Hundreds of women and girls gathered at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Thursday, Sept. 26, for the sixth annual Mega Challah Bake, co-sponsored by Chabad Tucson. Participants learned how to make and shape dough for round challahs in advance of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, enjoyed a buffet of… Read more »
(L-R) Jewish National Fund President Sol Lizerbram, JNF Joint Institute Project Co-Director Udi Gat, and Dean of the University of Arizona College of Science and Vice President of Innovation Joaquin Ruiz sign a memorandum of understanding, Sept. 12. Photo courtesy JNF
In an effort to boost global agriculture, the University of Arizona has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jewish National Fund and Israel’s Arava region to establish The JNF Joint Institute for Global Food, Water and Energy Security. The memorandum was signed on Sept. 12 by JNF President… Read more »
‘Mountain Embrace’ by Laurie Kaye Photo courtesy Tucson Community Center
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is featuring the works of more than 20 local artists, many of whom are members of the Jewish Artists Group, in the Fine Art Gallery show, “Reflection + Renewal,” which is on display through Nov. 2. The Jewish High Holy Days season began with… Read more »
(Emily Paster)
This recipe originally appeared on The Nosher. Sephardic chicken soup with lemon and egg, or sopa de huevos y limon, is a traditional first course for breaking the Yom Kippur fast among Jews from Turkey, the Balkan states and the Greek port city of Thessaloniki (known as Salonika in… Read more »
A Hasidic man walks by a police car in a Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed… Read more »
A security camera hangs across the street from the Park East Synagogue in New York City, March 3, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Here’s the sad paradox of the shooting nearly one year ago at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue: The killing of 11 worshippers, the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history, hit a community that was one of the best prepared to handle such an assault. In… Read more »
Julie Robertson painted a mural of Hannah Senesh in downtown San Diego. (Courtesy of Robertson)
(JTA) — Hannah Senesh may seem an unlikely motivation for Japanese-born artist Julie Robertson. But the 35-year-old Christian artist, who just spent four days painting a 30-by-40-foot mural of the late Jewish poet, learned about Senesh earlier this year and was struck by her bravery. A national hero in… Read more »
Rabbi Sanford Akselrad has been leading Congregation Ner Tamid in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson since 1988. (Josefin Dolsten)
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Congregation Ner Tamid is located a half an hour drive away from the Las Vegas Strip, where each luxury hotel seems more extravagant than the next and even on a Sunday morning people can be found crowding around blackjack tables and sitting in front of… Read more »
Ceen Gabbai was born and raised as a Jew in Iraq, and received asylum in the United States in 2015. She now lives in Brooklyn. (Courtesy of Gabbai)
NEW YORK (JTA) — When Ceen Gabbai argued with her first-grade teacher about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she didn’t realize how big of a risk she was taking. The year was 2000 and students across the world held strong opinions about the Second Intifada, an outbreak of violence that claimed… Read more »
A Belgian politician presented this painting featuring a large swastika at the Bog-Art Gallery in Brussels. (Courtesy of LBCA)
BRUSSELS (JTA) — At a parade here in March, revelers danced to a song about Jewish greed while standing on a float shaped like an Orthodox Jewish man with a rat on his shoulder holding money. In August, an op-ed in a major Belgian newspaper called Jews in Israel… Read more »
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff answer questions at a news conference in Washington, Oct. 2, 2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff, the Jewish Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, of treason and called for his arrest. “Shifty Schiff” is a “lowlife,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “He should resign from office in disgrace and frankly they should look at… Read more »
The Jewish New Year is a time for reflection and commitment toward a more just world. The six Holocaust survivors we feature in this issue are a few among the approximately 75 survivors currently living in Southern Arizona, most of whom were children or teens when the war broke… Read more »
Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center staff Bryan Davis, left, and Josie Shapiro, center, unfurl a new banner on the fence in front of the museum Aug. 12 while Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, right, looks on. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
Tucson’s Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center will launch a migrant justice initiative in conjunction with its new annual exhibition, “Asylum Seeking at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” which opens in the Allen and Marianne Langer Contemporary Human Rights Gallery on Oct. 24. As with past annual exhibits, programming, and… Read more »
Tucsonans Joel Alpert and Nancy Lefkowitz attended the Synagogue Square Memorial dedication in Yurburg, Lithuania, on July 19. (Courtesy Joel Alpert)
The town of Yurburg, Lithuania, dedicated a new Synagogue Square Memorial on July 19. Tucson genealogist and author Joel Alpert and his wife, Nancy Lefkowitz along with 10 of his relatives from Israel, Canada, and the United States, represented the descendants of emigres from the once-thriving Jewish community. “It… Read more »
Ricardo Santana Velázquez, the Mexican consul in Nogales, Arizona (back row, center), with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs delegation at the consular office on Sept. 9. (Courtesy Melanie Roth Gorelick)
A 23-member delegation from 12 states recently completed a fact-finding mission trip to the Arizona-Mexico border, conducted by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which is the national network hub of 125 Jewish Community Relations Councils around the country and 17 national Jewish agencies. The Jewish History Museum hosted… Read more »
Jordan Wiley-Hill, right, with Fox Tucson Theatre Executive Director Craig Sumberg and “Kit,” mascot of the Fox’s “Kids In the Theatre” program. (Courtesy Fox Tucson Theatre)
Professional storyteller Jordan Wiley-Hill joined Tucson’s Fox Theatre Foundation about a year ago to expand its youth programming known as Kids In the Theatre. Filling the new position of youth arts and culture program associate, he brings an extensive repertoire of performance art, education, and program development. Local community… Read more »
Tucson Holocaust survivor Sidney Finkel will lead Southern Arizona teens on the 2020 March of the Living. Participants will retrace his steps through his childhood home of Piotrkow, Poland, including the first Nazi decreed ghetto in occupied Poland, where he and his family were forced to live. Finkel is… Read more »
PARIS - MARCH 11: French President Jacques Chirac attends a media conference for Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (not shown) in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace March 11, 2004 in Paris, France. Prime Minister Qurei is on an official visit to Paris. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
VIENNA, Austria (JTA) — Jacques Chirac, the former French president who died on September 26 at age 86, had only been in office two months when, on July 16, 1995, he delivered a speech that began a vital reckoning with one of the darkest aspects of France’s recent history.… Read more »
Amar'e Stoudemire is leading an initiative to connect Jewish and African-American students at Florida International University. (Courtesy of FIU Hillel)
(JTA) — Despite his serious thoughts about an NBA comeback, Amar’e Stoudemire is taking a little break from basketball to go to school. The former six-time NBA All-Star, who had never attended college, started this fall as a freshman at Florida International University in Miami. Though the semester just… Read more »
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in a discussion during the Library of Congress National Book Festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Aug. 31, 2019. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — It was a blunt statement in the midst of a cordial conversation: “I’m wondering why you’re here.” That was Nina Totenberg, the NPR legal affairs correspondent, to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Sept. 18 Moment magazine awards dinner, where the justice had… Read more »
