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 »
Abraham Sutzkever, right, before World War II in Vilnius, Lithuania. (Courtesy photo)
MINSK, Belarus (JTA) — When Yiddish poet Avraham Sutzkever said that poetry saved his life, he meant it more literally than many of his listeners realized. In 1944, Sutzkever and his wife, Freydke, needed to walk through a minefield to reach the plane that would take them to freedom.… Read more »
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Aug. 31, 2019. (Chris Jung/NurPhoto/Getty Images/JTA Photo Service)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The prime minister of Malaysia defended his past anti-Semitic statements and questioned the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust in a speech at Columbia University. “I am exercising my right to free speech. Why is it that I can’t say something against the Jews,… Read more »
A 16th-century painting of a money lender by Dutch artist Quentin Massys (Francis G. Mayer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images/JTA Photo Service)
(JTA) – “Jew down” seems to be making a comeback — or maybe it never left the lexicon. In April, a City Council member uttered the term at a meeting in Jeffersonville, Indiana. This month, council members in two New Jersey cities — Paterson and Trenton — used it in… Read more »
Mika and Maureen Velasco being arrested in August. (Courtesy of United Children of Israel/JTA Photo Service)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The woman approached with trepidation, fidgeting and glancing nervously over her shoulder as she sat down in a coffee shop here. A Filipino caregiver who has been living in Israel without a visa for years, the woman said her home had been raided by Israeli… Read more »
Julie Matlin (Courtesy of Matlin) MONTREAL (JTA) — Picking through gefilte fish in the kosher department, searching for the freshest packages, I think of my Grandma Fanny. She made her gefilte fish from scratch, lovingly combining the cod, whitefish, pike and whatever other secret ingredients she threw in that made it so good. “This… Read more »
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, right, holds hands with Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, who survived the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, at Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church during a service for victims of the mass shooting, Oct. 31, 2018, Perlman's wife, the author Beth Kissileff, is seated to his left. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images/JTA Photo Service)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Our sages teach us that kol hatchalot kashot, all beginnings are difficult. This phrase feels especially resonant this Rosh Hashanah. The man who blew the shofar last year at my Pittsburgh synagogue, New Light, is not here to blow it now. He was murdered on Oct. 27… Read more »
The Pittsburgh shooting victims (JTA collage)
(JTA) — The close of every year brings with it bittersweet reminders of the incredible figures we lost in the year that was. This year the task of remembering the departed is particularly fraught as 12 people on the list were lost to acts of anti-Jewish violence in U.S.… Read more »
Ro Khanna in his congressional office, Sept. 17, 2019. The California congressman wants close U.S.-Israel ties to continue, but says that should not preclude the American government from using the relationship as leverage to push for changes in Israeli policy. (Ron Kampeas)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ro Khanna, a rising star among progressive Democrats, wants to make a point about how to be progressive and pro-Israel, so he quotes Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz, the Fox News habitue who has accused the Democratic Party of “tolerating anti-Semitism.” “I don’t agree with… Read more »
A food drive collection box is available in the lobby of the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, home of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, at 3718 E. River Road. (Phyllis Braun/AJP)
Project Isaiah, the Jewish community’s annual High Holidays food drive benefiting the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, begins Sept. 15 and runs through Oct. 15. When asked why we fast on Yom Kippur, the prophet Isaiah responded, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?” (Isaiah… Read more »
