News

5,000-year-old yeast used by Israeli scientists to brew a pretty good beer

Beer cruse from Tel Tzafit/Gath archaeological digs, from which Philistine beer was produced. (Yaniv Berman, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)
May 31, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

Israeli scientists are using ancient yeast to brew a beer fit for a pharaoh. The researchers have isolated yeast from ancient pottery used to brew beer and used it to create the same libation that was presumably drunk by the Egyptian pharaohs, Iron Age rulers, and ancient Jewish leaders.… Read more »

Jews for Justice plan summer community concert
May 31, 2019 /
Bat Florence Portugal

Tucson Jews for Justice will present a “Tucson Jewish Summer Arts Festival — A Night of Music, Laughs and Light” on Saturday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish History Museum, 564 S. Stone Ave. Tony Zinman, a Tucson Jews for Justice co-founder, explains that the evening was… Read more »

Started from seed, pomegranate bears fruit

Celebrating the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s pomegranate tree, now bearing fruit on its first anniversary, are Early Childhood Education students with (L-R): ECE teacher Kristina Li, Dale Green and Tammy Lewis from the J’s building services department, Lipowich, and Adi Olshansky, Weintraub Israel Center P2G school twinning coordinator. WIC is a joint project of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the J, dedicated to bringing the cultural richness of Israel to Tucson. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
May 31, 2019 /

The pomegranate, said to have 613 seeds corresponding to the 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah, frequently is a symbol of Israel. It is one of the seven species of Israel listed in the Torah, along with wheat, barley, grapes, figs, olives, and dates. As part of building living… Read more »

#MeToo event encourages community-wide conversation

During an exercise at the Jewish community’s “From #MeToo to #WeToo” event May 21, audience members wrote reflections on banners marked “I Learned,” “I Feel,” and “I Commit to.” Colored stickers indicate “likes” from other attendees. (Maya S. Horowitz/JCF)
May 31, 2019 / Maya S. Horowitz, Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona

It is our collective responsibility as members of this community to examine the part that we play in these frameworks,” Graham Hoffman, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, told the audience at a recent community event addressing sexual harassment in the Jewish communal world.… Read more »

Seniors celebrate a century and intergenerational friendships
May 31, 2019 / Sharon Klein, Special to the AJP
Ruth C. Goodman with her son, Roy Goodman

Centenarians unite On Friday, May 3, the Pima Council on Aging and Tucson Medical Center sponsored the 32nd annual Salute to Centenarians event at TMC’s Marshall Conference Center. This gathering, the largest known convergence of centenarians in the United States, attracted close to 50 attendees, ages 99+, accompanied by… Read more »

Cactus king that boosts landscaping takes centuries to mature

Once in about 50,000 plants, a saguaro grows an odd cristate crown. No one knows what causes this fascinating deformity. (Photo: National Park Service)
May 31, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

A sage survivor in the Sonoran desert, the stately saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) reigns over Tucson’s Southwestern landscape. The largest known cactus is symbolic of Arizona (the state flower) and iconic in classic Western films. Casting eerie, human-like shadows across the desert floor, they evoke images of solitude, expansive… Read more »

Tucson J’s Elder Camp proves summer fun isn’t just for the grandkids anymore

Sylvia Levkovitz takes part in a cup stacking challenge at the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Elder Camp 2018. {Courtesy Sharon Arkin)
May 31, 2019 /

Seniors who look back fondly on summer camp fun and frolic can now relive those golden days of yore. Following a banner first-year experiment, the Tucson Jewish Community Center is announcing open registration for its second season of Elder Camp. Camp will take place on four consecutive Sunday afternoons,… Read more »

Israel is holding new elections. What comes next?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media after the Knesset voted to dissolve itself, May 30, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
May 30, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The blame game started shortly after midnight Thursday morning. The Knesset’s vote to dissolve itself and hold a second national election in five months had hardly been posted on the chyrons of news networks in Israel and around the world when the major players in the… Read more »

What is it like to be a female combat soldier in Israel? A photographer provides a unique look.

Two Artillery Corps fighters and instructors in Shivta, Israel (Debbie Zimelman)
May 30, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Women served as combat soldiers during Israel’s War of Independence, when the fledgling country needed all the fighters it could get. But following the 1948 war, it took half a century before they were allowed back in combat. Since the late 1990s, when some units started allowing… Read more »

Meet the Jewish lawyer representing clients at the country’s strictest immigration court

Marty Rosenbluth is the only private immigration lawyer in a small Georgia town near a large immigrant detention center. (Courtesy of Rosenbluth)
May 29, 2019 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — Most of the year, Marty Rosenbluth lives alone in a small house in Lumpkin, a Georgia town with 2,000 residents and one restaurant. It’s 500 miles away from his wife and community in North Carolina. Then he drives two miles down the road to a place even… Read more »

Israeli army says it found ‘most significant’ Hezbollah attack tunnel
May 29, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli military said it uncovered the “longest” and “most significant” Hezbollah attack tunnel on the border with Lebanon. The discovery of the nearly milelong tunnel was made in the winter during Operation Northern Shield, which aimed to expose and neutralize cross-border attack tunnels, but was… Read more »

US, Israeli and Russian security advisers to meet in Jerusalem in June
May 29, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — The national security advisers of the United States, Israel and Russia will meet in Jerusalem in June, the White House said Wednesday. The announcement said that John Bolton of the United States, Meir Ben-Shabbat of Israel and Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, would convene… Read more »

Why Israel will hold a second national election in 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a conference of his Likud party in Ramat Gan, March 4, 2019. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
May 29, 2019 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — Israel held a national election seven weeks ago. It will hold another one in September. If that sounds weird to you, you’re right: Israel has a famously raucous political system, but it’s never held national elections twice in one year. Until now. Just to be clear, no… Read more »

Israel will hold new elections after Netanyahu fails to form coalition
May 29, 2019 / Ben Sales and Marcy Oster, JTA

(JTA) — For the first time in its history, Israel will hold a second national election in one year, five months after the last election in April. The Israeli Knesset voted at midnight Thursday to dissolve itself, triggering elections on Sept. 17. The unprecedented vote happened after Prime Minister… Read more »

First openly gay Orthodox rabbi ordained in Jerusalem

Newly ordained Rabbi Daniel Atwood is congratulated by Rabbi Daniel Landes at the Jerusalem Theater on May 26, 2019. (Sam Sokol)
May 28, 2019 / Sam Sokol, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A gay rabbinical student denied ordination by a liberal seminary in New York was welcomed into the rabbinate in Jerusalem, breaking a longstanding taboo against homosexuality in the Orthodox community. Daniel Landes, a prominent American-Israeli rabbi, granted semichah, Hebrew for ordination, to Daniel Atwood alongside a… Read more »

It is dangerous to wear a kippah in Germany, anti-Semitism official says
May 28, 2019 / Toby Axelrod, JTA

BERLIN (JTA) – It is dangerous to identify publicly as Jewish in Germany, including wearing a kippah, Germany’s commissioner on anti-Semitism said. In a wide-ranging interview, Felix Klein told the Berliner Morgenpost on May 24 that he could not recommend that Jews wear a kippah everywhere and any time… Read more »