News

Rob Gludt

With four female rabbis heading Tucson congregations, it’s easy to forget that the advent of women on the bimah is a relatively recent occurrence. Since 1972, about 1,000 women have been ordained as rabbis in this country. So the norm for most congregations is a male rabbi where the… Read more »

Gilad Shalit (Israeli Foreign Ministry)

Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit marked his 24th birthday — his fifth in captivity — on Aug. 28. The Tucson Jewish Community Center is collecting birthday and new year’s cards for Shalit, in partnership with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Magen David Adom (Israel’s “Red… Read more »

Cantor Ivor Lichterman of Congregation Anshei Israel, right, and his brother, Cantor Joel Lichterman of Denver, Colo., sing at the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw, where their father was the last prewar cantor, in this still from “100 Voices: A Journey Home.”

A documentary based on the historic visit of 100 cantors to Poland last year, “100 Voices: A Journey Home,” will be shown at three movie theatres in Tucson, for one night only, on Tuesday, Sept. 21. The film explores the rich history of Jewish culture in Poland, which is… Read more »

Tucsonan Peter Ruiz, who has cerebral palsy, with the mechanical device that will allow him to sound the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

Blowing a shofar via a mechanical device? When 23-year-old Peter Ruiz, who has cerebral palsy, presses a touch screen at Congregation Or Chadash’s contemporary Rosh Hashanah service on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 8:30 a.m., he will remarkably do just that. “This may be the first time this has been… Read more »

Rumors surrounded a trip by a delegation of U.S. Muslim leaders to Auschwitz and Dachau in mid-August 2010 (no credit)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Eight imams bowed in prayer before a sculpture at Dachau vividly representing the Jewish dead of Europe. It’s a picture worth a thousand words of reconciliation and understanding. Yet even before its appearance in the Jewish media — on the front page of the Forward for… Read more »

This Roma camp in Pantin, north of Paris, received an eviction notice at the end of July as part of the french president's crackdown on illegal Gypsy shantytowns (Devorah Lauter).

PARIS (JTA) — With a preponderance of voices from the international media, human rights groups, the French clergy and some politicians denouncing French President Nicolas Sarkozy for fueling negative ethnic stereotypes with his new immigrant-focused security crackdown, many Jewish community representatives in France are taking a more measured stance.… Read more »

“Teachings On Healing, From A Spiritual Perspective” by Gabriel of Urantia and Niánn Emerson Chase changed my life. This book gave me a renewed sense of empowerment in my own healing process, emphasizing the importance of focusing on having positive thoughts and higher responses to everyday circumstances. I now… Read more »

I walked up the subway stairs at the 42nd and 5th Avenue subway stop, looked around and headed for the New York City Public Library, 42nd Street branch. I had visited and worked at many libraries and would continue to visit and work at a variety of libraries throughout… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s a peace conference where nothing is off the table — or on it, for that matter. The Obama administration’s invitation to Palestinian and Israeli leaders to launch direct talks on Sept. 2 attempts to reconcile Israeli demands for no preconditions with Palestinian demands that the… Read more »

I grew up in Israel, where everyone sings and dances,” says Rina Paz, who created the Israel Center’s “Learn to Sing in Hebrew” class/choir in 2008 with the help of Moshe Babel-Pour, who recently left Tucson after serving for four years as the center’s director. The group, which meets… Read more »

Koby Shochat wears the tallit his father wore at his Bar Mitzvah. Koby’s mitzvah project involved donations of used tallitot.

One of the explicit and implicit tenets of Judaism is that we are supposed to live our lives doing mitzvot, literally translated as “commandments” but informally known as “good deeds.” In addition to the usual whirlwind of activity associated with B’nai Mitzvah preparation, such as learning Torah, attending services,… Read more »

B’nai Tzedek Tucson, a teen philanthropy program, will hold its annual kickoff event on Sunday, Aug. 29, at 1 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The program allows teens to create endowment funds in their own names by contributing $180 (subsidized participation available), to which $320 will be… Read more »

Local Jewish residents over the age of 80 are once again invited to the Handmaker “Celebrating Tucson’s Oldest Jewish Residents” luncheon on Tuesday, Sept. 7 at 11:30 a.m. “The event is an opportunity for this select group of seniors to see old friends, meet new ones, enjoy an interesting… Read more »

A Secular Humanist Jewish Circle has formed in Tucson. The group will hold its first event, an observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on Saturday, Sept. 11. Secular Humanist Judaism “places emphasis on human beings having the innate ability to make moral and ethical decisions based on evidence… Read more »

Hebrew High, a program of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Coalition for Jewish Education, will hold its orientation on Tuesday, Aug. 24 at Congregation Anshei Israel. Orientation for incoming students and parents will begin at 6 p.m., with an opportunity to meet teachers, enjoy pizza and ice cream,… Read more »

As the Jewish community comes together to celebrate the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is coordinating Project Isaiah, an annual effort to address hunger in our community. JCRC is working with local synagogues and Jewish… Read more »

This dress, worn at the Arizona Statehood celebration on Feb. 4, 1912, is part of the Jewish History Museum’s Centennial Exhibit.

The Jewish History Museum’s Centennial Exhibit is on display now through Dec. 23, celebrating 100 years since the building — originally the Stone Avenue Temple, the first home of Temple Emanu-El — was built. Saved from the wrecking ball in 1998, the building has been restored and is now… Read more »

Tucsonan Fran Katz, right, and Kim Rosenberg of Portland, Ore., haul rubble during a Jewish Federations of North America fact-finding mission to Haiti.

Tucsonan Fran Katz joined a national Jewish Federation of North America fact-finding tour to Haiti, from July 5 to 7, to see firsthand how American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee funds have aided Haitians since the January earthquake, which killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced more than 1.2 million.… Read more »

Ella Starobinska [Sheila Wilensky/AJP]

Ella Starobinska is an enthusiastic 20-year-old college student at the University of Arizona, but her path to the Tucson campus took a different route than most. On March 1, 2005, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society brought Starobinska and her parents from Kiev, Ukraine, to Tucson to join her brother,… Read more »

(If you know Jewish Tucsonans who interned in Washington this summer, contact us at 319-1112.) WASHINGTON (Forward) — They flocked to Washington during the summer months, driven by their desire to get a taste of politics and maybe gain some points in the networking game after they graduate from… Read more »