Tagged FRONT

Sen. Lindsey Graham, shown in Washington on July 30, 2014, is backing an initiative that would require congressional approval of any nuclear deal signed with Iran. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Two factors make congressional intervention on Iran almost inevitable: The inability of nuclear negotiators to reach a deal by the deadline and the Republican sweep of midterm elections on Nov. 4. The talks, centered on the status of Iran’s nuclear program, were extended from Monday’s deadline… Read more »

President Barack Obama speaking about his executive action on immigration policy at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nev., Nov. 21, 2014. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama did not mention Jews once in his Nov. 20 speech announcing immigration reforms, but he ended with a flourish that would be immediately recognizable to anyone who has sat through a Passover Seder. “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for… Read more »

Israeli flags standing next to the Israeli state symbol in the Knesset, Nov. 6, 2014. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — On Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet advanced a bill in a 14-6 vote that if passed by the Knesset would enshrine into law Israel’s status as a Jewish state. The nation-state law, as the controversial measure is being called, has sparked a crisis in Israel’s coalition, with… Read more »

(L-R) University of Arizona students Liao Dong, Jing Xia, Hao Jun Yang and Ming Xuan Xiao on University Boulevard in Tucson, Nov. 7, at the start of homecoming weekend. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP)

Do stereotypes vary based on traditional socialization in any given country? Yes, if you’re talking about China, at least according to four Chinese students at the University of Arizona who attribute characteristics such as intelligence, success and business acumen to being Jewish. “I didn’t know why Jews are so… Read more »

Carlos Hernandez

Carlos Hernandez’s 20-year experience in the behavioral health field has run the gamut from social worker and case manager to administrator. Recently named president and CEO of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona, Hernandez, 44, says his new role is the next logical step in his career.… Read more »

Vadim Gluzman (Marco Borggreve)

When they first handed Soviet-born Israeli musician Vadim Gluzman the violin he plays today, he had the “distinct feeling” he was being watched. This is no ordinary violin, mind you, so it’s practical to think that a number of people were looking on. But this feeling was different, supernatural… Read more »

Cindy Sher

CHICAGO (JTA) — Last year, for a month before Thanksgiving I jotted down one thing for which I was grateful every night before I went to bed. Here are some of the 30 blessings I recorded: • A warm bed. • Airplanes that fly me to visit my family… Read more »

From left, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton of the European Union, Omani foreign Minister Yusaf bin Alawi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at three-way negotiations about the future of Iran's nuclear program in Muscat, Oman, Nov. 9, 2014. (U.S. State Department)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — With the Nov. 24 deadline for an Iran deal looming, there’s no guarantee that the Obama administration will achieve its long-sought goal of an agreement over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. But there’s at least one outcome that is a virtual certainty: Obama will face a… Read more »

Food samples were a big part of the draw at Kosherfest, held Nov. 11-12 in Secaucus, N.J. (Jeff Cohn/BaltimoreJewishLife.com)

SECAUCUS, N.J. (JTA) – Gefilte fish? Check. Pastrami? Check. Kosher-for-Passover anti-constipation pills? Edible spoons for Bar Mitzvah appetizers? A cholov Yisroel-certified alternative to the nutritional supplement drink Ensure? Check, check, check. Welcome to Kosherfest, the annual kosher food trade show where hundreds of kosher food companies come together to… Read more »

A U.S. Marine in Vietnam featuring a Magen David on his helmet, circa 1968 (Courtesy National Museum of American Jewish Military History)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Mementos of Jacob Goldstein slide across the 3-foot-by-4-foot horizontal screen like cards being dealt at a casino: his photograph, his name, an Operation Urgent Fury headline denoting the 1983 military campaign in Grenada, Goldstein’s explanatory text summarizing his role during the invasion. Even more striking than… Read more »

Anna Gendler with a student at The Symphony Women’s Association

For Alexander Tent­ser, music was as much a right of passage as his Bar Mitzvah. His father was a klezmer musician and entertainer with a conservatory education in Kiev, Ukraine, and since Tentser had been playing piano since the age of four, it was only natural that he began… Read more »

Rabbi Hayim Herring sparked discussion at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona council on Oct. 22 with this illustration of social networks. (2014 Copyright. HayimHerring.com. All rights reserved.)

An organization is “a container for meaning,” Rabbi Hayim Herring told more than 80 people gathered for the first Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona council meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 22. Herring, an organizational consultant specializing in synagogues and Jewish agencies, presented “Jewish Organization 3.0: New Generations, New Paradigm” to… Read more »

Joey Weisenberg

Joey Weisenberg grew up in Milwaukee, performing in blues clubs at the same time he was preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. Now 33, Weisenberg has transferred his musical and spiritual passion to nigunim (wordless Jewish melodies), and will be musician-in-residence at Congregation Anshei Israel during the weekend of Nov.… Read more »

Lois Lederman and Noga Panai rehearse ‘Handle With Care’ at Invisible Theatre. (Tim Fuller)

Tucson’s Invisible Theater will celebrate its 44th anniversary season with the Southwestern premiere of Jason Odell Williams’ comedy, “Handle With Care.” Described as the “Jewish ‘Christmas Carol’ play for all audiences” by the playwright, “Handle With Care” is the story of a young Israeli woman, with little command of… Read more »

Maria Jutasi Coleman began sculpting five years ago. Her work is “made of the dust of the earth, as my beloveds have since become,” she says. (Pat Wick, Sierra Vista Herald)

Psychologist Maria Jutasi Coleman didn’t mean to revive her Holocaust images from childhood. When she and her partner moved from Phoenix to retire in Bisbee five years ago, she began taking ceramics classes at Cochise College. Creating sculptures depicting the Holocaust “just happened,” Coleman told the AJP. “I was… Read more »

Participants taking in a session at the 2013 General Assembly in Jerusalem. (Courtesy Jewish Federations of North America)

(JTA) — Reinventing. Rethinking. Rebranding. Innovating. They’re all buzzwords we hear today whether talking about education, health care, product marketing or Jewish communal work. We’re living in a time in which endless access to information and 24-hour communication is challenging us to question just about everything. As a result,… Read more »

Emily Kessler strums the mandolin in her Upper West side apartment. (Raffi Wineburg/JTA)

For Emily Kessler, a Holocaust survivor, the prospect of performing at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall is less worrying than figuring out what to wear for the occasion. “I came to the conclusion,” she said, in an interview at her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, “that what is… Read more »

Donna Moser, left, and her sister, Audrey Brooks, are co-chairs of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona 2015 Community Campaign.

Visiting Greece, Israel, Russia and Ukraine on Federation missions, sisters Audrey Brooks and Donna Moser recognized that while the landscapes and languages may vary, the problems people face are similar all over the world. That led them to create a new theme, “Their Lives are in Our Hands,” for… Read more »

Speakers at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy event on Oct. 14 (L-R): Savannah Sanders, survivor advocate and training coordinator at the SAFE Action Project in Tempe; Melanie Roth Gorelick, Community Relations Commitee director at the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ; and Kathleen Winn, direcor of community outreach and education at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (Roberta Elliott)

“I am an abolitionist,” proclaimed Melanie Roth Gorelick at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy Annual Welcome earlier this month. Gorelick, Community Relations Committee director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Metrowest NJ, spoke along with two other “abolitionists” to increase awareness of the sex trafficking of… Read more »

Julie Feldman

The love of learning has been a powerful motivator for Julie Feldman, Ph.D. From spending her formative years in Geneva, Switzerland, with her family, to revamping a desire to become a physician, Feldman, 46, finds joy in expanding her world. Now a clinical assistant professor in psychology at the… Read more »