Magda Haroun, president of the Jewish community in Egypt, says she is 'very confident of the future' in her country and vows to 'never, never, never' leave. (Bassatine News) TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Magda Haroun was out on the streets during the unrest now rocking Egypt’s capital, she saw someone standing over the body of a dead soldier. “Not even a Jew would do this,” she heard him say. Haroun, the president of the Egyptian Jewish community, doesn’t… Read more »
Handball hall-of-famer Fred Lewis, second from right, with his brother, Jack Lewis, sister-in-law, Ilene Lewis, and son, David Lewis, at the memorial to the 11 athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972, at the Wingate Institute in Netanya, Israel, site of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
(Courtesy Fred Lewis) Israel hosted the world’s largest sporting event of the year this summer, the 19th Maccabiah Games, held July 17-30. Three Tucsonans participated as athletes in the Olympic-style games, which included Jewish athletes from 70 countries, while one current and one former Tucsonan were inducted into the International Jewish… Read more »
Rabbi Batsheva Appel Temple Emanu-El has appointed Rabbi Batsheva Appel as associate rabbi. “I’m looking forward to working with a rabbi who I know is very talented,” Appel told the AJP, referring to Temple’s senior rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, “and a community that seems to be doing wonderful things here in Tucson.… Read more »
Congressman Ron Barber with children at a fortified indoor playground in Sderot, Israel, built with contributions from American groups and individuals. It can withstand a direct hit from a Gaza rocket. The area, under constant threat, is protected by the Iron Dome rocket interceptor. (Office of Congressman Ron Barber) Israel and Southern Arizona have ties that bind — in both the economic and national security realms. U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, who describes himself as “a strong supporter of Israel,” participated in a fact-finding trip to Israel from Aug. 5 to 11. Barber is a Tucson Democrat and a… Read more »
Todd Rockoff Todd Rockoff, the new president and CEO of the Tucson Jewish Community Center, has worked for JCCs from Akron, Ohio, to Calgary, Alberta. He started out at age 16 as a camp counselor in his hometown of Rochester, N.Y. “I’m honored to never have received a paycheck from anyone… Read more »
Jewish communal attitudes toward interfaith marriages, like the wedding between Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan in 2012, have shifted considerably since 1990. (Allyson Magda/ Facebook) NEW YORK (JTA) — When the nation’s largest Jewish federation convened its first-ever conference recently on engaging interfaith families, perhaps the most notable thing about it was the utter lack of controversy that greeted the event. There was a time when the stereotypical Jewish approach to intermarriage was to… Read more »
Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, seen in a January 2011 photo, are among top-ranking House Democrats inclined to engage Iran's new president in talks on his country's nuclear program. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In increasingly strident tones, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling his American friends that the purported moderation of Iran’s new president is a ploy aimed at relieving international pressure and buying the Islamic Republic more time to cross the nuclear threshold. But in ways… Read more »
Jewish participants of an interfaith conference in Sarajevo saying the Kaddish over the graves of 1985 Srebrenica massacre victims, July 2013. (Courtesy CMJ) SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (JTA) — Sarajevo is a city with a rich multicultural past, but it also bears the scars of war. Take a short walk through the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and you will see the many cemeteries and bullet-riddled walls, which are undergoing restoration. These lay side by side… Read more »
Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, left, and Rabbi Menachem Margolin of the Chabad-affiliated Rabbinical Centre of Europe have been at odds publicly over Schudrich's handling of the kosher slaughter case in Poland. (Creative Commons/Facebook) (JTA) — A few weeks before Poland’s parliament voted last month on whether to overturn a ban on ritual slaughter, Rabbi Menachem Margolin was scheduled to meet the Polish president in an effort to find a solution to the problem. The ban had been imposed in January, when a Polish… Read more »
Arizona freshman Rep. Matt Salmon, shown with wife Nancy at a June 2013 meeting with conservative television host Glenn Beck, drafted a letter asking the U.S. attorney general to hinder the release of Palestinian prisoners -- a move that Israel approved to help kick-start negotiations with the Palestinians. (Matt Salmon Facebook) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli settler leader Dani Dayan has made it his mission over the years to warn members of Congress, particularly Republicans, of the perils of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Dayan has been a regular visitor to Washington, his trips often coinciding with developments in the peace process. During… Read more »
Dave Blackburn, shown at center during last week's opening ceremony, is attending the Maccabiah as a paralympian in table tennis after six previous appearances as an able-bodied softball pitcher. (Courtesy Dave Blackburn) RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — Dave Blackburn beamed triumphantly, surrounded by a crowd of American athletes and cheering spectators. It was like old times, the great pitcher basking in applause. But Blackburn wasn’t being ushered off the field with a championship trophy in hand as he was after leading… Read more »
(L-R): Israeli negotiators Yitzhak Molcho and Tzipi Livni, Vice President Joe Biden, President Barack Obama, and Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Shtayyeh at an Oval Office meeting to discuss the formal resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, July 30, 2013. (U.S. State Department) WASHINGTON (JTA) — After 20 years of stops, starts and a bloody intifada in between, John Kerry believes he can pull out a final status Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in nine months. What clock is the U.S. secretary of state trying to beat? According to his aides, the one ticking… Read more »
An Orthodox woman blows a whistle in protest against efforts to promote women's prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall, July 8, 2013. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — On the morning of July 8, at the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av, the Western Wall plaza was a cacophonous mess. Women of the Wall, the activist group that holds women’s prayer services each month at the site known as the Kotel, loudly sang… Read more »
Kate, the duchess of Cambridge, rides in a carriage back to Buckingham Palace in London in June 2013, is in labor in a hospital wing of St. Mary's Hospital named for a wealthy Jewish man. ( Chris Jackson/Getty) NEW YORK (JTA) – When the news broke Monday that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, had gone into labor, it seemed that London could not have been more prepared. For weeks, reporters and photographers had been camped out in front of the maternity ward at… Read more »
U.S. Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Aly Raisman lights the torch during the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games at Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium, July 19, 2013. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) — U.S. Olympian Aly Raisman lit the torch at the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games, which features a record number of nearly 9,000 athletes. Thursday night’s ceremony at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem featured pyrotechnics and performances with hundreds of dancers and popular Israeli singers, as… Read more »
In Kenya, the home of this young HIAS client, the immigrant aid society has taken in refugees from conflicts in neighboring countries, among others. (Courtesy HIAS) TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (JTA) — The new HIAS is not your grandmother’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and it’s certainly not the one that brought her mother over from the Pale of Settlement. After decades as the Jewish community’s foremost voice on immigration — first in leading the resettlement of Jews… Read more »
Former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers embraces his one-time goalie Patrick Roy at Roy's 2008 retirement ceremony at the Bell Centre in Montreal. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Of all the compelling stories of athletic achievement and challenges overcome that could be told by the 9,000 participants gathering in Israel for the 19th Maccabiah Games, it might be hard to find one to top Jacques Demers. He’s a coaching legend, having led the iconic… Read more »
Romance blooms for Andrew West and Sophia Kerdoon in the Negev Desert. Ask almost anyone who has been on Birthright Israel and they will tell you that the 10-day trip is a life-changing experience. This might sound cliché, but for many Tucsonans on the trip from June 10-20 — sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, local donors and the… Read more »
Egyptian protesters hold an anti-Morsi poster in Tahrir Square in Cairo shortly before the military's ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, July 3, 2013. (Spencer Platt/Getty) TEL AVIV (JTA) – For the second time in less than three years, Egypt is erupting in chaos, with a popular protest movement leading to a swift change in the country’s leadership. For Israelis, the Egyptian military’s removal of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency last week is a cause… Read more »
A plaque engraved with names of the 19 fallen firefighters from the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew is mounted on a fence outside Station 7, their home base in Prescott, Ariz., July 3, 2013. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On Yom Kippur, we ask “Who by fire?” Sadly, this year at Tisha b’Av we already know who — the 19 firefighters who perished in Arizona. “This is as dark a day as I can remember,” Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement. Unknowingly, the… Read more »
