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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 »

Sam Caron with Elwood

The benefits of being a ventriloquist have come full circle for Sam Caron. “At age 6 I was a very sick child” with rheumatic fever, says the Sierra Vista therapist, who has a Ph.D. in guidance and counseling from the University of New Mexico. “When I came home from… Read more »

The Maccabeats, Yeshiva University's a capella group, with their 2010 YouTube sensation "Candlelight" freshens up the Chanukah story. (Courtesy Jewish Community Center of Paramus, N.J.)

NEW YORK (JTA) -- My 3-year-old son is obsessed with showing people his room, sidling sheepishly over to guests and asking, “Can I show you my room?” My son reminds me how important our "place" is -- "A Room of One's Own," in Virginia Wolff’s words. Our rooms make us… Read more »

A woman on King George Street in Jerusalem appears perplexed picking from the array of sufganiyot choices for Chanukah. (Nati Shohat/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — They’re making sufganiyot on the streets of Israel; Chanukah must be near. Actually it started feeling like Chanukah here about two days after Sukkot, when the first vendors started frying the delicious and caloric doughnuts in vats of oil in front of bakeries and on the… Read more »

Chanukah mini-doughnuts are called ponchiki in Russian and ponchik in Yiddish. (Barry Kaplan/Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Latkes and sufganiyot, the jelly-filled doughnuts especially popular in Israel, are well-known Chanukah fare made with oil to signify the holiday tale. Lesser known is the tradition of cheese and the story of Judith. Like the Chanukah story, which is part of the Apocrypha — books not… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — Judah Maccabee, meet the Golem of Prague. And Rebecca Rubin, Engineer Ari, and Nathan and Jacob, two brothers who are part of a modern American Jewish family. They are among the characters who take center stage in this year’s crop of new children’s books for Chanukah,… Read more »

In honor of National Family Caregivers Month, the nonprofit National Private Duty Association will host a free consumer education web conference, “Creating a Care Plan for Your Parents,” on Nov. 3 at 8 p.m. EST. The live, interactive program will provide advice on how family caregivers can work with… Read more »

Fran Donnellan

It’s probably one of the most important yet dreaded conversations you can have with an aging parent, and it often begins something like this: “You should NOT be driving.” Not surprisingly, the conversation usually goes downhill from there. In this column, I’ll outline some information and suggestions to help… Read more »

Lillian Silverman at her 100th birthday party with her grandson from Tucson, Jeff Jacobson, and his wife, Rachel, and son, Sam, in 2010. (Courtesy Alan Jacobson)

On July 4, 2011, the Brooklyn borough president proclaimed the day “Lillian Silverman, 101st Birthday Celebration Day.” The Arizona Jewish Post learned of this energetic senior’s special recognition through her family, many of whom reside in Tucson. From children through great-grandchildren, three generations have inherited Lillian Rudnick Silverman’s generous… Read more »

Zachary and Stacey Singer first met in B’nai Mitzvah class at Congregation Anshei Israel. (Photos: Kadie Pangburm of Pangbum Photography)

Stacey Leigh Borin, daughter of Tom and Sara Borin, and Zachary Jonathan Singer, son of Steve and Shelley Singer, all of Tucson, were married on March 27, 2011 at the Hilton El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resort with Rabbi Robert Eisen and Cantor Ivor Lichterman of Congregation Anshei Israel… Read more »

  Although restaurants that cater to new trends are always popping up in Tucson, many diners still crave traditional Italian, Mexican or French cuisine. Luckily, whatever the dining preferences, Tucson restaurants satisfy myriad tastes. After travels to Paris or Montreal, locals can come home to enjoy paté or chateau… Read more »

The Jewish Genetic Disease Center of Greater Phoenix will offer genetic screening on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. at the Ina Levine Jewish Community campus, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road. One in five Jewish individuals of Ashkenazi/Eastern European descent is a carrier for one or more… Read more »

Susan and Brad Stillman grew concerned following their son Benjamin’s birth in September 1998. He was fussy and congested, had difficulty breastfeeding and didn’t take to the bottle. The parents brought him to the pediatrician and then to a hospital pediatric care unit near their home in Rockville, Md.,… Read more »

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (JTA) – If the Jewish Council on Public Affairs has its way, it won’t be the presidential election, the ailing economy, social justice or personal ethics that top the list of High Holidays sermon topics this year. The public policy group is hoping that the study… Read more »

For Lee Weissman, a Breslov Chasid in Irvine, Calif., the recent onset of Elul caps a spiritual journey he began a month earlier with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Weissman, a teacher at the Tarbut v’Torah Community Day School in Irvine and a scholar of Southeast… Read more »