Noah Klieger discussed his life in a 2018 video for 70 Faces Media, JTA's parent company. (70 Faces Media)
(JTA) — Noah Klieger, who survived Auschwitz by pretending to be a boxer and went on to a storied career in journalism, died Thursday in Israel. He was 92. As a prisoner in Auschwitz, Klieger was selected for the gas chamber but managed to talk himself out of the… Read more »
Rick Rosenthal is a professional, year-round Santa who also attends Congregation Young Israel of Toco Hills in Atlanta. (Courtesy of Rosenthal)
(JTA) — Just like any other Santa Claus, Santa Rick will spend much of the next couple of weeks sitting children on his knee, asking whether they’ve been good and listening to their Christmas wishes. If it’s a Saturday, he may have slept overnight in the building. And he’ll… Read more »
Danish soldiers guard the Jewish Synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sept. 29, 2017. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/AFP/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The last time that a stranger directed an anti-Semitic insult at me, I was carrying supplies for my son’s birthday party. It was on a Sunday afternoon on Dam Square. Carrying Star of David party decorations in a see-through bag, I paused to snap some pictures… Read more »
Children stick white roses into a Star of David sculpture at the construction site of a new synagogue in Potsdam, Germany, Nov. 9, 2018, the 80th anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom. (Bernd Settnik/AFP/Getty Images)
MUNICH (JTA) — Weeks after they emigrated from Russia and moved to Germany, the Nedlin family sought to join the local Jewish community. Registering for membership in a Jewish community — a practice common in European countries — was a significant step for the Nedlins, who before emigrating in 1992… Read more »
Ruth and Irving Olson In 2019 the Northwest Division will organize its activities as The Ruth and Irving Olson Center for Jewish Life in the Northwest,” says Alan Kendal, advisory council chair for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest Division. Stuart Mellan, JFSA president and CEO, made the formal announcement during the… Read more »
Members of the November 2018 Firefighters Without Borders mission pose with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces 118th Division Tank Battalion in the Golan Heights, (L-R): Eliot Anderson, Scott Peru, Ted Geare, K. Paul Maxwell, Kris Blume, Steve Lunde. (Courtesy Firefighters Beyond Borders)
Tucson Firefighters Beyond Borders completed its third mission to Israel last month under an unexpected hail of missiles. That only added a new dimension to the multi-faceted, cross-cultural and cross-technology educational exchanges that began in 2013, according to the six participants. The delegation left Tucson on Nov. 6, spending… Read more »
Anjulie Pfeifer wanted her office at Jewish Family & Children’s Services to feel homey. (Micheal Romero)
Visiting counselor Anjulie Pfeifer’s office is like visiting grandma’s house. Or going to a hipster coffee shop. Or seeing Smokey Bear’s cabin. At least that is what her clients at Jewish Family & Children’s Services say when they walk across the threshold of her office. Scenic paintings line the… Read more »
Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona volunteer Louise Good, right, is a classroom reading tutor at Homer Davis Elementary School. (Danielle Larcom)
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of four articles on how the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona allocates funds. The first, in the Oct. 12 issue, focused on youth and family education programs at synagogues. The second, in the Nov. 23 issue, focused on national and… Read more »
The Hebrew Free Loan Association of Tucson helps community members thrive. (Courtesy Hebrew Free Loan Association of Tucson)
The Hebrew Free Loan Association of Tucson has been around since 1947. Although it provides an invaluable service — granting interest-free financial assistance to those in need — its longtime president, Phil Bregman, has often called the association “the best kept secret in town.” But in the past nine… Read more »
Rabbi Tzvi Rimler (Chabad Oro Valley)
Chabad Oro Valley will host an “End of Hanukkah” sing-along concert Monday, Dec. 10. Australian-born musician and composer Rabbi Tzvi Rimler, of Noteworthy Live band in Chandler, Arizona, will perform contemporary and old Eastern European Jewish favorites, along with anecdotes and stories. First introduced to the piano at age… Read more »
Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Jewish Community Relations Council volunteers (L-R) Judy Gomez, Jim Rich, Jill Rich, Leslie Shire, and Rod Rodin (back) work with other local faith communities to support TIHAN’s Poz Café program.
T ucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network‘s Poz Café program provides a monthly gathering for people living with HIV. Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona funds a lunch annually and, along with local synagogues, provides volunteers to shop for food, cook and serve meals. More than 25,000 meals have been served and… Read more »
Barbara Russek’s success with roses took her by surprise.
Even as the menorah shines its brightest these last three nights of Hanukkah, our eight-day Festival of Lights is starting to wind down. Presents have been opened and latkes savored. Hanukkah 5779 will soon become a sweet memory. So, what are your plans for the rest of December? How… Read more »
President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev shake hands during a summit held before the start of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. (Pascal Le Segretain/Sygma via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When a presdent dies, the tendency is to put aside long-simmering resentments and consider the wholeness of his record. So it was when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remembered George Herbert Walker Bush, who died last week at 94. Despite the tense relationship with Israel… Read more »
The Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, the only Orthodox rabbinical seminary in Germany, held its 10th anniversary ordination ceremony in Berlin in October 2018. The school's predecessor was shuttered by the Nazis in 1938. (Gregor Zielke)
Though he was just 6 years old on the night of Kristallnacht, Rabbi Chanoch Ehrentreu can still recall the horror: Torah scrolls burning in the courtyard of his father’s synagogue. His father taken by the Gestapo to the concentration camp at Dachau. The grandson of a prominent rabbi from… Read more »
President George Bush poses for photographers following his Oval Office address to the nation, Sept. 27, 1991. (Luke Frazza/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — George H.W. Bush was a man of uncommon decency. He also was a man of uncommon integrity. I worked for him for over 10 years, while he was the vice president and then president. My memories could fill a book (or at least a chapter of… Read more »
Don Was attends the 56th Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Jan. 26, 2014.(Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
Three years ago, Don Was walked into a Jewish service in Los Angeles without high expectations. Was, born Don Fagenson in Detroit, is a producer who has worked with musicians like John Mayer, Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt. Since 2012, he has also been the president of Blue Note… Read more »
JTA illustration
(JTA) — Do you go to shul, temple, synagogue, minyan or just services? Let me ask it another way: That synagogue you won’t set foot in — Do you call it a shul, temple, synagogue, minyan or services? I’m not being judgy. It’s a question about language. Working at a… Read more »
Johan Huibers and his Noah's Ark in Dorderecht, the Netherlands, October 2013. (Courtesy of Arv van Noach)
KRIMPEN AAN DE IJSSEL, Netherlands (JTA) — For two years, the world’s only seaworthy life-size replica of Noah’s Ark has been wowing passengers traveling along Holland’s Maas River. Built according to the specifications detailed in the Hebrew Bible, the 390-foot-long vessel towers to a height of 75 feet. It… Read more »
Robert Alter in his natural habitat, the home office where he does most of his translating. (David A.M. Wilensky)
SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — “When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters, God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was… Read more »
Robert Lopez-Hanshaw is the organizer of the Chanukah Cantata (Debe Campbell)
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is hosting a Chanukah Cantata on Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m. that will feature cantors and other vocalists from multiple congregations across Tucson and the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in a special telling of the Hanukkah story. Robert Lopez-Hanshaw, musical director at Temple Emanu-El,… Read more »
