News

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There was common ground on Iran and preserving the social safety net at a meeting between Democratic senators and Jewish community leaders, although subtle tensions on both issues emerged. In the back-and-forth on Capitol Hill, the senators pushed back against the notion that the Obama administration… Read more »

Congressional candidates for the upcoming special CD8 election, Democrat Ron Barber, Republican Jesse Kelly and Green candidate Charlie Manolakis, debate at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on May 23, 2012. (Marty Johnston/TJCC)

Democrat Ron Barber, Republican Jesse Kelly and Green candidate Charlie Manolakis sparred politely at their last debate before a Congressional District 8 special election on June 12. But the three candidates, vying to complete the term of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, clearly delineated their battle lines before an audience… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — By the time he was 26, Jan Karski had been imprisoned by the Soviets, tortured by the Gestapo, and nearly drowned while escaping from a hospital in German-occupied Slovakia. Had he chosen then to end his service in the World War II-era Polish underground, few would… Read more »

James Lago, a street merchant in Juba, South Sudan, with the Israeli flag. (Armin Rosen)

JUBA, South Sudan (JTA) – This city in the world’s newest country is not your typical Arabic-speaking capital. For one thing, most of the city’s inhabitants are Christian. For another, the Israeli flag is ubiquitous here. Miniature Israeli flags hang from car windshields and flutter at roadside stalls, and… Read more »

Rabbi Alona Lisitsa, a Reform rabbi, participated in a religious council in Mevasseret Zion, a town west of Jerusalem, May 2012. (Rabbi Alona Lisitsa Facebook Page)

Non-Orthodox movements continue making inroads in Israel By Mati Wagner JERUSALEM (JTA) — After a Jerusalem-area’s religious council allowed a female Reform rabbi to participate in its proceedings, some advocates of liberal Judaism in the country are hailing their inroads into the Orthodox-dominated religious infrastructure. At the beginning of May,… Read more »

Vice President Joe Biden, left, speaking with Richard Stone, chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, May 21, 2012. (Joshua Roberts)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The differences between the U.S. and Israeli positions on Iran’s nuclear program are about to become very clear, and the Obama administration is reassuring the Jewish community that the divide is not so vast. Administration officials in a meeting Monday with Jewish communal leaders emphasized that… Read more »

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, left, meets with U.S. subcontractor Alan Gross in the Havana prison facility where Gross is being held, March 6, 2012. (Courtesy Appeal of Conscience Foundation)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Advocates for Alan Gross say talk of a trade with the “Cuban Five” is a non-starter, but acknowledge hopes that the Obama administration will consider lower-level concessions for the five Cuban spies in exchange for Cuban considerations for the jailed American. Insiders say that Gross’ advocates… Read more »

(L-R) Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Solar Celebration Co-Chair Scott Arden, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Temple Emanu-El President John Judin and Solar Project Coordinator Steve Tofel at Temple Emanu-El’s Earth Day Solar Celebration April 22.

When Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon and Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild flipped the switch on Temple Emanu-El’s solar energy array during its Earth Day celebration on April 22, it was the culmination of a long process. “It started last summer,” said Cohon, spurred by “a lot more incentives from the… Read more »

Afikomen bag

Photographs can’t do justice to the exquisite stitchery on the table linens, wall hangings and other objects Tucsonan Barbara Esmond has created over the years as a member of The Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework. The group is named for the fruit that is one of the “seven species”… Read more »

Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman with his wife, Mushkie, and daughters Devora (right) and Chana

Chabad of Tucson has appointed Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman to be the first full-time rabbi serving the spiritual, religious and educational needs of Oro Valley Jews. “This is a response to the growing Jewish population in the Northwest,” says Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, regional director of Chabad of Tucson. Zimmerman and… Read more »

Edna Feldman San Miguel

Edna Feldman San Miguel is a sixth generation Tucsonan who has spent more than two decades discovering her Jewish ancestry. In February, the artist and illustrator led a tour for visiting Israeli artists of the San Xavier Mission, where she’d worked as a conservationist, which was followed later that… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum has begun cataloging and archiving artifacts in its permanent collection, thanks to partial funding from the Arizona Humanities Council. Photographs of many of the artifacts may be viewed on the museumís website, jewishhistorymuseum.org (click on the artifacts tab). Among the artifacts are over 40,000 paper… Read more »

The Weintraub Israel Center is seeking host families for two Israelis who will serve as camp counselors at the Tucson Jewish Community Center this summer. Daniel Saban, 21, completed his military service with the Israeli Air Force. He is fluent in English and Spanish, enjoys horseback riding, jazz dance… Read more »

Tucsonan Bill Kugelman and teens from the Western region of the United States lead the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau in Poland on April 19. (Courtesy CJE)

Holocaust survivor Bill Kugelman has been to Birkenau before, once on a previous March of the Living trip in 2006, and as a prisoner of the Nazis. From 1939 to 1945, Kugelman, 88, spent three and a half years in concentration camps, including Birkenau, and two and a half… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Democrats and Republicans are readying for a potentially tough fight in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District in coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties — a potential bellwether race that could end up pitting two prominent local Jewish politicians against one another. Its national import notwithstanding, it’s also… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel’s security technologies were on display as the country hosted two separate international contingents. An Interpol European Regional Conference brought 110 senior law enforcement officers from 49 countries to Tel Aviv, while a homeland security conference drew 37 mayors from two dozen worldwide cities to sites… Read more »

Sen. Richard Lugar, right, accompanies actor George Clooney with Sen. John Kerry for Clooney's testimonial on Sudan issues, in washington, D.C., March 14, 2012. Lugar's defeat in a primary election has pro-Israel activists worried about bipartisanship in Congress. (Medill DC via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Richard Lugar was never considered to be one of Israel’s leading advocates on Capitol Hill. The veteran Republican senator from Indiana, who suffered a primary defeat last week after 35 years in office, is famously his own man. Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations… Read more »

Pilgrims enjoying the Hiloula celebration at the El Ghriba Synagogue in Tunisia, May 2012.

DJERBA, Tunisia (JTA) — Two thousand years ago, a mysterious woman who was unable to talk arrived on this island. Every sick person she touched was healed. Although she died when her wooden house caught fire, her body remained intact and did not burn. That’s a local legend. Another… Read more »

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, left, and Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol engage in The Great Debate: Election 2012 at the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, May 4, 2012. (Ron Sachs/CNP)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Simmering beneath the presidential season’s familiar refrains of support for Israel is a passionate partisan argument over how best to confront Iran and deal with the new Middle East. The Jewish election debate season was launched informally on May 4 at the annual American Jewish Committee… Read more »

An anti-government demonstration in Budapest, December 2011. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The debate over anti-Semitism in Hungary has sharpened since the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma (Gypsy) Jobbik movement entered Parliament two years ago as the country’s third largest party. Seeking scapegoats and channeling paranoia at a time of severe economic, social and political woes, Jobbik’s lawmakers regularly… Read more »