier are three more identical stations. The… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shown addressing the AIPAC policy conference in Washington in March 2012, will present a video message to this year's confab. (Robert J. Saferstein)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – This week’s annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington may be as notable for what — and who — is missing as what’s planned. For the first time in at least seven years, neither the U.S. president nor the Israeli prime minister will attend. In addition, for… Read more »

Israeli singer Rami Feinstein singing "Something Amazing," about his mall-working experience. (YouTube)

NEW YORK (JTA) — In 2006, aspiring Israeli singer Rami Feinstein faced a big-time dilemma: Would he sign a 19-year contract with a top talent agent and relinquish 45 percent of his future profits, or take a job selling cosmetics at an American shopping mall? Feinstein took the job… Read more »

Demonstrators protesting racism in Hungary in Budapest, December 2012. (Bela B. Molnar)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — Three years ago, Fanni moved to Vienna from her native Hungary with her husband. Now she is pregnant. Though the couple would prefer to raise their child near their Jewish families in Budapest, rising nationalism and an economic recession are leading them to stay in Austria.… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting soldiers in the Golan Heights near the Israeli-Syrian border, Jan. 13, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/Flash 90/JTA)

KATZRIN, Israel (JTA) — For nearly 40 years, Israel’s border with Syria has been, perhaps improbably, its quietest. The two countries technically have been in a state of war since the cease-fire that ended the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But over the past four decades, while Israel’s other borders… Read more »

Israel started construction on the new fence separating the Golan Heights from Syria, seen in front of the old one, in response to possible consequences from the Syrian civil war. (Ben Sales/JTA)

ALONEI HABASHAN, Israel (JTA) — A fence made of chain links and rusted barbed wire once was enough to separate the Golan Heights from Syria. That’s no longer the case. A few feet away from what one area resident called a “cattle fence” — one easy to jump if… Read more »

Pope Benedict XVI greets Esther Sternberg, M.D., of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, at the 27th International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers in November 2012. (Photo courtesy of Fotografia Felici)

When Tucsonan Esther Sternberg, M.D., gave a talk on healing spaces in Lourdes, France, in June, little did she suspect it would lead to a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI or the opportunity to speak at the Vatican. Sternberg, director of research for the University of Arizona Center for… Read more »

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 »