News

Palestinian prisoners who were freed from Israeli jails as part of the exchange deal for Gilad Shalit arriving at the Rafah crossing border in the Gaza Strip, Oct. 18, 2011. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90)

(JTA) — In exchange for Gilad Shalit’s release, Israel is freeing 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners. The first 477, agreed upon with Hamas, were released Tuesday. Most had been serving life sentences for their roles in attacks against Israelis, and they included the organizers or perpetrators of many of the… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on as freed soldier Gilad Shalit is embraced by his father, Noam, at Israel’s Tel Nef Air Force base shortly after Shalit’s release from more than five years of captivity, Oct. 18, 2011. (GPO)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — It seemed that all of Israel breathed a sigh of relief when Gilad Shalit returned to Israel after being transferred from Hamas captivity in Gaza into Egyptian custody. After more than five years of campaigning for Shalit’s release, and seeing little of him other than the… Read more »

Former Duke University basketball star Jon Scheyer, who will be playing pro ball for Maccabi Tel Aviv, at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel following his group aliyah flight, Aug. 30, 2011. (Sasson Tiram)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Call it circumstantial Zionism. There’s been a recent uptick in North American aliyah — of basketball players. More than a dozen North American players have become Israeli citizens and joined professional Israeli basketball teams and second division squads in the past few years. It’s not exactly… Read more »

Mitt Romney is the whack-a-mole front-runner: He consistently leads the Republican pack, but only by beating back one conservative challenger after another. First it was Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, and now a surging Herman Cain. His contradictory status — as a front-runner caught in a constant rearguard action… Read more »

Scene from the 2010 Tucon Meet Yourself Festival (Steven Meckler)

Tucson’s Jewish community will have a significant presence at the Tucson Meet Yourself Festival this weekend. In celebration of the weeklong Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which started Thursday, the Jewish History Museum will house its festival booth in a sukkah (which is apropos, as the word “sukkah” means “booth”)… Read more »

The Jewish Genetic Disease Center of Greater Phoenix will offer genetic screening on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. at the Ina Levine Jewish Community campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road. One in five Jewish individuals of Ashkenazi/Eastern European descent is a carrier for one or more… Read more »

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will hold its third annual “Celebration of Tucson’s Oldest Jewish Residents” on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. The free lunch is a celebration of Jewish Tucsonans ages 90 and older. The lunch will begin with a color guard presentation by Tucson’s Jewish… Read more »

Jewish Family & Children’s Services will hold events celebrating two programs next month. The LEAH — Let’s End Abusive Households program, which serves victims of domestic violence within a Jewish cultural and religious context, will mark its 11th year of service with a free house party at Covenant House… Read more »

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, the Jewish History Museum, in partnership with the Tucson Jewish Community Center, will present a free screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray” on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. at the JCC. The film reveals the… Read more »

Shalom Tucson will hold a free bagel brunch on Sunday, Oct. 23, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, with the theme “One Stop Shopping for the Tucson Jewish Community!” Geared toward newcomers and those interested in connecting to Jewish Tucson, the event will include the… Read more »

Participants embrace prior to Occupy Wall Street's Kol Nidre service across from Zuccotti Park in downtown New York, Oct. 7, 2011. (Danielle Fleischman)

Rachel Feldman originally had meant to attend a traditional synagogue Kol Nidre service. Aimee Weiss hadn’t found a place to daven but was looking for something more interesting than a “big box synagogue.” Come Yom Kippur eve, they and several hundred other Jews found themselves drawn to lower Manhattan,… Read more »

Pope John Paul II visits Rome’s Great Synagogue with Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff in April 1986, the first recorded papal visit to a synagogue.

The Northwest Division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is sponsoring a bus trip to Phoenix on Tuesday, Nov. 29 to attend the exhibit, “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” The 2,000 square foot, multi-media traveling exhibit chronicles the friendship of… Read more »

Robert Morris

Growing up in Tucson during the 1950s, Robert Morris, Jr. learned about the importance of fresh vegetables from a local Jewish peddler. “When I was elementary school age Toby would let me ride on his truck for a few blocks,” says Morris. Today, fresh vegetables have often disappeared from… Read more »

A chair for Gilad Shalit was displayed on the bimah at Temple Emanu-El throughout the High Holidays.

During this year’s High Holiday services, an empty, decorated chair was displayed on the bimah at Temple Emanu-El as a reminder of the ongoing captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas five years ago and has been held in Gaza. The idea for the chair… Read more »

John Peck

­ John Peck, a former senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be among four honorees at the second annual Rainbow Keshet Awards reception later this month. The Rainbow Keshet Awards were created as a joint partnership between the Federation’s LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender)… Read more »

Uri Banai

As Israeli actor and singer/songwriter Uri Banai takes the concert stage at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, Oct. 30, he will take the audience on a journey through the history of his family — one of Israel’s leading entertainment dynasties. Told through songs, video clips, rare photos… Read more »

Noam Shalit, the father of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, reacts at the protest encampment opposite the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem that a deal has been reached for the release of his son, Oct. 11, 2011.

JERUSALEM (JTA) – There was a festive mood among the shoppers running around Emek Refaim Street in Jerusalem’s German Colony doing their last-minute shopping Wednesday before Sukkot, but the mood was about more than just the coming holiday. The news late Tuesday night that captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit… Read more »

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was 19 when he was taken captive in a cross-border raid on the Israel-Gaza line. (Shalit family)

(JTA) — If captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is freed in the prisoner-exchange deal with Hamas that was approved by Israel’s Cabinet in a 26-3 vote late Tuesday night, it will raise two immediate questions:  Which side finally acceded to the other’s demands after years of fruitless negotiations since… Read more »

Newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia attending a rehearsal for a Passover Seder at the absorption center in Mevasseret Zion, April 14, 2011. (Kobl Gideon/Flash 90)

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel (JTA) — It’s a typical Friday morning in Israel’s largest absorption center: A handful of local residents, all immigrants from Ethiopia, mill about examining wares for sale at a small, unofficial souk. Located in Mevasseret Zion, a town just outside Jerusalem, the center has become more… Read more »

Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman explaining his Nobel Prize-winning theory to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Oct. 6, 2011. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Dan Shechtman remembers the day he was kicked out of a research group because of the theory that last week won him the Nobel Prize in chemistry. “Read this book. What you say is impossible,” the group leader at the National Bureau of Standards in Maryland,… Read more »