Special Sections

Haimish, Yiddish for friendly or homey, sums up Claire’s Cafe and Art Gallery in Catalina. Good food also figures into the picture, but the warm atmosphere created by owners Claire and Steve Johnson keeps drawing loyal customers. The cafe was awarded the 2016 Better Business Bureau Good Neighbor Award… Read more »

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Tracy Salkowitz

When I was little, kids used to walk around the neighborhood asking for funds for everything from the PTA to the girl scouts.  We used to have tzedakah or charity boxes (pushkes) in our homes where we would drop coins to plant trees in Israel or to support Hadassah… Read more »

Stuart Mellan

“Weaving … is the essential art of creating the unified out of two opposites. If the meeting of opposites does not take place, nothing is created, for each element is defined by its opposite and takes its meaning from it.” — Dario Valcarenghi as quoted in “The Art of… Read more »

October, with its record breaking heat, is finally past. With a promise of cooler weather in Southern Arizona, local restaurateurs are beginning to think about dishes that make the most of fall’s bounty. At Gusto Osteria on Tucson’s east side, where owner Gus Gerson rules the kitchen, the focus… Read more »

Adena Bank Lees (Jacquelynn Buck)

Jewish Family & Children’s Services will present a Shalom in Every Home Healthy Family Lecture Series this month. The free, interactive two-part series will explore the important connection between healthy families and healthy relationships. The series will begin with “Put Your Listening Ears On: How to Create and Enhance… Read more »

(JTA) — Five years ago, on a whim, Cindy, a 27-year-old Jewish woman, decided to pursue genetic testing through an online laboratory. She wasn’t expecting any surprises because she had no family history of cancer or increased risk factors. She was young and living a healthy lifestyle. But Cindy’s… Read more »

Planning a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah party, or another big occasion? Experts suggest you start by determining your budget, dates and the number of guests you plan to invite. That may sound fairly obvious, but Marci Rogers, director of sales at the Tucson Hilton East, says all too… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The world’s oldest man, 113-year-old Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor living in Israel, celebrated his bar mitzvah a century late. Kristal, of Haifa, celebrated the rite over the weekend with his two children, grandchildren and nearly 30 great-grandchildren, The Associated Press reported. He was recognized as… Read more »

Andrea Siemens

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This year the LEAH program (Let’s End Abusive Households) of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona is focusing on raising awareness about teen dating violence and abuse. Teen dating violence can be physical, emotional, or sexual. Dating violence can take place… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) — At my daughter’s bat mitzvah last month, hundreds of people spread out to form a large circle and, together, carefully hold a completely unrolled Torah scroll. With the scroll spread out so that its entire contents were visible, my daughter found the spot on the… Read more »

Spirituality encompasses wonderment, awe, caring and kindness, yet many adults have a hard time finding a spiritual path. Ester Leutenberg and Deborah Schein, Ph.D. have written a book that gives adults a road map to finding their own spirituality and directions on teaching spirituality to children. The book, “Nurturing… Read more »

(StatePoint) Prospective homebuyers can get encouraged by the current market. Nearly 68 percent of U.S. homes sales today are to individual buyers compared to 53 percent in 2011 when investor and cash deals were at their peak. Still, competition for housing is hot. “In a competitive market, your offer… Read more »

Fall can be a busy time of year with kids heading back to school, the High Holy Days, and for gardeners, fall planting. Fall is an ideal time to plant many things, especially trees. Which tree? The Torah specifically mentions seven kinds of foods (Shevah Minim) indigenous to the… Read more »

Tucson was named America’s first UNESCO City of Gastronomy last year. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Creative Cities program — established in 2004 to promote cooperation between cities for “sustainable urban development” — has 116 member cities, and on Dec. 11, 2015, Tucson became one of… Read more »

Rabbi Robert Eisen

Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol halailot  …?  How do we read that phrase? How is this night different from all other nights … or, How different this night is from all other nights! The first is what we are taught, the latter is how it could be better (more… Read more »

In many Jewish communities, the phrase “l’dor v’dor” (loosely translated as “from generation to generation”) is used to highlight the importance of passing values, education and history from one generation to the next. Scholars and community organizations often speak of the importance of teaching children as a way to… Read more »

The third annual Family Wellness Festival, produced by the Tucson Jewish Community Center in collaboration with Tucson Medical Center, will be held Sunday, Oct. 16, from noon to 4 p.m. at The J. The keynote speaker for the free, interactive event will be Dan Johnson, executive director of the… Read more »

  CLEVELAND (JTA) — Thank you: two simple words with tremendous meaning. Thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for raising your children with us. Thank you for being with us. Many of us are seeking meaning in our lives and wish to be valued for… Read more »

    WASHINGTON (JTA) – Yom Kippur, despite its solemnity and self-abnegation, seems almost anti-climactic if you’ve spent the 10 days since Rosh Hashanah engaging in person-to-person apologies. We would never admit it to non-Jewish friends, who stand in awe of our 25-hour fast, but Yom Kippur is a dodge, an… Read more »