Rabbi Batsheva Appel and kids enjoy Shabbat Shabang at the Ruth & Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life, Sept. 13./Ariel Miklofsky/JFSA
On Friday, Sept. 13, 12 children and their families joined Rabbi Batsheva Appel of Temple Emanu-El and PJ Library at the Ruth & Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life for the Northwest Family Shabbat Shabang. The rabbi led a service full of songs, prayers, and storytelling while teaching the… Read more »
After Hitler’s regime was defeated, many Holocaust survivors and liberated forced laborers wanted to leave Europe. Along with the United States, the most desirable emigration destinations included Canada and Australia. Most of the emigrants were carried by nearly 400 ships the Allies supplied for this mass migration movement; some… Read more »
Amar'e Stoudemire is leading an initiative to connect Jewish and African-American students at Florida International University. (Courtesy of FIU Hillel)
(JTA) — Despite his serious thoughts about an NBA comeback, Amar’e Stoudemire is taking a little break from basketball to go to school. The former six-time NBA All-Star, who had never attended college, started this fall as a freshman at Florida International University in Miami. Though the semester just… Read more »
Editor’s note: The author is an active prosecutor in a major U.S. city. Due to the nature of their work, they must write anonymously. The court officer calls out the calendar number and reads the docket into the record. The defendant, accompanied by his attorney, enters the well. The… Read more »
Julie Matlin (Courtesy of Matlin) MONTREAL (JTA) — Picking through gefilte fish in the kosher department, searching for the freshest packages, I think of my Grandma Fanny. She made her gefilte fish from scratch, lovingly combining the cod, whitefish, pike and whatever other secret ingredients she threw in that made it so good. “This… Read more »
(JTA) — More then 1,100 synagogues across the United States and around the world will welcome Jewish college students and young adults to worship with them for the High Holidays for free. Synagogue Connect will help Jewish young people between the ages of 18 and 26 to find the… Read more »
(JTA) — It’s life imitating art over at New York City’s Off-Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish. Stephanie Lynne Mason and Drew Seigla, who play the young couple Hodl and Perchik in the production, are engaged, the show announced Sunday on its Twitter feed. “We’re KVELLING!… Read more »
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, right, holds hands with Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, who survived the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, at Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church during a service for victims of the mass shooting, Oct. 31, 2018, Perlman's wife, the author Beth Kissileff, is seated to his left. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images/JTA Photo Service)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Our sages teach us that kol hatchalot kashot, all beginnings are difficult. This phrase feels especially resonant this Rosh Hashanah. The man who blew the shofar last year at my Pittsburgh synagogue, New Light, is not here to blow it now. He was murdered on Oct. 27… Read more »
A view outside the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Google Street View/JTA Photo Service)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Sitting at the front of a large room lined floor to ceiling with Jewish holy books, Rabbi Joseph Beyda’s voice broke as he processed, seemingly in real time, the idea that a trusted teacher had preyed on his students. “I think the overarching feeling of… Read more »
BOSTON (JTA) — The grounds of a suburban Boston synagogue were vandalized. Congregants of Temple Sinai in Sharon, about 25 miles south of Boston, discovered graffiti of unidentifiable defacing symbols splashed over the large Star of David in the pavement near the synagogue’s front entryway as they arrived for… Read more »
(JTA) — Construction on the first official synagogue in the United Arab Emirates will begin in several months. The synagogue, slated to be completed by 2022, will be part of a multi-faith complex called the Abrahamic Family House in the capital Abu Dhabi, Reuters reported, citing the Abu Dhabi-based… Read more »
(JTA) — Lev Tahor, a fringe haredi Orthodox sect, requested political asylum from the Iranian government. In its request, the group “declared their loyalty and submission to the Supreme Leader and Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It asks for “asylum, protection and religious freedom of the families… Read more »
A food drive collection box is available in the lobby of the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, home of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, at 3718 E. River Road. (Phyllis Braun/AJP)
Project Isaiah, the Jewish community’s annual High Holidays food drive benefiting the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, begins Sept. 15 and runs through Oct. 15. When asked why we fast on Yom Kippur, the prophet Isaiah responded, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?” (Isaiah… Read more »
Tucsonan Aimee Katz (front right) with third-grade students at the Alfassi school in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. Katz taught English in Mitzpe Ramon during the 2018-19 school year. (Courtesy Aimee Katz)
Leaving home is difficult, especially since I had lived nowhere else besides Tucson, except for sleepaway camp and teaching in Israel for short stints during the summers. A year ago, however, I traded in the Arizona desert for Mitzpe Ramon, a small southern Israeli desert town in the middle… Read more »
Adeli and Rabbi Boruch Zimmerman, with son Mendel, join the leadership team at Chabad Oro Valley. (Courtesy Rabbi Boruch Zimmerman)
Since opening in 2012, Chabad Oro Valley, led by Rabbi Ephraim and Mushkie Zimmerman, has grown its roster of participants to about 500 — and outgrown its current space. For the High Holidays, Chabad Oro Valley will celebrate in a new 3,388-square-foot home in Sun City’s Mountain View Plaza,… Read more »
(Tannaz Sassooni)
This recipe appeared originally on The Nosher. As a kid in Hebrew school, I learned that my classmates would have apples and honey and round challah at Rosh Hashanah to bring in the Jewish New Year, and that was pretty much it when it came to food traditions. But… Read more »
For Sarah Hurwitz, an introductory course launched an exploration of Judaism. (Random House)
When Sarah Hurwitz was working as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and later as head speechwriter for Michelle Obama, she often was assumed to be a good source of knowledge about Judaism. Except Hurwitz wasn’t. She had grown up nominally Reform. And after her bat mitzvah, Hurwitz… Read more »
Esther Becker will explore “Conversations with G-d” at the annual Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies Women’s Book Brunch, Sunday, Sept. 15 at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. “We live in an era when we all have our challenges to deal with and no one goes unscathed,” says Becker. “I wanted to… Read more »
The Union for Reform Judaism’s Taste of Judaism classes, taught by Temple Emanu-El’s Rabbi Batsheva Appel, will be offered at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sundays, Sept. 8, 15, and 22 from 2:30-4:30 p.m., and at Temple Emanu-El on Thursdays, Sept. 12, 19, and 26, from 6-8 p.m.… Read more »
Parents and siblings can read to babies early in life. (Courtesy PJ Babies and reading are the focus of a lighthearted BYOB (bring your own baby) event coming up at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Early Childhood Education Center next month. “It’s an opportunity to meet other Jewish families with babies,” says Mary Ellen Loebl, coordinator for Southern Arizona’s PJ Library… Read more »
