News

(JTA) — An Israeli girl whose family moved to San Diego to escape rocket attacks in Israel and her uncle also from Israel were among the injured in a shooting attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego. Noya Dahan, 8, and her family moved to California from Sderot… Read more »

(JTA) — The shooting on Saturday that left one woman dead and three injured happened in a synagogue focused on welcoming and outreach. The shooter, who has been apprehended by police, entered the synagogue, Chabad of Poway, at approximately 11:30 a.m. and began shooting. He is 19 years old… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona are heartbroken and horrified by the senseless act of violence on Saturday at Congregation Chabad in Poway, California. This act came on the exact six-month anniversary after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, on… Read more »

(JTA) — A shooting at a Chabad synagogue in Poway, near San Diego, California, has left one person dead and three injured, including a child. Police in Poway detained a white 19-year old San Diego man in connection with the shooting on the last day of Passover, and hospitals said… Read more »

(JTA) — If official exit polls from Ukraine’s presidential elections are to be believed, that country is set to become the only one in the world besides Israel whose president and prime minister are both Jewish. Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky’s dramatic lead in exit polls Sunday — in many of… Read more »

Reciprocal hospitality The Weintraub Israel Center’s Partnership2Gether Israeli and Tucson teams gathered here March 3-8 for the P2G 2019-20 annual budget meeting. Since 1996, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has participated in P2G, a Jewish Agency for Israel program connecting Jewish communities around the world.  One year the… Read more »

Bella Wexler, a sophomore at Catalina Foothills High School, has earned a scholarship from the U.S. State Department to study in Xiamen, China, this summer. She will study Mandarin in the State Department’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth, a language-immersion program. Wexler is a member of the Jewish-Latino… Read more »

Edlin Nunez

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has appointed Edlin Nunez as its new administrative services manager. A native Tucsonan, she is a graduate of Grand Canyon University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She has spent her career serving with community-based organizations, including seven years with CODAC Health, Recovery… Read more »

Phil Bregman, Leslie Glaze

The second annual combined Jewish Community Awards Celebration and Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Annual Meeting will be held Thursday, May 9 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event will include special recognition awards honoring lay or professional leaders from each of the Federation’s beneficiary and affiliated agencies.… Read more »

Six months ago, Jesse Davis and his wife, Melissa, began keeping a kosher home. They were prompted by their two oldest daughters, pupils at Tucson Hebrew Academy, who took the school’s kosher cooking class and came home with “a million and one questions,” says Davis, a teacher at Temple… Read more »

This year’s community Yom HaShoah commemoration will mark 80 years since the outbreak of World War II by reflecting on the vibrant and diverse Jewish life that existed in Europe and North Africa before the Holocaust. “On the Eve: Jewish Life Before the Third Reich” will be held Sunday,… Read more »

A family-friendly Yom Ha’atzmaut festival, marking the 71st anniversary of Israel’s Independence, will be held Sunday, April 28, from 4-6:30 p.m. in the Sculpture Garden at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “This is an opportunity to celebrate Israel’s birthday,” says Jennifer Selco, the Tucson J’s director of Jewish life… Read more »

It’s usually college students who undertake the challenges of studying abroad, but ever since she was in fifth grade Haya Gibly was determined to go to high school in Israel. Haya, 14, recently started attending Mosenson high school in Israel, an opportunity she found through the Naale program. The… Read more »

A staggering 83 percent of more than 400,000 prisoners released in 2005 across 30 states were arrested at least once in the nine years following their release, according to a U. S. Department of Justice study released in 2018. Today many groups are talking about and researching justice reform.… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and its Northwest Division recently announced the expansion of its Oro Valley facility to larger premises. Due to increased participation in the many programs at the Northwest’s Ruth & Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life, this summer the center will move to 180… Read more »

Herbert Cohn, chair of the Catalina Council Jewish Committee on Scouting, is attempting to create a more inclusive environment by reminding all in the local scouting community of the intention by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the world scouting movement, that it should embrace all faiths. Cohn has been… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s board governance committee has recommended the following slate of officers for the 2019-20 program year: Deborah Oseran, chair of the board; Jeff Artzi, vice chair; Ben Silverman, treasurer/secretary; Shelly Silverman, immediate past chair. Also nominated are Elena Boskoff, Avi Erbst and Scott Sheftel… Read more »

Anne Lowe, left, and Elizabeth L. Fox

Anne Lowe of Tucson and Elizabeth L. Fox of Boulder, Colorado, will present their recently published books at Hadassah Southern Arizona’s brunch on Sunday, May 5. In “A Touch of Torah,” Lowe shares reflections on being Jewish as she tries to grasp the intricacies of Torah. Inspired by the… Read more »

Editor’s note: The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona convenes a community-wide security meeting yearly with members of local law enforcement and representatives of synagogues and Jewish community organizations. JFSA, in conjunction with the Jewish Community Roundtable and the Tucson Jewish Community Center, recently hired a part-time Jewish community security… Read more »

Orit Bashkin

In the 1950s, 123,000 Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel. Harsh conditions and a shared background united them. Orit Bashkin, Ph.D., a University of Chicago associate professor of modern Middle Eastern history, will highlight this era in the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies’ 2019 Jeffrey Plevan Memorial Lecture, “Israeli Babylonians:… Read more »