Tagged FRONT

The late philanthropist Mendel Kaplan showing former South Africa President Nelson Mandela around the South African Jewish Museum, which was opened by Mandela in 2000. (Shawn Benjamin/Ark Images)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) – When anti-apartheid activist Lorna Levy first became involved in politics as a student in the late 1950s, she remembers being the target of hostility from the Jewish community in her native South Africa. In the 1960s, she and her husband, Leon, made their… Read more »

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Cecil D. Haney (left) presents U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jonathan E. Lowe with the Lance P. Sijan Leadership Senior Officer of the Year Award for all of Strategic Command on Sept. 18, 2011. Haney is deputy commander for U.S. Strategic Command, encompassing army, navy, air force and marines, at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Neb. (Courtesy Anne Lowe)

Even if some Jewish servicemen and women haven’t celebrated Passover in years, attending a Seder thousands of miles from home can be a source of comfort. Several Tucson mothers of Jewish servicemen have found their own ways to honor their offspring, while extending tzedakah to other Jewish members of… Read more »

In this undated photo David Gerbi poses in front of Sla dar Bishi, the synagogue in Tripoli that he hopes to renovate. Gerbi, an Italian Jew born in Libya, played a central role in 2002 in the rapprochement between Moammar Gadhafi and Libyan Jews. (Courtesy David Gerbi)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Now it can be told: For the last decade or so, the Jews had secret back channels to Moammar Gadhafi. What led the pro-Israel community into a careful relationship with Gadhafi 10 years ago were considerations of U.S. national interests, Israel’s security needs and the claims… Read more »

John Peck

­ John Peck, a former senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, will be among four honorees at the second annual Rainbow Keshet Awards reception later this month. The Rainbow Keshet Awards were created as a joint partnership between the Federation’s LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender)… Read more »

Uri Banai

As Israeli actor and singer/songwriter Uri Banai takes the concert stage at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, Oct. 30, he will take the audience on a journey through the history of his family — one of Israel’s leading entertainment dynasties. Told through songs, video clips, rare photos… Read more »

Protesters marching in lower Manahttan in an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, Sept. 26, 2011. (Paul Stein/Creative Commons)

NEW YORK (Tablet) — As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its third week, with demonstrations popping up in more than 10 cities, the protesters are aggressively pushing a comparison to the Arab Spring. Some say the movement has channeled the zeal (or perhaps the naivete, others would argue)… Read more »

Dov Lipman, left, a Modern Orthodox leader in Beit Shemesh, and a haredi Orthodox man, Moshe Friedman, engage in a shouting match near the Banot Orot school. (Michael Lipkin)

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb. The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood… Read more »

Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. (Matt Yohe via CC)

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — Social networking sites began buzzing immediately after word spread of the death of Apple Inc. visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday evening. Rabbis took time out of their busy preparations for Yom Kippur to halt their sermon writing and post personal reflections on what the contributions of… Read more »

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee seen here answering questions from reporters on Sept. 13, 2011, is withholding funding from the Palestinians because of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push in the United Nartions. (Courtesy Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the Palestinians don’t pull back from their statehood push, congressional cuts in aid are inevitable, U.S. lawmakers say. Just how comprehensive such cuts will be, however, could end up depending on Israel’s stance on the issue. Lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staffers told JTA that hundreds… Read more »

(L-R) Dakota Kordsiemon, Daniel Goldstein, Shawn Spitzer and Austen Berens paint a mural at a school in Kiryat Shmona during the “Day of Caring, Day of Sharing.” (Courtesy TJCC)

Each year for the past 15 years, the Tucson Jewish Community Center has taken a delegation of young athletes to the JCC Maccabi Games in another U.S. city: Omaha, or Boca Raton, or Dallas. In 2000, Tucson hosted the games, which brought excitement and nachas (pride) to our city… Read more »

Shoshana Hebshi

TOLEDO, Ohio (j. weekly) — When I wrote an article nine years ago about going on a press trip to Israel, I was just beginning to explore the implications of my Arab-Jewish heritage on my life. The trip was eye opening for me in many ways, chiefly because it… Read more »

Kerri Strug is a retired Olympic gold medal gymnast, best known for completing a vault on an injured ankle at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. She is now a program manager in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.… Read more »

It was a family rumor that set Brook Wilensky-Lanford, 33, on the path that has led to her critically acclaimed new book, “Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden” (Grove Press). As Wilensky-Lanford, the daughter of AJP Assistant Editor Sheila Wilensky, explains in her book’s prologue, in 2004… Read more »

Jack, a retired middle school principal and 30-year Queens resident who delcined to provide his last name, leaves a polling site after voting for Democrat Dave Weprin, who lost the race for New York's 9th congressional district, Sept. 13, 2011. (Uri Fintzy)

NEW YORK (JTA) – Was it Israel, same-sex marriage or the Obama administration’s handling of the economy? That’s the question political partisans and observers are debating after Republican Bob Turner won an upset victory in the heavily Democratic and Jewish New York congressional district represented by Anthony Weiner until… Read more »

Israel and its supporters hope to head off a vote in the U.N. Security Council recognizing a Palestinian state when the council meets again in late september. The council is shown meeting to discuss developments in Kosovo, Aug. 30, 2011. (Courtesy United Nations)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — All but resigned to the inevitability of a Palestinian push for statehood at the United Nations later this month, Jewish groups are hoping that its effects can be blunted through aggressive diplomacy and the threat of action by the U.S. Congress. Jewish groups are urging foreign… Read more »

Girls play at the SEGA Girls’ School in Tanzania, the recipient of Dining for Women’s August 2011 fundraising efforts. (Warren Zelman)

            Do Jewish women enjoy sharing a meal while contributing to worldwide social justice? Of course — and the Tucson chapter of the national organization, Dining for Women, does just that. Dory Martin, a local psychotherapist, started the chapter two years ago after learning… Read more »

Laura Lauder

“Act on your passion” is philanthropist Laura Lauder’s overriding message for women. “Many people are afraid that others aren’t going to be supportive of what they’re interested in doing,” she told the AJP, “but actually if you act on your passion then others will see you as a model”… Read more »

Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren stars as retired secret agent Rachel Singer in John Madden’s espionage thriller "The Debt." Laurie Sparham/Focus Features)

      A taut, beautifully crafted thriller with an Israeli accent, “The Debt” is easily and best appreciated as edge-of-your-seat entertainment. At the same time, though, the English-language remake of the 2007 Israeli film “Ha-Hov” echoes a question raised far more egregiously by “Inglourious Basterds” but otherwise rarely… Read more »

Ira Forman, longtime head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was tapped by the Obama campaign to be its Jewish outreach director. (photo by Ira Forman)

WASHINGTON (JTA/WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK) — The fight for the Jewish vote in 2012 is expected to be a tough one. So the Obama campaign is turning to the quintessential insider. On Aug. 16, the Obama campaign tapped as its Jewish outreach director Ira Forman, the former head of the… Read more »

Israeli soldiers scuffle with Palestinians during a demonstration near the West Bank village of Beit Omar, Aug. 13. Some analysts warn that a U.N. vote on the Palestinian statehood could set off a new wave of Mideast violence. ( Najeh Hashlamoun/Flash 90)

On Sept. 20, when the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly opens, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to ask U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to present a Palestinian request for statehood recognition to the U.N. Security Council. The long-anticipated request will kick off a chain of events… Read more »