Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, who retired in 2002 after 44 years in the rabbinate — more than 30 of them in Tucson — died July 1, 2013. He was 80. Weizenbaum, who was senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El for 21 years beginning in 1972, and founded the now-defunct Congregation Ner Tamid… Read more »
L-R: Reps. Steny Hoyer, Eric Cantor and John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, singing "We Shall Overcome" at a memorial to martyrs of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Ala., March 2, 2013. (Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Reps. Eric Cantor and John Lewis stood together recently at a Montgomery, Ala., memorial to martyrs of the civil rights struggle, joining hands to sing “We Shall Overcome.” With last week’s Supreme Court decision gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act — one of the landmark pieces of… Read more »
Edith Windsor, left, embraces Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City, June 28, 2013. (Hugo Fernandes)
NEW YORK (JTA) — At 5 p.m. last Friday, a line of visibly excited people — many decked out in rainbow regalia — gathered on the sidewalk outside Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the gay and lesbian synagogue in Manhattan. Worshipers don’t generally form lines down the block in advance… Read more »
L-R: Reps. Ed Royce, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Pete Roskam at a meeting with Dani Dayan, a leader of Israel's settlers movement, in Washington, June 27, 2013. (House Republican Conference) WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s almost boilerplate: The American Jewish community asks a foreign leader with whom it has cultivated a close relationship to kindly tell firebrands in the leader’s government to pipe down and fall in with an established policy that happens to be embraced by the U.S. government.… Read more »
Tucsonan Joseph Schwartz at bat for the Maccabi USA team at a 2011 game in Brazil. (Courtesy Joseph Schwartz) Laurence Kaye’s whole mishpocheh, from all over the United States and his native South Africa, will be heading to Israel for the Maccabiah Games this July — not necessarily to watch him compete in the Men’s Open Squash tournament, although that’s a bonus, but to be on hand as… Read more »
North Korea refugee and human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk demonstrating for human rights in North Korea outside the White House, July 10, 2012. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
BRUSSELS (JTA) — When guards dragged Shin Dong-hyuk from his North Korean cell in 1995, he was pretty sure the end was near. Dong-hyuk, then just 13, was born in the prison known as Camp 14, not far from Pyongyang. Camp 14 is part of a network of political… Read more »
Barbra Streisand hugs Israeli President Shimon Peres after performing at his 90th birthday celebration in Jerusalem, June 18, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/FLASH90) JERUSALEM (JTA) — World leaders praised and serenaded Israeli President Shimon Peres in honor of his upcoming 90th birthday. The prime-time birthday celebration Tuesday night marked the start of the fifth annual Israeli Presidential Conference. Two of every three Israeli television viewers tuned in to the ceremony, which was… Read more »
Hassan Rohani, Iran's president-elect, is a former national security adviser and ex-nuclear negotiator. (Creative Commons)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Former national security adviser, former nuclear negotiator, a decades-old friendship with the supreme leader — Hassan Rohani is as Iranian establishment as it gets. Which is why, some Iran watchers say, he may be an invaluable asset in the quest to reduce tensions between the Islamic… Read more »
More than a dozen Americans and Israelis met recently in Israel to strategize plans for the TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Phoenix, Seattle) Partnership2Gether project for the coming year. Tucson volunteer Gail Ben-Jamin (known to her Israeli friends as Gila) and Oshrat Barel, the future shlicha or Israeli emissary to Tucson,… Read more »
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz (with binoculars) tours the Israeli border with Syria on May 21.
(Tal Manor/IDF Spokesperson/Flash 90/JTA) For much of the past two years, Israel has taken a singular approach to the Syrian civil war: Stay as far away as possible. But with a recent string of victories by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and the crumbling of the U.N. peacekeeping force that has kept… Read more »
Demonstrators in Berlin protesting the deaths of pro-Palestinian activists in a clash with Israeli commandos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, June 2010. (Sean Gallup/Getty) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s settlement building is increasingly isolating the country in Europe, leading to European Union policies that could reinforce Israel’s delegitimization, according to the top EU representative to the peace process. Andreas Reinicke, the EU’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said increasing frustration with… Read more »
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who is to be named national security adviser, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, October 2009. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Susan Rice has said that a “huge” portion of her work at the United Nations was defending Israel’s legitimacy. Her new job will likely be no less Israel-centric. President Obama plans Wednesday to name Rice his national security adviser and replace her at the U.N. with… Read more »
Holocaust survivor Bill Kugelman, a Tucson resident (right, in blue), and Bryan Davis, director of the Holocaust Education and Commemoration Project of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, speak to students at the Tucson High Magnet School gallery after they viewed a poster exhibit, “Echoes of the Holocaust.” (Photo: Michelle Fealk/Tucson High Magnet School Gallery) Updated May 31, 2013 What’s not being told in posters depicting the Holocaust? That’s the question Bryan Davis, director of the Holocaust Education and Commemoration Project of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, asked students at the Tucson Magnet High School gallery on May 6 to ponder. The poster… Read more »
Fox News correspondent James Rosen, shown here interviewing Secretary of State John Kerry on March 5, 2013, was subject to a subpoena based on the same statute in the espionage act used to indict two former AIPAC staffers in 2005. (U.S. State Department) WASHINGTON (JTA) – With its talk of signal books, sketches and photographic negatives, the Espionage Act suggests a period long ago consigned to Cold War-era thrillers. In fact, the law is even older, first drafted in 1917, at a time when secret orders were conveyed by telegraph and semaphore… Read more »
Shira Ledman “Eileen” is struggling. Once an independent business woman, she now finds herself isolated and depressed due to age-related macular degeneration and limited mobility. Her isolation is ironic, since her three grown children have moved back in with her. But as each of these adult children has either a mental… Read more »
How do you break into the circle? A concierge service to help people navigate the Jewish community is one of several new initiatives to come out of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s strategic planning process. (Allegro Photography, http://allegrophotography.com) Looking for a way to jump into a Jewish community “can be a very lonely place,” says Liz Kanter Groskind, a member of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona strategic planning steering committee. That’s why a “concierge” service to help people at various stages of life find Jewish community… Read more »
Ilan Fluss from Mashav, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s aid agency, helps to implement an advanced irrigation system in Senegal in 2011. (Israel21c) Struggling to be heard over a flock of bleating sheep, Israel’s ambassador to Senegal invites a crowd of impoverished Muslims to help themselves to about 100 sacrificial animals that the embassy corralled at a dusty community center here. The October distribution, held as French troops battled Islamists in neighboring… Read more »
Scouts standing at attention during a Boy Scouts of America Memorial Day ceremony. (ShutterStock/Sandi Mako) NEW YORK (JTA) — Jewish Scouting leaders are taking a vocal role in efforts to pass a historic resolution that would partially lift a ban on gays in the Boy Scouts of America. In a meeting of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting in February, members voted overwhelmingly in… Read more »
Members of the Jewish community in Canton, Ohio, celebrate the dedication of a new building housing the local federation and two synagogues, July 12, 2012. (Karen Phillippi) (JTA) — The Jews of Corpus Christi knew a decade ago they had to act fast to save their two synagogues.With at most 1,000 Jews left in the Texas town and only 60 families making up its membership, the 60-year-old Conservative synagogue was in shaky financial shape. So in… Read more »
An Iron Dome anti-missile battery was moved near the Israeli border town of Haifa in the hours following a second airstrike on Syrian targets, May 5, 2013. (Avishag Yashuv/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) – Twice in three days, Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace and fired on suspected weapons caches bound for Hezbollah — and nothing has happened in response. Some experts are predicting that will continue to be the case following airstrikes near Damascus on Friday and Sunday that are… Read more »
