Tagged FRONT

‘We don’t have time’: Rabbi launches Jewish climate change initiative during coronavirus crisis

A demonstrator holds a poster in front of the U.S. Capitol during a climate protest in Washington, Dec. 27, 2019. (Eva Hambach/AFP via Getty Images)
April 30, 2020 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Jennie Rosenn has spent most of her career working on Jewish social justice causes. Until recently, however, there was one issue that didn’t resonate as strong. “The environment was something that I knew was important, but I wasn’t passionate in my kishkes about… Read more »

Jerusalem’s Old City, virtual reality edition: A game brings quarantined people around the world into the holy neighborhood

A scene from “The Holy City,” an immersive virtual reality experience that takes users into Jerusalem's Old City. (Nimrod Shanit/Blimey)
April 18, 2020 / Judah Kauffman, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — This time of year — the convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan — is peak tourism time for this city. This year is the first time since 1992 that all three festivals fall in the same month. But traveling as a tourist to Jerusalem right now… Read more »

Jewish History Museum program enriches TPD officer training

Bryan Davis, executive director of the Jewish History Museum, leads cadets from the Southern Arizona Law Enforcement Training Center on a tour of the Holocaust History Center, Jan. 11, 2017. (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)
April 17, 2020 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

“What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust” is an educational partnership initiated in early 2017 between the Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center and law enforcement in Arizona. The program parallels the “Law Enforcement and Society: The Lessons of the Holocaust” initiative launched by the Jewish Community Foundation of… Read more »

Video chats help local senior living facility residents stay connected during pandemic

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging Community Outreach Coordinator Nanci Levy facilitates a recent video chat for resident Tony Eichorn. {Angela Salmon/Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging)
April 17, 2020 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Senior living facilities in Southern Arizona and all across the country have been on lockdown for several weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, with non-essential visitors not allowed. “This means no family and friends, and it also means no exercise teachers, musical performers, Shabbat service leaders, lecturers, Torah study… Read more »

For Tucson newcomer, literature, law, religion, and family are keys to life well lived

Bob Schwartz speaks on Jewish songwriters and American music at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library in Columbus, Mississippi, July 14, 2011. (Courtesy Bob Schwartz)
April 17, 2020 / Lauren Bookwalter, AJP Intern

Bob Schwartz has been involved with the Jewish community since he was a child growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey. He has been a part of nine congregations in six states and has been active within the Jewish community in Tucson for two years. A former attorney,… Read more »

Israel is suffering from coronavirus. Haredim have been made scapegoats

A haredi Orthodox man wearing a protective mask crosses a street in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak amid the novel coronavirus pandemic crisis, April 6, 2020. (Photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP via Getty Images)
April 17, 2020 / Gedalia Guttentag, JTA

After the deluge of negative headlines over the last several weeks, when COVID-19 is finally beaten back, it will be the scenes of police cordoning off Bnei Brak like a medieval plague city that will define the corona crisis for most Israelis and international observers. These media attacks, which… Read more »

Passover demands we remember the Exodus. That means taking care of our most vulnerable.

A homeless man crosses the almost deserted Times Square in New York City, April 13, 2020. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
April 14, 2020 / Mijal Bitton, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Every Passover, we strive to experience Egypt in our own lives. Locating the suffering of our Egypt wasn’t hard this year: It seems like most days my husband and I share the names of new people we personally know who have passed away from COVID-19… Read more »

To give my Israeli synagogue a chance of surviving the pandemic, I had to quit my job as rabbi

Rabbi Mikie Goldstein at Kehillat Adat Shalom-EmanuelRabbi Mikie Goldstein at Kehillat Adat Shalom-Emanuel in Rehovot. (Facebook / JTA Montage)
April 14, 2020 / Rabbi Mikie Goldstein, JTA

REHOVOT, Israel (JTA) — To help my kehillah survive the coronavirus pandemic, I had to do something dramatic and counterintuitive: step away from being its official rabbi. Our faith communities need spiritual leaders in these trying times more than ever. But as a non-Orthodox rabbi in Israel, I am largely… Read more »

Chinese-American groups return a Jewish message of solidarity by providing protective gear to agencies

A cardboard box is filled with packaged blue surgical masks imported from China during an outbreak of the coronavirus in San Ramon, Calif., April 5, 2020. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
April 14, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Jewish community’s expression of solidarity with Chinese Americans during the coronavirus pandemic has yielded an unexpected return: scads of personal protective equipment for Jewish organizations. David Bernstein, the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish public policy umbrella that initiated the solidarity… Read more »

In some European Jewish communities, getting the coronavirus carries a stigma

Haredi Orthodox Jews walk in Antwerp, Belgium, March 16, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
April 14, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — The coronavirus has spread rapidly among members of the Jewish community of Antwerp, which has a large Orthodox population. At least five have died and another 10 are hospitalized in serious condition. But the virus is hardly ever mentioned there by name. “People call it ‘the disease’… Read more »

Celebrity-studded Saturday Night Seder yields 1M viewers, $2.6M for charity and 4 big insights about the Jewish people

Jason Alexander, upper right, invites non-Jews Josh Groban, upper left, Darren Criss, lower left and Rachel Brosnahan to join in a virtual Seder webcast on YouTube, April 11, 2020. (Screenshot)
April 14, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

(JTA) — With its glittering assembly of stars, jokes that worked and attendees who could, well, sing, it was the Zoom Seder you wished you had. The Saturday Night Passover Seder that aired on YouTube over the weekend brought together dozens of celebrities and raised $2.6 million for the… Read more »

In Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Joe Biden, foreign policy — and Israel — go unmentioned

Bernie Sanders, right, endorses Joe Biden, left, in an online webcast on April 13, 2020. (Screenshot)
April 14, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders joined his old friend Joe Biden in a live webcast to endorse him on Monday, and the two candidates left standing in the Democratic primaries emphasized that they agree on more than what they disagree on. “Today I am asking all Americans, I am… Read more »

Jewish NFL star Mitch Schwartz embraces his inner chef during coronavirus quarantine

Mitchell Schwartz is having some fun, with food, off the gridiron. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images; Mitchell Schwartz/Instagram)
April 11, 2020 / Emily Burack, JTA

(JTA) — Fresh off his Super Bowl win in February, Kansas City Chiefs lineman Mitchell Schwartz took a vacation with his wife, Brooke, to St. Lucia. Little did they know that when they returned, they would be spending the next few months holed up at home because of the… Read more »

So Bernie Sanders won’t be the first Jewish president. Here are 10 people who could be.

Mark Cuban speaks at a 2019 event in Phoenix. (Gage Skidmore)
April 9, 2020 / Philissa Cramer, Gabe Friedman, Ron Kampeas, JTA

(JTA) — When Bernie Sanders announced on Wednesday that he was suspending his presidential campaign, he closed the door on the last sliver of possibility that America would elect its first Jewish president in 2020. That leaves Jewish White House history to be made. Here are 10 people who… Read more »

Celebrating Passover in a corona world
April 7, 2020 / Amy Hirshberg Lederman, Special to the AJP
Amy Hirshberg Lederman

Passover is the holiday when Jews come together for Seder with families, friends and community to retell the core Jewish narrative which goes like this: We were slaves for over 400 years in Egypt, then God  brought us out of Egypt “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm”… Read more »