Opinion

NEW YORK (JTA) — American Jews woke Monday morning to the ancestrally terrifying image of a synagogue on fire. It was my family’s shul: Adas Israel in Duluth, Minnesota. There is a dollhouse model of the Great Synagogue of Vilna in Israel’s Museum of the Jewish People. “That is… Read more »

As each news cycle seems to create new challenges to our Jewish community’s sense of wholeness, how will we respond — individually and collectively? Will we become broken and divided — or if not — how will we retain our footing so that we may remain connected to each… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Fifty-two years ago, following the Six-Day War, Israel took control of the eastern part of this city. After annexing additional Arab villages to the north and south, it created what we know today as East Jerusalem, where approximately 200,000 Jews and 300,000 Arabs live. While Israel… Read more »

I  am proud to be Jewish, Latina and bilingual. I have the honor of representing the state House of Representatives district where I was born and raised in Arizona. My home in Tucson is less than one hour away from the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucson and El Paso in many… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) — As Americans of conscience, many of us are deeply troubled by the hyperpartisan tone that seems to color almost every news story and cycle. The sensationalism that is so often present within our nation’s discourse undermines our collective ability to assimilate information and reach well-reasoned conclusions.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s editor in chief, Andrew Silow-Carroll, and its opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, shared their thoughts on a recent New York Times article answering “some of the most difficult questions” about BDS, or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Andrew… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — When the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, died in July 1994, I was one of many journalists in the Jewish media who did not see how the Hasidic movement he led could survive, much less thrive, in his absence. It has, of course. That… Read more »

Dearest Friends of the Tucson Jewish community, It seems to me that many of you have forgotten the training we all received when we were children. Remember the nurse at school who taught you two important rules: 1) Wash your hands, and 2) Don’t put something in your mouth… Read more »

Mad magazine is on life support, and I can’t say I’m either surprised or all that sad about it. DC Entertainment announced last week that the satirical magazine will stop publishing new content. It was like hearing about a beloved old relative who passed away: I hadn’t had any… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli society has been gripped over the past week by the killing of Solomon Tekah, an unarmed 19-year-old Ethiopian Israeli. On June 30, an off-duty Israeli police officer shot and killed Tekah under highly contested circumstances. While emerging evidence seems to indicate that the policeman was not… Read more »

I remember when I first met Fred Fruchthendler. It was my first interview with the board of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona for the position of president and CEO. After an hour or so of many tough and thoughtful questions, a voice that had not yet… Read more »

As Jews, we have a special responsibility to stand up for the migrants currently being held under deplorable conditions in ICE detention centers. The situation is completely untenable. A Trump administration lawyer recently argued to a court that the government’s obligation to provide “safe and sanitary” conditions for child… Read more »

I wish to thank the Arizona Jewish Post and interviewer Debe Campbell for the well-written article (“Retiree takes social justice to heart,” 6/28/19). She provided important information I shared with her when we met at the monastery. She has seen firsthand the role that so many volunteers and Catholic… Read more »

PHOENIX (JTA) – Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz’s recent tone-deaf declaration that intermarriage is akin to a “second Holocaust” was shocking and shameful, and desecrates the memories of those who perished in the Holocaust. While Peretz leads the Jewish Home party as well as the United Right coalition, and is… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – At the annual Christians United for Israel conference, Vice President Mike Pence lambasted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for comparing U.S. migrant detention centers to concentration camps. “This slander was an insult to the 6 million killed in the Holocaust, and it should be condemned by every American… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – In 2019, there are more haters than lovers of the Jewish Left. Especially in the United States, the mainstream Jewish community reviles left-wing Jews who embrace anti-Zionism. Meanwhile, the Jewish Left itself is split. On one side are the “Left Zionists” who support a two-state… Read more »

(JTA) — One fan’s recent description on Twitter of the new Netflix series “Family Business” isn’t too far off: a “French Breaking Bad but with weed.” The French series, which debuted last week, is a wacky comedy about a Parisian Jewish family, the Hazans, that turns its failed kosher… Read more »

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (JTA) – The year was 2000, and Michael Steinhardt had just dropped a bombshell that nearly brought an otherwise dignified conference to blows. “I tend, in my dourest moments, to consider both the Reform and Conservative Jews as historic accidents in the 21st century and suspect,… Read more »

June 20 was World Refugee Day. And according to the United Nations page devoted to this commemoration, every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror. I am one of those people. In 1948, when I was 6 months old, my mother risked everything to… Read more »

(JTA) — On June 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a four-story-high cross on government land abutting a major road — brightly lit at night and maintained by taxpayer funds — can continue to loom over drivers because the monument has stood for almost a century. In doing… Read more »