Special Sections

Bills or bug juice? With the economic recovery still struggling to take hold, many American Jewish families are finding they face a difficult question as deadlines for summer camp enrollment approach: Can they both pay their bills and send their kids to Jewish overnight camp? “It’s a difficult decision,”… Read more »

In November, Anna Melman and Ari Bronstein were planning their wedding, held in January in Israel. They had a venue and a rabbi. But they wanted to find ways of making the traditional ceremony more egalitarian. “In the wedding ceremony as it is now, the bride is inherently passive,”… Read more »

Discount Purim basket with a rich theme: Products purchased at a 99 Cents Only Store connect to characters in the Purim story. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Falling between the giving season of Chanukah and the getting season of tax refunds, Purim time finds households like mine searching for ways to keep holiday expenses down to earth without losing the mirth. What with the cost of fancy, professionally made kosher shalach manot… Read more »

Michele Goldstein and David Clementi (Shelley Wellander/She.we Studio

Michele Goldstein, daughter of Dana Goldstein and Gene Goldstein of Tucson, and David Clementi, son of Rosanne Clementi and Frank Clementi of Tampa, Fla., were married on Sept. 4, 2011 at Skyline Country Club. Rabbi Marc Sack of Tampa and Ronald Sandler of Tucson, a family friend, officiated. The… Read more »

If you think of your garden as a canvas, then a custom designed trellis is like a living sculpture. Aesthetically combining ornamental metal work and climbing plants, a custom trellis can be an expression of both your green thumb and your artistic taste. It can be a simple flat… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — So it’s nearly Purim and the excitement in my house is rising every day. I’m not a great one to fuss with costumes, but my mind is bubbling over with ideas for mishloach manot, the Purim gift baskets. It’s more than mere “tradition” to give… Read more »

Wood-burning fireplaces can be a pleasant source of comfort in winter months but for some people, burning wood in a fireplace can literally take their breath away. Wood smoke contains hundreds of chemical compounds and some of them can harm people with heart or respiratory disease, babies, young children… Read more »

(L-R) Dr. Scott Sherman, Dr. Elihu Boroson and his wife, Sarah, with Boroson’s ‘Excalibur’ sculpture, which he donated to the University of Arizona College of Medicine in honor of Sherman, a Parkinson’s researcher. (Photo courtesy AHSC Biomedical Communications)

For some people it takes a lifetime to find their passion. Dr. Elihu Boroson, a veterinarian for 23 years, found his when he became a full-time artist in 1980. He and his wife, Sarah, a librarian, lived in Stamford, Conn. She became the breadwinner. “When I stopped working I… Read more »

Tucsonan Bryan Jaret-Schachter relaxes during his second donation of stem cells for a recipient identified by the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. Blood from his right arm is fed through a machine to separate out the blood-forming cells, then returned to him via his left arm.

 “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” — Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 37a Bryan Jaret-Schachter, a 27-year-old financial analyst in Tucson, picked up the phone at work early one morning in September 2010 and was stunned by what he heard. The caller,… Read more »

After I offered parenting advice to Jewish mothers in these pages a while back, a couple of readers asked if I had advice for Jewish fathers. One asked whether there was a stereotypical “Jewish Father.” I dislike all stereotypes whether based on gender or religion so I prefer to… Read more »

Kayla Tilicki at her Bat Mitzvah with her grandparents Joe and Sandra Bolze

Sandra Bolze and her husband, Joe, have an unusual marriage: for 43 years, he’s gone with her every Friday night to Shabbat services. And she’s gone with him every Sunday morning to church. Their daughter, Tucsonan Niki Tilicki, is in a similarly successful interfaith marriage. But Bolze is quick… Read more »

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama listening to a performance by the West Point Jewish Chapel Cadet Choir in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Dec. 8, 2011. (Pete Souza/Official White House Photo)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It doesn’t get more “only in America” than this: A Christian president with an African-born Muslim father throws a Chanukah party at the White House, and the featured act is the West Point Jewish Chapel Cadet Choir — a group that serves as a beacon of Jewish pride… Read more »

(N.J. Jewish News) — Marlene Stevens says she gets goose bumps when she thinks that very soon she will meet the daughter of the sister she lost 70 years ago during the Holocaust. Her sister Frima died in 1984 before they were able to reconnect, but thanks to Marlene’s… Read more »

(Tablet Magazine) — Last May I traveled, along with about 75 ultra-Orthodox, to Mako, Hungary, for the yahrzeit of my great-great-grandfather. Specifically, I’m referring to my mother’s father’s father’s father, Reb Moshe Vorhand, aka the Makove Rav (usually pronounced roov), a minor-league but well-respected Chasidic rebbe, who died in… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (j. weekly) — This Dec. 25, while many Bay Area Jews will be lighting their Chanukah candles and tucking into their traditional Chinese takeout, I’ll be where I am every year — enjoying Christmas dinner at my mother’s house. Yes, my mother isn’t Jewish. And yes, I… Read more »

Do you, your family, neighborhood, Jewish agency or synagogue engage in a tikkun olam (repairing the world) project for Chanukah? Tell us about it! Send your story — no more than 300 words — to localnews@azjewishpost.com by Dec. 14. If we print it in the Dec. 23 AJP, you’ll… Read more »

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging will hold a multicultural holiday celebration on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m., focusing on winter holidays from around the world, including Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. Entertainment will include harpist Vesna Zalusky, who will play a medley of holiday songs. Activities will include… Read more »

The Weintraub Israel Center will hold its first community-wide, family-oriented early Chanukah party on Sunday, Dec. 18, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. “There are only two Jewish communities in which this holiday is so significant — the United States and Israel,” says Guy… Read more »

Bike chain menorah, a fair trade product hand made in India, creates a link to Jewish values. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When on Chanukah we say “A great miracle happened here,” the “here” isn’t China. I thought it was. With bins of electric menorahs, strings of dreidel lights and flashing LED dreidels, all “Made in China,” I thought I had Chanukah covered. That is until I… Read more »

One of my favorite books of the last decade is Daniel Tammet’s memoir “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant,” so I was eager to read “Following Ezra: What One Father Learned About Gumby, Otters, Autism, and Love from His Extraordinary Son” by… Read more »