Opinion

I’ve been attending the classic series at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra for many years, on Sundays. This past season’s opening concert fell on Sept. 24, the Jewish Fast of Gedaliah. I was fasting. At the end of the concert, the new music director and conductor José Luis Gomez was… Read more »

A few months ago I wrote a humor piece titled “Don’t eat off the seder plate, and other tips for non-Jews attending their first seder.” It drew a miffed response from a rabbi friend who often works with interfaith families and suggested “it’s time to drop terms like ‘non-Jew’ and… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Last week, I visited McAllen, Texas, with a group of clergy — including 10 rabbis — to bear witness to the situation on the border, where new policies are forcing the detention and separation of families and the refusal to hear asylum claims from victims… Read more »

(JTA) — On June 10, 2002, Charles Krauthammer delivered the Distinguished Rennert Lecture upon receiving the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. Below is an excerpt from the lecture titled “He Tarries: Jewish Messianism and the Oslo Peace.”  In the 1990s, America slept and… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Tel Aviv has been decked out in rainbow flags for weeks. Suddenly, it seems, every restaurant, coffee shop and store is super “gay friendly.” The city’s Pride Parade is traditionally held on the second Friday of June. Fifteen years ago, estimates were that 9,000 people… Read more »

(JTA) — “Ethics of the Fathers” includes this bold advice from Rabbi Yishmael: “When we learn in order to act, we become learners, teachers, preservers and doers.” So many Jewish institutions are asking how they might engage younger people, raise a new generation of leaders and appeal across age groups.… Read more »

We have a special responsibility as Jews to stand up and stop the Administration policy of separating families of undocumented immigrants at the border. When I see the horrible pictures of children in detention centers, it brings to mind the powerful Arizona Theatre Company production of “Diary of Anne… Read more »

In an essay for JTA on Michael Chabon’s intermarriage views, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Steven M. Cohen and Jack Wertheimer describe a “left camp” that argues for greater acceptance, welcoming and inclusion of the intermarried and their family members, and a “Jewish right” that argues for holding on to distinctions… Read more »

Anthony Bourdain at the Whitby Hotel in New York, July 17, 2017.

Anthony Bourdain was quick — and often willing — to publicly offer his own flaws. “Until 44 years of age, I never had any kind of savings account,” Bourdain said in 2017. “ always owed money. I’d always been selfish and completely irresponsible.” Despite or maybe because of such… Read more »

The JTA article you published online (“These Jewish Groups are Fighting…Behind the Scene” May 16, 2018) about ZOA criticizing some Jewish groups for their troubling policies and positions had many inaccuracies.  (1) In fact, ZOA legitimately criticized National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) for signing a letter demanding that people stop… Read more »

The Tucson Brandeis National Committee mourns the loss of a special friend and mentor, Elaine Lisberg, who passed away April 29. Elaine had a long-lasting love of Brandeis University and was a good friend of its founding president, Abram Sacher. She was a national president of Brandeis National Women’s… Read more »

According to your May 4 news report, “Exhibit shows ordinary Americans knew a lot about Shoah as it was happening,” the new “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit at the United States. Holocaust Memorial Museum claims that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was unable to grant haven to Jewish refugees because… Read more »

The #MeToo movement has empowered women to speak up against harassment and abuse. It is heartening to see many men standing as allies and organizations beginning to hold themselves accountable for establishing policies, procedures and transparency and for changing the workplace culture. For those of us working in youth-serving… Read more »

  JERUSALEM (JTA) — Seventy-five years ago this month, a handful of rabbinical students in New York City helped mobilize hundreds of churches and synagogues nationwide to cry out against the Nazis’ mass murder of European Jewry. That remarkable interfaith protest is omitted from the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s new… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal, is bad policy and calls into question America’s international credibility. Mr. Trump has now set the international community on a slippery slope, imperiling the national security… Read more »

(JTA) — In recent years we have witnessed anti-Israel demonstrations that have turned overtly anti-Semitic and even violent, but police ignored initially as only political activity. We have seen prosecutors and judges rule that an arson attack on a synagogue is not anti-Semitic because the perpetrator was motivated by… Read more »

[L-R): Holocaust survivor Walter Fantl, former President of Austria Heinz Fischer, Holocaust survivor and former Tucsonan Alfred Schreier at the imperial palace in Vienna, Austria, in 2017.

As a former member of the Southern Arizona Holocaust Survivors Group, I was touched by the article about Fort Huachuca (“Army dedicates plaque to survivors at Fort Huachuca Holocaust ceremony,” AJP 4/20/18). I had the privilege of attending the ceremonies on two different occasions while I lived in Sahuarita,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For decades, world Jewry helped Israel. Organizations gathered and sent funds to the feeble, small state; our Air Force and Navy were formed and trained by Jewish volunteers from around the globe. As we celebrate our 70th Independence Day, we should thank the previous generations while… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — 1993 was a dramatic year in the memorialization of the Holocaust. In April, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors; 45 million visitors later it is a fixture adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., not only telling the story of the Holocaust… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — My Dear Land, It is almost your birthday. At 70, you are not a young country anymore. Some will consider me a stepdaughter because I left you, deciding to move an ocean away. I left behind me the battles,… Read more »