Tagged FRONT

‘Christmas With Your Jewish Boyfriend’: A Jewish jazz guitarist recorded a dozen famous Christmas songs written by Jews

Peter Curtis is a music professor at Riverside City College in Southern California. (Courtesy of Curtis)

NEW YORK (JTA) — A few years ago, Southern California-based jazz guitarist Peter Curtis was rehearsing for a Christmas concert that involved a choir, but he needed to find a song to play by himself for a solo interlude. Curtis is Jewish and was far from a Christmas song… Read more »

When will ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ deal with Midge’s privilege?

Midge Maisel, played by Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan, does her stand-up routine in season 3 of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." (Amazon Prime)

Critics have long called out “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino for the lack of diversity in her shows about pushy, fast-talking white ladies. This outcry probably motivated Sherman-Palladino to set “Maisel” in the 1950s, when its sheer whiteness could be blamed on historical accuracy.… Read more »

Makers of Krispy Kreme giving tens of millions to Holocaust survivors and education

Gideon Taylor of the Claims Conference speaks as Israeli President Reuven Rivlin look on in Jerusalem in 2017. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

(JTA) — A major German industry family will donate tens of millions of dollars to support Holocaust survivors and former forced laborers in the Nazi era. In addition to one-time donations to the Claims Conference and individual laborers, the Reimann family’s JAB firm has created a foundation designed to… Read more »

My daughter survived an anti-Semitic terror attack last year. Here’s what I want the Jersey City survivors to know.

Shira and Amichai Ish Ran hold a news conference at the Shaarei Tzedek hospital a week after being injured in a West Bank terror attack, Dec. 16, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)

BEIT EL, West Bank (JTA) — I watched the news of the terrible Jersey City shooting last week with both horror and a sense of deja vu. Sadly, violent attacks against Jews, wherever we live, have become all too common. We can no longer assume our communal spaces and houses… Read more »

Boris Johnson defeats Jeremy Corbyn by large margin in British elections

Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves a polling station after voting in the general elections in London, Dec. 12, 2019. (Yunus Dalgic/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

LONDON (JTA) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has defeated Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party by a large margin in Britain’s general elections on Thursday, exit polls indicate. The Conservatives received 368 seats out of 650 according to the polls by BBC, ITV and Sky News, with Labour lagging… Read more »

Victims of Jersey City shooting remembered as generous, helpful and courageous

Hasidim, government officials and police officers stand in front of the K'hal Adas Greenville synagogue next door to JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., the site of a deadly shooting, Dec. 11, 2019. (Laura E. Adkins/JTA)

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (JTA) — One opened a grocery store that became a hub for a growing community. Another was a young student who stood out for his charitable work. Another was an exemplary cop who tried to make the streets safer. Another was a worker who was always… Read more »

WIC, Fox to bring Israeli superstar David Broza back to Tucson

‘David Broza & Friends’ will perform at the Fox Tucson Theatre on Dec. 21. Photo courtesy Fox Tucson Theatre

Israeli singer/songwriter David Broza is considered one of the world’s most dynamic and vibrant performers. From his whirlwind finger picking to flamenco percussion and rhythms, to a signature rock and roll sound, his charismatic and energetic performances have delighted audiences throughout the world. Broza recently told the AJP that… Read more »

ATC’s ‘Cabaret’ hits contemporary notes

Sean Patrick Doyle (center) and the company of Arizona Theatre Company’s ‘Cabaret’ in rehearsal. Photo courtesy Arizona Theatre Company

“Cabaret,” on stage at the Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson through Dec. 29, “has toe-tapping, show-stopping musical numbers,” says Sara Bruner, who is directing the ATC production. “It’s wildly entertaining … but it also has real meaning.” It’s such a famous show — there’s Bob Fosse’s 1973 film, the… Read more »

JFCS donates local survivors’ stories to Yad Vashem

Susan Kasle of Jewish Family & Children’s Services presents Yad Vashem docent Robert Eden with books of stories by Southern Arizona Holocaust survivors, Nov. 3. Photo: Jon Kasle

Susan Kasle is vice president of community services at Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona, which coordinates services for Holocaust survivors living in Southern Arizona. For Kasle, a highlight of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s recent interfaith mission was representing JFCS during the mission’s Nov. 3… Read more »

Amb. Wendy Sherman to speak as J Street honors Gellman

Larry Gellman

J Street will honor Larry Gellman at a Tucson reception on Monday, Dec. 16, at 6 p.m., with guest speakers Ambassador Wendy R. Sherman and J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015. Gellman has chaired the boards… Read more »

On border issues, Jewish values spur community work

Jewish community members rally in support of humanitarian Scott Warren on Nov. 12, the opening day of his retrial at the federal courthouse in Tucson. Those in attendance included Rabbi Avi Alpert, Rabbi Thomas Louchheim, Jewish Community Relations Council Chair Mo Goldman, Jewish History Museum Executive Director Bryan Davis, and JHM board member Eric Schindler. Photo: Stephen Shawl

A collaborative Jewish community initiative that sprang from the Oct. 24 day of a learning journey to the U.S.-Mexico border at Nogales, Arizona, continues to move forward. “There are clearly two tracks of interest that emerged from the initial education event,” Jewish History Museum Director Bryan Davis told the… Read more »

Lemon ricotta fritters: Easier and just as delicious as jelly doughnuts

I know that sufganiyot — jelly doughnuts — are traditional and beloved for Hanukkah. But I feel confident that once you try these easy and incredibly delicious ricotta fritters, you will be converted to these sweet fried treats. And if I’m making a confession, I have actually never loved… Read more »

JFSA interfaith trip took Tucsonans into Israeli homes, hearts

Graham Hoffman holds a challah for Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona interfaith mission participants celebrating their arrival in Jerusalem on Oct. 30. Photo courtesy Graham Hoffman

On a Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona interfaith mission Oct. 27-Nov. 5, dubbed “Connecting Cultures, Communities, and Hearts,” 28 participants got a taste of Israel’s diversity and complexity, coming away with a new appreciation for the nation’s challenges, but no easy answers. Members of the group “were touched so… Read more »

Belgian parade that mocked Jews gives up its UNESCO endorsement

A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium features caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO)

(JTA) — The U.N.’s leading cultural body was scheduled to vote this month on whether to remove a Belgian carnival that had hosted a float seen as mocking Jews from its list of important human cultural expressions. But the carnival’s organizers decided they wouldn’t wait for a possible censure… Read more »

This Holocaust-themed figure skating costume is just the sport’s latest to cause scandal

From left to right: Sonja Henie, championship skater and actress; Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia perform during Festa on Ice 2010; Russia’s Anton Shulepov performs in the men's free skate at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2019 (Getty Images)

CALDWELL, N.J. (JTA) — Figure skating costumes have a long and sometimes ridiculous history. Until about the 1930s, women were expected to compete in ponderous and weighty skirts, making it hard to move freely, let alone tackle a triple lutz. That all started to change largely for two reasons. The… Read more »

Tiffany Haddish’s celebrity-filled bat mitzvah, in photos

Rabbi Susan Silverman, left, with Tiffany Haddish at Haddish's bat mitzvah at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Dec. 3, 2019. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)

(JTA) — Tiffany Haddish celebrated her bat mitzvah Tuesday night surrounded by an array of Jewish celebrity friends, including Billy Crystal, Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman. The comedian, who celebrated in Beverly Hills on the occasion of her 40th birthday, released her Netflix standup special, “Black Mitzvah,” on the same… Read more »

I’m a proud British Jew troubled by Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem — but I’m still voting for Labour

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn does arts and crafts during a visit to Winwood Heights Retirement Village in Nottingham, while on the 2019 election campaign trail. (Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images)

LONDON, England (JTA) — I am a secular Jew and a lifelong British Labour Party voter — two allegiances that once intersected very comfortably. As so many of us do, I inherited my politics. Every time Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was reelected, my mother and her friends held a… Read more »

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