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 »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Here is a weekly roundup of Jewish newspapers from around the world. JEWISH SECRETS: A community art project now on display at a Montreal cafe asked young Jews to anonymously divulge their Jewish secrets on postcards. Among the spilled secrets cited by The Canadian Jewish… Read more »
A building at Columbia University, which is being investigated for an alleged incident of "steering" at its affiliated Barnard College. (Creative Commons) NEW YORK (Tablet) — “You’ll feel very uncomfortable,” Barnard Professor Rachel McDermott allegedly told an Orthodox Jewish student at the college when the undergraduate inquired about a course called “Arabs and the Arab World” taught by a controversial Columbia University professor, Joseph Massad. “Why don’t you look at ancient… Read more »
Protesters marching in lower Manahttan in an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, Sept. 26, 2011. (Paul Stein/Creative Commons) NEW YORK (Tablet) — As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its third week, with demonstrations popping up in more than 10 cities, the protesters are aggressively pushing a comparison to the Arab Spring. Some say the movement has channeled the zeal (or perhaps the naivete, others would argue)… Read more »
KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) — The Israeli Labor Party’s new leader, Shelly Yachimovich, makes a grand entrance at the annual Rosh Hashanah toast for party activists. Well over an hour after the guests begin munching on puff pastries, she is greeted like a conquering hero as she wades into… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Republican presidents have been guiding Israel toward the peace table — sometimes not so gently — almost since the Jewish state was born more than six decades ago. But in the recent round of debates, the crop of candidates vying for the GOP nomination have been… Read more »
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 »
