Tagged FRONT

For this U.N. report on Gaza War, Israel came prepared

A Palestinian child amid the rubble of buildings in Gaza City that were destroyed during the summer of 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, June 22, 2015. (Aaed Tayeh/Flash90)
June 23, 2015 / Ron Kampeas and Marcy Oster, JTA

(JTA) – This time, Israel and its supporters came prepared. Anticipating what they believed would be an unfair U.N. report on last summer’s Gaza War, the Israeli government and friendly groups in the United States were ready with at least three reports they say better reflects the reality of… Read more »

In Britain, Jewish and Muslim women connect over Mitzvah Day

Muslim and Jewish participants in a new interfaith initiative during its launch at the Jewish Museum in the London Borough of Camden, June 9, 2015. (Yakir Zur)
June 22, 2015 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Good deeds can be contagious. Just ask Laura Marks, a British Jew who is widely credited with creating one of her community’s most widely celebrated new traditions: an annual Mitzvah Day, now in its 11th consecutive year, in which thousands of British Jews perform charity work in retirement homes,… Read more »

Op-Ed: Don’t whitewash Charleston’s troubled racial history

A woman holds a sign during an interfaith candlelight vigil in solidarity with Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina outside Barclays Center on June 21, 2015 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Nine people were fatally shot inside the historic African American church on June 17. Suspect Dylann Roof, 21, has been arrested and charged in the killings, which were racially motivated. (Kena Betancur/Getty Images)
June 22, 2015 / Adam Mendelsohn JTA

CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA) — A prominent Jewish Charlestonian’s inspiring response to the massacre last week at the Emanuel AME Church has circulated widely in recent days. Robert N. Rosen’s essay points to the best traditions of life in the city: tolerance, an attentiveness to history, and a powerful sense… Read more »

What will the ADL lose when Foxman leaves?

Abraham Foxman holds a replica of his Hollywood Walk of Fame Star as he is honored by the ADL's 2014 Annual Meeting at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on November 7, 2014. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
June 20, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – If there’s one thing that can be said of longtime Anti-Defamation League leader Abraham Foxman, who is stepping down this month after nearly 30 years at the helm, it’s that he never holds back from speaking his mind. In an age of canned, anodyne statements… Read more »

Michael Douglas: I ‘never felt accepted’ as a Jew

Michael Douglas speaking at the announcement of the Genesis Generation Challenge winners at the Bloomberg Philanthropies headquarters in New York City, April 28, 2015. (Flickr)
June 20, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Michael Douglas hadn’t heard of the Genesis Prize when he found out that he’d won it. In fact, the Oscar-winning actor was surprised to discover he was even in the running for an award designed for those who inspire fellow Jews. His father, actor Kirk Douglas,… Read more »

Expansion of local Holocaust museum garners broad support

A slideshow at the May 29 event to showcase plans for the Holocaust History Center expansion included this artist's rendering of an interactive testimonial wall (SBBL Architecture and Planning)
June 11, 2015 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Many local schoolchildren may never get the opportunity to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., or the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. But Tucson’s Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum can put that kind of learning within reach, Bryan… Read more »

Domestic abuse takes many forms, affects all populations, say local experts
June 11, 2015 / Sheila Wilensky, AJP Associate Editor
Andrea Siemens

Even discussing domestic abuse can be controversial. Jewish women face cultural and religious stigmatization when they get out of their abusive relationships, said Andrea Siemens of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona at a joint presentation with Robin Memel Fox of the Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse,… Read more »

CHAI Circle, local women’s cancer support group, entering bat mitzvah year
June 11, 2015 / Evelyn Varady, Special to the AJP
Evelyn Varady

On Sunday, March 8, 18 Jewish women gathered at the Tucson Jewish Community Center for brunch, inspiration and guided schmoozing. Most of the women were not strangers. Some have been meeting regularly for nearly 13 years; others have joined the group more recently; two were attending for the first… Read more »

At security confab, Israeli coalition members split on West Bank policy

Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennet speaks at the Herzliya Conference, June 7, 2015. (FLASH90)
June 11, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

HERZLIYA, Israel (JTA) — When Israel’s coalition government formed last month, its constituent parties all but ruled out establishing a Palestinian state in the near future. But that doesn’t mean they can agree on what to do instead. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference this week, Israel’s premier diplomatic and security policy gathering,… Read more »

A Russian chief rabbi stands by his strongman, aka Putin

Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, right, attending a brit milah at a Moscow synagogue, on April 28, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
June 11, 2015 / Cnaan Liphshiz

MOSCOW (JTA) – Rabbi Berel Lazar’s mother was eager for grandchildren. So she gave her 25-year-old son an ultimatum: He could return to his beloved Jewish outreach work in Russia if — and only if — he got married. His yeshiva classmates jokingly said he was already wed, “to the idea of… Read more »

Obama’s latest wooing of Jews not working, poll suggests

President Obama speaks at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., May 22, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
June 11, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s early days for the White House’s latest charm offensive among American Jews, but a new poll suggests that the wooing effort is having little effect. The poll, published Wednesday by J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that generally backs President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies, shows… Read more »

Citing the Talmud, Dr. Ruth questions sexual consent requirements. Is her reading correct?

Dr. Ruth Westheimer attends the opening night of "Wiesenthal: A New Play' in New York City, Nov. 5, 2014. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Wiesenthal)
June 3, 2015 / Julie Weiner, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the octogenarian therapist and TV host, is famous for her frank and open talk about sex. But she’s being called out for her recent comments about sexual consent — and using the Talmud to back up her controversial point of view. With her new book, “The… Read more »

Tucsonan celebrates festival of freedom in Nepal

At an impromptu Passover seder in Nepal, ginger chutney took the place of horseradish and traditional flat chappati bread was a substitute for matzah.
May 28, 2015 / Allison Wexler, Special to the AJP

In April, I spent three weeks in Nepal as a volunteer for Elephant Aid International. Life for captive Asian elephants is a miserable existence of slavery, including painful iron chains around their legs. In cooperation with the government of Nepal, EAI and volunteers from all over the world built… Read more »

Tucson tallit artist: ‘Everything is generated by story’

The Rosh Hashanah-inspired pomegranate tallit Beth Surdut created for Rabbi Malka Drucker of Santa Fe, N.M., includes a quote from Psalm 96.
May 28, 2015 / Sheila Wilensky, AJP Associate Editor

From Providence, R.I., to Santa Fe, N.M., to Tucson, with many stops in between, tallit maker Beth Surdut has always been an artist. Her approach to Judaism is as expansive as her art, always growing and changing. “Being brought up Jewish you’re brought up to have an inquiring mind,”… Read more »

From ‘Bring Back Our Boys’ to ‘Unity Day’

Israelis lit candles in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on July 6, 2014 to mourn the death of three teenagers who were abducted and murdered in the West Bank. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
May 28, 2015 /

This piece was written by Iris and Ori Ifrach, Rachelli and Avi Fraenkel, and Bat-Galim and Ofer Shaer, the parents of Eyal Ifrach, Gil-ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel. (JTA) — One year ago, our families were thrust into a nightmare beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Our sons,… Read more »

70 years on, Hitchcock Holocaust doc finds an audience

A still from "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey" showing children smiling through barbed wire as Allied troops approach, April 1945. (Imperial War Museum)
May 27, 2015 / Gabrielle Birkner, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — “This was a woman,” the narrator explains, as the camera pans over a figure so emaciated and burnt that it’s barely recognizable as human. It’s one of the more arresting scenes in “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey,” a highly unusual Holocaust documentary shot and scripted 70 years ago,… Read more »

BDS on campus: When does ‘anti-Israel’ become anti-Semitic?

BDS demonstration at the White House in 2010 (Creative Commons)
May 22, 2015 / Dan Pine, J weekly of Northern California

(J) — Liana Kadisha, a senior at Stanford University, says some Jewish students on her campus feel they have to hide who they are. The 22-year-old knows of several who tuck their Star of David necklaces inside their shirts, self-conscious about drawing attention to their Jewish identity. That’s not… Read more »