Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez is in Yeshivat Maharat's 2018 class. (Uriel Heilman)
NEW YORK (JTA) – When Yeshivat Maharat ordains six women next month, the New York institution will more than double the number of Orthodox clergywomen in the field. For the past couple of years, the clergywomen have been establishing themselves in Orthodox communities while serving as synagogue interns, delivering… Read more »
Al Schwimmer, who guided the vast operation to build Israel's air force, with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. (Courtesy of Boaz Dvir)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The Israeli Air Force is getting its moment in the spotlight, with two documentaries airing on television stations and at film festivals, while a feature movie waits in the, ahem, wings. The focus of the films is not on today’s highly professional IAF or its… Read more »
Alden Solovy, on the ground, being stomped on by another worshipper at the Western Wall. (Miriam Alster)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – On a sunny morning last month, I was swept into the women’s section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem in a flurry of aggression directed at the Women of the Wall, the Israeli group fighting for women’s prayer at Jerusalem’s holiest site. One of the group’s… Read more »
German Chancellor Angela Merkel received the Presidential Medal, Israel's highest honor, from then-President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Feb. 25, 2014. (Ilia Yeflimovich/Getty Images)
BERLIN (JTA) — This month marks 50 years since Israel and West Germany established diplomatic ties. It has been an understandably complex relationship, launched two decades after the Holocaust ended and 14 years after West Germany committed to reparations “both moral and material” for the genocide committed by the… Read more »
Jewish Home's Ayelet shaked discussing budgets for Israeli settlements at a meeting of the State Control Committee at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Nov. 10, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Seven weeks after he won reelection, Benjamin Netanyahu finally secured a fourth term as prime minister. With 90 minutes to go until a Wednesday night deadline to form a governing coalition, Netanyahu concluded an agreement with the religious, pro-settler Jewish Home party that gives him… Read more »
Israeli soldiers establish a field hospital together with the Nepalese army on April 29 in Nepal. (IDF Spokesperson/ Flash90)
NEW YORK (JTA) – Almost as soon as news of Nepal’s devastating earthquake reached the wider world, Jewish aid groups began mobilizing humanitarian efforts to help the victims. In Israel, that meant dispatching first responders to Nepal; in America, it mostly meant raising and allocating money. How is the… Read more »
Israeli policeman trying to disperse the hundreds of demonstrators in Tel Aviv protesting on behalf of Ethiopian-Israelis, May 3, 2015. (Ben Kelmer/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — A historically disadvantaged black minority is galvanized when one of its members appears to suffer brutality at the hands of police — and the episode is caught on video. Peaceful mass protests devolve into violence. Police crack down in an attempt to control crowds. It’s… Read more »
Protesters marching in Baltimore following the announcement that six city police officers would be indicted in the death of Freddie Gray, May 2, 2015. (Andrew Burton.Getty Images)
GREAT NECK, N.Y. (JTA) — From 2011 through 2014, the City of Baltimore paid nearly $6 million in over 100 judgments and settlements relating to false arrests, unlawful imprisonment and police brutality. Once the justice system takes its course, the family of Freddie Gray may well be added to… Read more »
Members of Tucson’s Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition meet with Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) at his office in Washington, D.C. (L-R) Zakkai Markowitz, Josh McKenna, Ryan Green, Alan Parra, Jared Friedman, Flake, Aida Flores, Itzel Herrera, Audrey Powers, Dominick Montes (Lisa Kondrat)
When a group of nine Jewish and Latino teens traveled to Washington, D.C. last month it wasn’t just to see the sights — unless that included visiting congressional offices. Members of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition made the trip cross-country to lobby for immigration reform,… Read more »
Eyal Fruchter Eyal Fruchter, M.D., a retired Israel Defense Forces colonel who served as a military doctor, flight surgeon and military psychiatrist, will lead the keynote session of a conference on “Cause and Effect of Post-Traumatic Stress” on Thursday, May 14 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, presented by the Greater… Read more »
Donna Moser and Audrey Brooks Women of the Year Audrey Brooks and Donna Moser and Man of the Year Steve Kippur head the list of 2015 award winners the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will honor at its annual meeting and awards celebration, which will be held Thursday, May 7 at 7 p.m. at… Read more »
Cantor Janece Cohen To mark Cantor Janece Cohen’s 25 years of service as a congregational cantor, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is granting her a Doctorate of Sacred Music, Honoris Causa. On Saturday, May 9, Congregation Or Chadash will honor Cohen for this achievement with a gala dinner. Cohen has been… Read more »
American weightlifter David Berger was one of 11 members of the Israeli team killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. (Courtesy Barbara Berger)
Security was lax entering and leaving the 1972 Olympic Village in Munich. Barbara Berger knows this firsthand, because she was there on Sept. 3, 1972 to watch her 28-year-old brother, David Berger, an American, lift weights as a member of the Israeli Olympic team. The next morning, Berger and… Read more »
Rabbi Arthur Oleisky You may not know this, but every anniversary is (according to a tradition probably created by Hallmark) associated with a particular gift — paper for the first, tin for the 10th, diamonds for the 60th. The 85th anniversary is the diamond and sapphire anniversary. Both stones because, let’s face… Read more »
Golda Meir, shown in January 1964, was not the world's first female prime minister. (Wikimedia Commons)
(JTA) — Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on April 23. In honor of the Jewish state’s 67th birthday, we present, in no particular order, 10 little-known aspects of its history. El Al used to fly to Tehran. Iran and Israel enjoyed mostly good relations up until the Islamic… Read more »
National Front leader Marine Le Pen speaking with reporters following a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, Jan. 9, 2015. (Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)
(JTA) — At 27, David Rachline is the youngest senator in the history of France’s Fifth Republic and a rising force within the country’s third largest party. A university dropout and the son of a Jewish Socialist Party activist, Rachline crushed his opponents in the 2014 mayoral elections in… Read more »
Congregants praying at the Kadoorie Synagogue in Porto, Portugal, May 2014. (Courtesy of the Jewish community of Porto)
(JTA) — Hunched over a monument for thousands of Jews killed in a 1506 massacre in Lisbon, Danielle Karo (not her real name) felt a swelling in her eyes. To Karo, an American poet and business analyst who is descended from one of Sephardic Jewry’s greatest sages, the massacre… Read more »
A parade led by the University of Arizona marching band kicks off Tucson’s 2013 Israel Festival.
Blue and white Israeli flags waving on the campus of the Tucson Jewish Community Center will soon signal “Tucson Celebrates Israel,” a week of community-wide commemorations and festivities. From April 19 to 26, Tucson community members are invited to participate in events ranging from a 7 p.m. screening of… Read more »
Stephen and Ruth Dickstein
Temple Emanu-El will honor congregants Ruth and Stephen Dickstein for their contributions to the synagogue and the Tucson community with a gala dinner on Saturday, May 16. The theme of the event is “Our World Rests on Three Pillars: Learning, Worship, and Acts of Lovingkindness.” Steve and Ruth met… Read more »
Eugene Yelchin Who knew seven years ago that the Tucson Festival of Books would rank as one of the top celebrations of authors and reading in the United States? Kudos to its founders, Bill and Brenda Viner, members of the Tucson Jewish community, and Bruce Beach, Frank Farias and John Humenik.… Read more »
