Rabbi Dr. Scott Saulson
Rabbi Scott Saulson, Ph.D., joined Temple Emanu-El this month as interim rabbi. With an extensive background in pastoral counseling and mediation, Saulson specializes in helping congregations in transition. This is his eighth interim rabbi position. Along with fulfilling typical rabbinic duties for a year, such as officiating at services… Read more »
Shari Gootter, left, and Tejpal are coauthors of ‘Way to Be: 40 Insights and Transformative Practices in the Heart of Being.’ (Courtesy Shari Gootter)
With all the chaos and uncertainty in the outside world in recent months, many people are looking for ways to stabilize their inner lives. Tucson-based authors Shari Gootter, MA, LPC, CRC, and Tejpal, MA, MBA, have written a book, “Way to Be: 40 Insights and Transformative Practices in the… Read more »
Rabbi Dr. Howard Schwartz
Judaism has always been a large part of Howard Schwartz’s life, but only after moving to Tucson did he truly fall into his role as a teacher of Jewish beliefs. The doctor turned rabbi uses his time post-retirement volunteering at different synagogues to give lectures on Judaism, and has… Read more »
Esther Jungreis speaks during the 2012 National Prayer Breakfast at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, Feb. 14, 2012. (Photo: U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Tristin English via Wikimedia Commons)
For the past 16 years, hundreds of women have spent summer hours reading books selected by Esther Becker of the Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies in advance of her annual book brunch. Her selections have included novels, mysteries, biographies, essays, autobiographies, and prayer. Although the format will be different,… Read more »
Chelsea Gutierrez An anti-Semitic sticker was posted downtown on Tucson’s Fourth Avenue recently, and more appeared on the University of Arizona campus. “The stickers appear to be the same type that surfaced here in Tucson approximately one year ago,” says Paul Patterson, Jewish community security director (see www.azjewishpost.com/2019/tucson-is-not-immune-to-hate-messaging-fliers-show). There also is… Read more »
synagogues and Jewish agencies offer an assortment of virtual engagement programs for long summer days spent sheltering from the heat and the coronavirus. The list below includes some items that have crossed our desks recently but it is by no means exhaustive; check with other local organizations for additional… Read more »
Carl Reiner’s ‘Dispatches from Quarantine’ interview was recorded in
late May.
Comedy icon Carl Reiner left a message for these trying times through ‘Dispatches from Quarantine,” an online video series. His interview, conducted in May, was the last from the comic legend behind TV’s “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” who died June 29 at age 98. Presented by Reboot, a… Read more »
From left: Jackie Robinson in 1945 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Hank Greenberg (Getty Images); Zach Banner (Katharine Lotze/Getty Images); and DeSean Jackson (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner posted a video late last week in response to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic screed against Jews. After describing his horror at the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Banner preached that as important as the work of Black… Read more »
This year, essential school supplies will include face masks and hand sanitizer to help guard against COVID-19. (Photo: Tatevik Bagdasaryan/Shutterstock.com)
Contingency plans are the order of the day as Tucson’s synagogue religious schools and Tucson Hebrew Academy look ahead to the first day of school next month. On June 29, Gov. Doug Ducey announced that the target date for Arizona schools to open with in-person instruction had been pushed… Read more »
Eight-year-old Arlo Foote of Tucson invites kids to join him in a Lego and Hebrew club on Zoom.
When Arlo Foote read the Arizona Jewish Post’s May 1 article, “Tucson Hebrew Academy makes fast switch to online learning,” it inspired the 8-year-old to wonder what other kids have been doing with their free time during the COVID-19 quarantine — and to create a Zoom club for Lego… Read more »
Gianna Lampert, left, and Ruth Cooper
Gianna Lampert, a teen participant in the Tracing Roots program that brings together students from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Hebrew High and residents at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, is the 2020 winner of the Better 2 Write contest sponsored by the Legacy Heritage Better Together… Read more »
Barbara Russek With great trepidation I headed to the Tucson International Airport on June 8. Several friends had told me they would not even set foot on a plane during the COVID-19 crisis and here I was going forward on a trip that would take me through three different airports within… Read more »
Arizona native Chanel Bragg has been named associate artistic director at Arizona Theatre Company. A graduate of Northern Arizona University and Cortez High School, Bragg is a producer, director, teaching artist, and performer, and a passionate advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion. Bragg holds a Master of Arts degree… Read more »
Kenneth Marcus (JTA) — A top-ranking official at the U.S. Education Department is returning to the organization he started eight years ago to combat anti-Semitism at colleges and universities. Kenneth Marcus will become chairman of the board of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law after two years… Read more »
(JTA) — The Southern Poverty Law Center has added White House adviser Stephen Miller to its Extremist Files, a database of extremists that includes former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan. Miller, who helps design much of the administration’s immigration policy, was… Read more »
Surgeons doing knee surgery at Hadassah hospital's Mount Scopus campus use the ROSA robot, made possible with a grant from USAID's Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. (Gurion Rivkin)
JERUSALEM — Orthopedic surgeons at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus recently welcomed a newcomer to their team. She’s incredibly efficient, never needs a coffee break, doesn’t complain about the long hours and isn’t worried about catching COVID-19. That’s because she’s a robot. Called ROSA, short for Robotic… Read more »
Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez, right, met with the head of the AMIA Jewish group and the father of an AMIA bombing victim in Buenos Aires, July 14, 2020. (Courtesy of AMIA)
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — In the days before the 26th anniversary of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish center bombing that killed 85 in 1994, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez has conveyed to Jewish leaders his desire to end the decades-long legal case that followed the attack, which has been complicated… Read more »
(JTA) — Synagogues in California have been shut down again following statewide restrictions announced by the governor with cases of the coronavirus there continuing to rise. The order issued Monday closes all indoor dining, bars, zoos and museums throughout the state, as well as gyms, houses of worship, hair… Read more »
(JTA) — Two Reform synagogues in Sarasota, Florida, were vandalized with swastikas and other unspecified hateful messages. The incidents at Temple Sinai and Temple Emanu-El reportedly took place early on Wednesday morning, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. The Temple Sinai campus was extensively vandalized, including many walls made of porous… Read more »
Zach Banner after a game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Fla., Sept. 24, 2018. (Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — Just two days after Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson posted an anti-Semitic message he attributed to Adolf Hitler on social media, Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner came to the defense of the Jewish community. In a series of tweets and videos,… Read more »
