Protesters demonstrating against "The Death of Klinghoffer" outside the Metropolitan Opera House in New York city, Oct. 20, 2014. (Raffi Wineburg) NEW YORK (JTA) — “See it. You Decide,” the Metropolitan Opera of New York exhorts in a promotional push capitalizing on the controversy over its new production of “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Well, I saw it. And I’m not sure which was more of a letdown, the hubbub over… Read more »
David Broza Israeli folk star David Broza returns to Tucson on Oct. 30 for a solo performance — with a few special guests — at the Fox Tucson Theatre. With a career spanning almost four decades, Broza’s eclectic musicianship ranges from flamenco rhythms to lightning fast guitar picking to his own… Read more »
Andrew Romanoff (JTA) — With midterm elections just around the corner, four races for the House of Representatives in particular are catching our Jewish eyes. In California, succeeding Waxman: Ted Lieu vs. Elan Carr California’s 33rd Congressional District, stretching along the Pacific Coast and extending into the west side of Los… Read more »
Rabbi Gary Zola Rabbi Gary Phillip Zola, Ph.D. will be the Mitch Dorson scholar-in-residence at Congregation Or Chadash on Oct. 24 and 25. Zola is executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in… Read more »
Auguste Rodin's "Adam" The Tucson Museum of Art will host one of its most prestigious exhibitions, “The Figure Examined: Masterworks from the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation,” Oct. 18 through Feb. 22, 2015. The exhibit will include some 120 works of art by more than 70 noted artists from the 19th and 20th… Read more »
Israel Border Police confront a Palestinian man in the Silwan neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem where Jews moved into 25 apartments in the middle of the night, Sept. 30, 2014. (Silman Khader/Flash90) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish- and Arab-Israeli residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan disagree on whether the neighborhood is historically Jewish or Arab. They disagree about whether Israeli Jews should be living there. They even disagree on what to call one of the main streets in the neighborhood, a… Read more »
Fabrice Schomberg outside his home in The Hague. (Cnaan Lihpshiz) THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — For the tour guides that lead visitors through the Van Ostade Housing Project, Fabrice Schomberg’s sukkah is one of the few signs of the neighborhood’s Jewish roots. Built in the 19th century for impoverished Jews, the enclave today is surrounded by the largely Muslim… Read more »
Paul and Hedy Strnad were rejected in their efforts to seek safe haven in the United States from Czehchoslovakia on the eve of the Holocaust. (Courtesy Jewish Museum Milwaukee) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Was the Jewish “lady tailor” who ran a Prague dressmaking shop a potential Nazi spy? The Roosevelt administration apparently thought so. The Jewish Museum Milwaukee recently opened a remarkable exhibit about the late Hedy Strnad, a Jewish-Czech dressmaker who with her husband, Paul, attempted to immigrate… Read more »
A view of the reactor at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran as the first fuel is loaded, Aug. 21, 2010. (Iran International Photo Agency via Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) – Obama administration officials and Iran skeptics, chief among them Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are presenting starkly different outlooks of what the world would look like should negotiators meet a Nov. 24 deadline and strike a nuclear deal. The topic is likely to dominate the meeting… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his address at the U.N. General Assembly shows a photo of a rocket launcher in a civilian area of Gaza with children nearby, Sept. 29, 2014. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images) NEW YORK (JTA) – In the end, there was much to talk about at the U.N. General Assembly but few genuine surprises. With an eye on the jihadist group ISIS, President Obama focused on the need for the international community to counter the dangers of violent extremism. Israeli Prime… Read more »
Simon Rosenblatt Simon Rosenblatt is emphatic as he speaks about volunteering with the Tucson Jewish community: “Make no mistake, Jewish Tucson is our family.” Rosenblatt spreads his energy and time across a trifecta of local and national Jewish efforts: Temple Emanu-El, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Union for Reform… Read more »
Vivian Ackerman, left, and Selma Paul Marks (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) Friendships may be coveted throughout life, but how many span more than 65 years? Selma Paul Marks, now 91, was pregnant with her first child when she attended her friend Vivian’s wedding to Harry Ackerman at the Stone Avenue Temple on March 23, 1947. Years later, Marks and Ackerman,… Read more »
Summer’s over but worldwide trouble spots rage on. The influx into Arizona of Central American migrants fleeing violence, the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine, and the Israel-Gaza conflict were the subjects of an educational forum on Sept. 10, hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of… Read more »
Martin Indyk said that refraining from imposing ideas on the Israelis and Palestinians inhibited both sides from embracing them. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) – What was supposed to have revived the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks — allowing negotiations to develop organically — instead helped kill them, Martin Indyk, until recently the top U.S. peace broker, told JTA in a candid and wide-ranging interview. Speaking by phone Sept. 19 while in transit… Read more »
President Barack Obama speaking at the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Sept. 24, 2014. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) NEW YORK (JTA) – President Obama devoted the bulk of his U.N. speech to the fight against violent Islamic extremism and hardly mentioned Iran’s nuclear program. In his address last year to the General Assembly, Obama spent a great deal of time talking about Tehran’s nuclear pursuit, describing it… Read more »
Secular Israelis outside the Cinema City theater in Jerusalem demonstrating in favor of allowing movie theaters to open on Shabbat, Feb. 25, 2014. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) TEL AVIV (JTA) – During the past 18 months, the governing coalition in Israel has passed legislation to extend the nation’s mandatory conscription to the haredi Orthodox — a group currently exempted from military service — and Knesset leaders have advanced bills that would allow for civil unions and… Read more »
The leader of France's far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, seen here at a May Day demonstration in Paris in 2012, has a growing following among Jews. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) (JTA) — From the window of his Paris home, Michel Ciardi can see into the waiting room of a government welfare agency where a predominantly Arab and African crowd awaits government checks. A former communist, Ciardi once believed the scene at the agency was a necessary element of French… Read more »
Who knows what Tucson’s energetic young Jewish leaders may accomplish in the next 30 years? Four of those leaders profiled here, Amy Beyer, Adam Goldstein, Ben Pozez and Sarah Heisler Singer, have already contributed a great deal to the future of Jewish Tucson, belying the stereotype of apathetic young… Read more »
Mark Wallace, CEO of the new Counter Extremism Project, is flanked by board members Fran Townsend and Joseph Lieberman in announcing the group's creation in New York, Sept. 22, 2014/ (Courtesy of Counter Extremism Project) NEW YORK (JTA) – Imagine taking the 6-year-old nongovernmental organization United Against Nuclear Iran and swapping out the word Iran with “violent extremists.” That pretty much sums up the Counter Extremism Project, an NGO launched Monday that aims to expose the financial, ideological and recruitment architecture that supports violent… Read more »
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida greets Israel's U.S. ambassador, Ron Dermer, at a Jewish New Year celebration hosted by Dermer in Chevy Chase, Md., Sept. 17, 2014. (Courtesy Israel Embassy) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Saying a nuclear Iran would be a “thousand times” greater threat to the world than ISIS, Israel’s ambassador to the United States warned against including Iran in any coalition to derail the jihadist group. Ron Dermer, speaking Wednesday to guests at a pre-Rosh Hashanah reception at… Read more »
