Carolee Asia, left, visits with longtime friend Gertrude Shankman, a Handmaker resident. Photo: Nanci Levy/Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging
If you are a Tucson Hebrew Academy student, you have probably met, or at least heard of, Gertrude Shankman, a resident at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging. THA students have been celebrating Shankman’s birthday every year since she turned 100. On Oct. 26, Shankman will turn 105. “It… Read more »
Lively at 95, Bill Kugelman says, “Old is what you make of yourself.” (Debe Campbell/AJP)
When I first spot Bill Kugelman across the room at a local senior living community, he is sitting in a chair, waving his arms in the air and stomping his feet to lively Zumba music. Surrounded by a group of grey-headed women, he is one of very few men… Read more »
The b’nai mitzvah project has become an important part of the traditional coming of age ritual for many Jewish teens. Whether they volunteer in the local community or raise funds for a worthy cause, it’s a chance to exercise compassion and responsibility. Sometimes, it’s also a lesson in flexibility,… Read more »
Laurie Rein, right, works on balance practice with friend and client Jenny Fisk. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
Health and fitness coach and author Laurie Rein will present a Healthy Aging for Women program for a Congregation Or Chadash Sisterhood Girl’s Night Out on Nov. 13. Rein brings 30 years of experience in health training and a career in professional dance to her talk. Growing up in… Read more »
Hundreds of women and girls gathered at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Thursday, Sept. 26, for the sixth annual Mega Challah Bake, co-sponsored by Chabad Tucson. Participants learned how to make and shape dough for round challahs in advance of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, enjoyed a buffet of… Read more »
(JTA) — Midwest Jews may need to find something else to eat when Yom Kippur ends — tons of their bagels are now toast. Some 38,000 pounds of frozen bagels met an unhappy fate on Sunday, just a couple of days ahead of the Jewish Day of Atonement, when… Read more »
Children will be able to release their sins the really old-fashioned way by sending them away with a goat at Temple Emanu-El’s Yom Kippur morning family service, Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8:30 a.m. During Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, repentance is achieved by prayer, repentance, and fasting, but… Read more »
The Jewish New Year is a time for reflection and commitment toward a more just world. The six Holocaust survivors we feature in this issue are a few among the approximately 75 survivors currently living in Southern Arizona, most of whom were children or teens when the war broke… Read more »
Sea Bass with Roasted Peppers and Herb Crème Filling. (Photo: The Edge Partners PR/JTA Photo Service)
Rosh Hashanah menus, while traditional and delicious, can also get a little stale year after year. With Israeli food trending across the globe, now is a perfect time to add some authentic Israeli flavors to your holiday. We have gathered four exclusive recipes from some of Israel’s top chefs:… Read more »
By Anne Lowe
Erika Dattner at her home in Tucson. (Shayne Tarquinio/AJP)
When World War II began, Erika Dattner was 2 years old in Budapest, Hungary. Her childhood was shaped and stolen by Hitler’s military campaigns and Nazi protocols. Her family was scattered and to stay safe, she had to hide. When the war ended in 1945, she had no home.… Read more »
Michael Bokor displays some of his sculptures. He is currently working on figures for a Holocaust memorial project. (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)
Despite his family’s poverty in New York City in 1947, Michael Bokor declares it was beautiful to be in America. At least compared to life in Hungary during the Holocaust — forced labor, concentration camps, hiding, beatings, starvation, disease, and death. After living in the United States for 72… Read more »
Theresa Dulgov, at her Tucson home, clutches the small handbag she took when she fled Hungary in 1956. Her mother, Eva, stuffed the doll with jewelry. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
Theresa Dulgov, 75, is a child survivor of the Holocaust. From her Tucson home, surrounded by souvenirs from her travels and treasures recovered from her past, she recounts the memories her mother, Eva Siebert, instilled and her own as she grew up in the shadow of both the Holocaust… Read more »
Willy Halpert speaks at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest office, Dec. 27, 2015. Courtesy Willy Halpert)
Willy Halpert remembers the last day he saw his father with crystal clarity: the sunshine, the chatter of an Antwerp café, music playing, then silence as Nazi SS and Belgian Brownshirts closed off the street. But for decades after the war, he shut away memories of what came after,… Read more »
Walter Feiger
As a boy in Poland, Walter Feiger cherished a book about Buffalo Bill; when he first visited Tucson in 1970, he said, “That’s buffalo country!” Feiger, who survived a ghetto and several concentration camps, has been telling his story to local school and law enforcement groups since the 1980s.… Read more »
Annique Dveirin lights a candle with her granddaughter, Haley Dveirin, at the Tucson Jewish community Yom HaShoah commemoration in 2017.
(Keith Dveirin)
Never Again, Annique Dveirin. A signature. A statement. And all because she wants hate to cease to exist in this world. Even though she was only 4 years old when she was hidden with a Christian family in Poland, Dveirin was made painfully aware of the terrors of the… Read more »
(JTA) — Just a teaspoon of the green stuff was enough to make her feel like she was having a heart attack. A 60-year old Israeli woman checked herself into the Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba after a night of “unexpected chest pressure that spread to her arms… 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 »
(Dikla Frances/JTA Photo Service)
This recipe originally appeared on The Nosher. Looking for an innovative way to incorporate apples into your Rosh Hashanah menu? Look no further than these meringue-topped apple pie bars. With layers of buttery pastry, cinnamon-scented apples and fluffy meringue, they’re sweet, toasty and sure to be a hit. 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 »
