Tagged FRONT

3 participants share what they learned on J Street’s first alternative to Birthright trip

A Palestinian shepherd uses a bucket to get water from a well in the village of Susya south of the West Bank city of Hebron on August 19, 2017. (Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images)
July 30, 2019 / Elyse Endlich, Liyah Foye, Gabriella Kamran, JTA

(JTA) – Editor’s Note: In March, the the liberal Israel policy group J Street announced that it would be creating a 10-day free trip to Israel, designed to provide students with both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. Many interpreted the announcement as a move to compete with… Read more »

What The New York Times got right and wrong about BDS: An exchange

A New York Times explainer of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel; a gathering on the International Day of Quds in Times Square, NYC. (Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
July 30, 2019 / Andrew Silow-Carroll, Laura E. Adkins, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s editor in chief, Andrew Silow-Carroll, and its opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, shared their thoughts on a recent New York Times article answering “some of the most difficult questions” about BDS, or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Andrew… Read more »

As Russia cracks down on dissent, Netanyahu campaign ads feature Putin

Banners for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection campaign in Tel Aviv show him alongside Vladimir Putin, right, and Donald Trump, July 28, 2019. (Adam Shouldman/Flash90)
July 29, 2019 / Sam Sokol, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has launched a new ad campaign featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, coinciding with one of the Kremlin’s largest crackdowns on political dissent in years. Large multi-story banners featuring Netanyahu with Putin, as well as others featuring President Donald Trump and… Read more »

In Eastern Europe, Holocaust museums are missing from key historical sites

The House of Fates Holocaust museum, housed in a former railway station that deported Jews to concentration camps, seen in Budapest, Jan. 21, 2019. It has not opened to the public despite having been finished five years ago. (Ferenc Isza/AFP/Getty Images)
July 29, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — In the capital of Lithuania, an institution formerly known as the Museum of Genocide Victims barely mentions the murder of nearly all the country’s Jews by Nazis and locals, focusing instead on the years of abusive Soviet rule. In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, another so-called museum hosts… Read more »

Elijah Cummings’ district, which Trump derided as ‘disgusting,’ has a significant Jewish population

Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., listens to an aide during a meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 12, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
July 29, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Jewish leaders in Baltimore have come to the defense of Rep. Elijah Cummings, the African-American Democrat who has come under withering attack from President Donald Trump. After spending a week berating the group of four Democratic freshman known as “The Squad” — all women of color —… Read more »

John Lewis backs the right to boycott — even though he opposes BDS

Rep. John Lewis listens as speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks about the Voting Rights Enhancement Act, H.R. 4, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 26, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
July 26, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., explained why he backed a resolution upholding the right to boycott “at home and abroad” — even though he also voted to condemn the boycott, divestment and sanction movement aimed at Israel Lewis was a cosponsor of a House… Read more »

Six stunning finds from the Met’s exhibit on medieval Jewish treasure

At left, a gold coin of Louis of Hungary, 1342-53; at right, a jeweled silver brooch, second quarter of 14th century, both from the Colmar Treasure. (Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge, RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY via Metropolitan Museum of Art)
July 26, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — There are few remnants of the once flourishing Jewish community of the town of Colmar, in France. Jews were blamed for the outbreak of the Black Death plague there in 1348-49, and many were burned to death. A Roman emperor who then controlled the area… Read more »

Six years on, the parents of a Jewish Army veteran who committed suicide are still fighting for change

Howard and Jean Somers testify about their son Daniel's suicide before a U.S. House Committee hearing about the Veterans Affairs' mental health care procedures, July 10, 2014. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
July 26, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — In 2007, Sgt. Daniel Somers returned home after two tours in Iraq, where he worked in intelligence and special operations. For years he struggled to get on with his life, but his Army service had left him with deep scars, including post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury… Read more »

Rescued twice: The archive that survived the Holocaust and the AMIA attack

Ester Szwarc, the academic coordinator of the AMIA building's Idishe Wiesenshaft Institute, or IWO, said the archive had split in two “like an apple" on July 18, 1994. (Courtesy of IWO)
July 16, 2019 / Alan Grabinsky, JTA

(JTA) — Abraham Lichtenbaum was getting ready to leave his house on July 18, 1994 when, at 9:53 a.m., he heard an explosion: The headquarters of Argentina’s 200,000-strong Jewish community, the AMIA, located less than four miles from his home, had been bombed. Eighty-five people died and 300 were injured… Read more »

PJ Library connects local families to Jewish life

PJ Library events and activities, such as building model Seder plates with Legos, often draw large crowds. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

PJ Library is a national program that encourages local Jewish families with young children to explore Jewish values and culture through books. Coordinated by Mary Ellen Loebl at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, the free program sends an age-appropriate Jewish-content book monthly to 740 children between the ages… Read more »

Longtime Tucsonan gives heart and soul to the Jewish community

Linda Tumarkin poses with the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s mission statement inside the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, June 27, 2019. (Román Urias/AJP)
July 12, 2019 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Linda Tumarkin, 79, has been an active volunteer in the Tucson Jewish community since shortly after moving to town in 1971, including three terms as chair of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and four terms as chair of the Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council. She was on the… Read more »

Local volunteer’s love for teaching is a good fit for P2G

Shelley Lipowich, right, employs science, nature, and technology to build bridges between students in Tucson and Israeli classrooms while volunteering for Weintraub Israel Center’s Partnership2gether school twinning program. (Courtesy Lipowich)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Shelley Ann Lipowich, Ph.D., says she’s taught “for 150 years … everything from pre-kindergarten to post-doctoral, and I’ve had a ball.” She got her first taste of the Old Pueblo when it truly was a little village. She attended Sam Hughes Elementary as a child, “when Plumer Avenue was… Read more »

Elder Rehab powers retired Tucsonan toward the century milestone
July 12, 2019 /
Lee Chutkow accepts an award certificate from Elder Rehab coordinator Sharon Arkin, recognizing his nine semesters of continuous participation. (Courtesy Arkin)

Lee Chutkow, M.D., 92, has a goal: To reach his 100th birthday. In pursuit of that goal, Chutkow, a retired psychiatrist, classical music maven, and Shakespeare and poetry buff, keeps his mind and body active through the Elder Rehab program at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Five years ago,… Read more »

JFCS workshops give Holocaust survivors from Russia end-of-life guidance

L-R: Iosif Beskin, Gregory Tselnik, and Raisa Moroz examine advance directive documents at a workshop. (Courtesy Raisa Moroz)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

This summer, Jewish Family & Children’s Services conducted a series of workshops on advance directives and ethical wills for the 40 Russian-speaking Holocaust survivors in the Tucson community. Nearly half attended. “It is not in Russian culture to talk about final days or what would happen with a person… Read more »

Remembering former JFCS chair for his passion, kindness

The late Fred Fruchthendler, left, with Jewish Family & Children’s Services’ President and CEO Carlos Hernández at the 206 JFCS Celebration of Caring event on April 10, 2016, which marked JFCS’ 75th anniversary. (Photo courtesy Jewish Family & Children's Services)
July 12, 2019 / Carlos A. Hernandez, MA, LCSW, CPHQ Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona

I remember when I first met Fred Fruchthendler. It was my first interview with the board of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona for the position of president and CEO. After an hour or so of many tough and thoughtful questions, a voice that had not yet… Read more »

How the AMIA attack changed Latin American Jewry forever

A man walks over the rubble left after a bomb exploded at the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994. (Ali Burafi /AFP/Getty Images)
July 10, 2019 / Ilan Stavans, JTA

AMHERST, Mass. (JTA) – Twenty-five years after the terrorist attack that targeted the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, leaving 85 people dead and hundreds more injured, one thing is clear: The lives of Latin American Jews were changed forever. With nearly 200,000 Jews at the time, from various religious… Read more »

BBC airs expose accusing Jeremy Corbyn’s team of shielding anti-Semites

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking during a visit to the Regents Park Mosque in London, May 19, 2019. (Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
July 10, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Leaders of Britain’s Labour’s party shielded members from accusation of anti-Semitism amid an internal crisis that led to thousands of hate speech complaints but only 15 expulsions, the BBC reported. The findings aired Wednesday by the service’s flagship investigative television program “Panorama” represent the largest-scale journalistic focus… Read more »

Cartoonist disinvited from White House defends image widely labeled as anti-Semitic

Ben Garrison drew this cartoon in 2017. It shows George Soros being manipulated by a hand of the Rothschilds, and Soros in turn manipulating Trump’s former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and retired Gen. David Petraeus. (Courtesy of Garrison)
July 10, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — The artist behind a political cartoon that showed U.S. government officials as puppets of George Soros and the Rothschilds has defended his work and accused the Anti-Defamation League of libeling him. On Wednesday, Politico reported that Ben Garrison would no longer be attending a White House social… Read more »