Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. (Matt Yohe via CC) WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — Social networking sites began buzzing immediately after word spread of the death of Apple Inc. visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday evening. Rabbis took time out of their busy preparations for Yom Kippur to halt their sermon writing and post personal reflections on what the contributions of… Read more »
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee seen here answering questions from reporters on Sept. 13, 2011, is withholding funding from the Palestinians because of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push in the United Nartions. (Courtesy Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans) WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the Palestinians don’t pull back from their statehood push, congressional cuts in aid are inevitable, U.S. lawmakers say. Just how comprehensive such cuts will be, however, could end up depending on Israel’s stance on the issue. Lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staffers told JTA that hundreds… Read more »
The Arizona Jewish Post has relied on the support of the local business community since our first edition was printed in September 1946. Fashions may have changed — our ads no longer feature chenille bedspreads and silver cocktail shakers — but it still makes good sense to shop local.… Read more »
On a muggy monsoon morning early in July, I drove to my friend Susan Silverman’s house to test ride her electric bike. She had spoken so enthusiastically about it and I’d admired it when she rode it to events. I’d decided to spend part of my vacation researching… Read more »
A performance by the Jerusalem String Quartet will open the season for Arizona Friends of Chamber Music on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Leo Rich Theater. The Jerusalem Quartet has garnered acclaim for its recordings of the quartets of Shostakovich. The concert will feature Shostakovich’s Sixth… Read more »
The Third Annual Multi-Faith Pride Worship Service, “Just Be —Emerging Out of the Wilderness,” cosponsored by the Wingspan Multi-Faith Working Group and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s LGBT Jewish Inclusion Project, will be held Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 7 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 915 E. 4th… Read more »
(L-R) Dakota Kordsiemon, Daniel Goldstein, Shawn Spitzer and Austen Berens paint a mural at a school in Kiryat Shmona during the “Day of Caring, Day of Sharing.” (Courtesy TJCC) Each year for the past 15 years, the Tucson Jewish Community Center has taken a delegation of young athletes to the JCC Maccabi Games in another U.S. city: Omaha, or Boca Raton, or Dallas. In 2000, Tucson hosted the games, which brought excitement and nachas (pride) to our city… Read more »
Nicole Siegel, a University of Arizona sophomore from Columbia, Md., wears a t-shirt displaying the names of 20 campuses taking part in Hillel’s “Talk Israel: Join the Conversation” initiative. (Sheila Wilensky) The University of Arizona Mall is often peppered with tents promoting various causes, but on Sept. 21 the discussion inside the UA Hillel Foundation’s “Talk Israel: Join the Conversation” tent was reminiscent of college teach-ins during the 1960s. Around 30 students and faculty were standing around or sitting on… Read more »
The Klezmer fusion band Butterfly Effect entertaining Israelis on Herzl tour at Fogashaz, one of the "ruin pubs" of Budapest's Jewish quarter. (Alex Weisler) BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — Sometimes it takes a Zionist organization to show Israeli Jews that Israel isn’t the only place where Jews have a future. At least that’s what the World Zionist Organization and Habonim Dror, the labor Zionist youth organization, managed to do with a whirlwind trip this… Read more »
A member of the Muslim Student Union disrupts a February 2010 speech by Michael Oren at the University of California, Irvine. (StandWithUs) (JTA) — The misdemeanor convictions of 10 California college students for disrupting a speech by Israel’s ambassador to the United States is already leading partisans of both sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to predict changes in the way the fight over the issue plays out on campus. “When you… Read more »
A CARLEBACH HOMECOMING: A new synagogue in Chabad’s Brooklyn stronghold is trying to channel some of the spirit of the late Jewish music path-breaker Shlomo Carlebach — himself a former Chabad emissary who wandered off in more New Age-y directions. The basement shul — which its rabbi says is… Read more »
PHILADELPHIA (Jewish Exponent) — By now, the whole world knows the name and face of Joshua Fattal, the 29-year-old Elkins Park, Pa., native who spent 26 months in an Iranian prison before being reunited with his family last week in Oman and arriving back on U.S. soil on Sunday.… Read more »
Daniel Libeskind's design for the national Museum of the Jewish People (Courtesy Ori Soltes) WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — Washington needs a major national museum of the Jewish people — at least that’s what a group of local heavy hitters and international Jewish celebrities believes. They have been trying for more than five years to get that museum built, and a decision to… Read more »
Palestinians in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, faced off against Israeli soldiers during their weekly protest on the same day that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a bid for Palestinian statehood to the United Nations, Sept. 23, 2011. (Isasm Rimawi/Flash 90/JTA) RAMALLAH, West Bank (JTA) — A larger-than-life sky-blue chair with the word “Palestine” dominates the center of Manara Square in downtown Ramallah. The Palestinian flag, a national symbol once banned by Israel, flies everywhere. Long banners of flags crisscross the square, huge flags decorate the sides of buildings, and… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Mahmoud Abbas outlined a vision for an independent Palestine that hewed to the two-state formula but also revived rhetoric that hearkened back to an era of Palestinian belligerence. Shortly after concluding his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, the Palestinian Authority president was… Read more »
President Obama, meeting with his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Roussef, at the United Nations, is canvassing world leaders to oppose a bid by the Palestinians for statehood recognition, Sept. 20, 2011. (Office of Brazilian president) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Was it a speech to help launch his campaign for re-election, or an address to bury hopes for immediate Palestinian statehood recognition? Both assessments marked the immediate reaction to President Obama’s speech Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly, and there was ammunition for both arguments.… Read more »
Diana Golbi performed in new york on behalf of ELEM, a nonprofit Israeli organization that helps "distressed youth" from whcih she herself benefited in her earlier teens. (Courtesy ELEM) NEW YORK (JTA) — For her first visit to New York and the United States, Diana Golbi adopted the unofficial uniform of most city dwellers — head-to-toe black. Black shirt, black top and tight black jeans. Her long brown hair was straight and hung past her shoulders. Pointing to… Read more »
VILNIUS, Lithuania (JTA) — Faina Kukliansky entered the theater alone, waved at a few friends and sat down to watch “I Shot My Love,” the Israeli documentary film that kicked off Lithuania’s first gay film festival. Some other Lithuanian Jews, she said, have told her to avoid such events… Read more »
BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — It’s not easy to decipher the complicated trajectory of Jewish life in post-communist Europe. “There are claims and counterclaims about contemporary European Jewish life,” Jonathan Boyd, the executive director of London’s Institute for Jewish Policy Research, said. “At one end of the spectrum there are reports… Read more »
Congregation M’kor Hayim will hold an orientation for its second Mussar study group on Oct. 4, 7-9 p.m., at Tucson Hebrew Academy, with Rabbi Helen Cohn and facilitator Nan Rubin. The ancient Jewish practice of Mussar, rooted in Jewish texts, is an ethical and spiritual approach to daily life.… Read more »
