First place winner Alex Erbst, age 6
Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Arizona Jewish Post Hanukkah art contest. All of the submissions were outstanding and conveyed the symbols of the holiday with warmth and love. First place winners Alex Erbst (age 6, Tucson Hebrew Academy), Luke and Hunter Meislin (twins, age 7, Manzanita Elementary… Read more »
THA fourth-graders, Tucson J preschoolers bond in Madrichim program (Gabby Erbst)
A new program coordinated by the Tucson Hebrew Academy and the Tucson Jewish Community Center is crafting leaders out of fourth- grade students. In the Madrichim (leaders) program, the THA students visit the Tucson J to teach preschoolers about the importance of upcoming holidays. Gabby Erbst, THA director of admissions… Read more »
Tucsonans Ron and Jacquelyn Feller at the Path to Peace wall in Netiv Ha’asara, Oct. 21 (Debe Campbell)
Netiv Ha’asara, a moshav (cooperative farming community) northwest of Israel’s Negev, in the Hof Ashkelon region, is part of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona partnership area. With pastoral charm and fragrant lemon trees, lush gardens hug its 250 cozy homes near the Mediterranean coast. In the shadow of… Read more »
(L-R) Oshrat Barel, Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona vice president; Shneor Katash, Partnership2Gether representative in Kiryat Malachi; Hila Yogev Keren, P2G director; and Hila Kordana, P2G representative in Kiryat Malachi, at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Tel Aviv, Oct. 24. (Courtesy Jewish Agency for Israel)
Editor’s note: This is the second 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. Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona applies a Planning and Allocation process… Read more »
Kiryat Malachi youth perform in an Art City production. (Jewish Agency for Israel)
Each year, Art City provides more than 200 youth in Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon, Israel, an opportunity for professional development in the performing arts. The program contributes to the community and region with cultural and social activities, empowering youth with a sense of belonging, and using creativity to… Read more »
(L-R): Chava, Isaac, Jacob, Maria, Rachel, Elisaveta, and Raya Sher in 1931 in Kirensk, a village in Siberia. (Shore Family)
The recent Weintraub Israel Center annual mission to Israel did not only build community bridges; it also mended a bridge between a local family and long-lost family members with origins in Russia. Bonnie Shore-Dombrowski, a Tucson attorney, was joined on the October trip by her two sisters, Debby Shore… Read more »
Jeanette Kern, left, receiving one of the two commendations she earned for her work during World War II as a clerk in the Army Signal Corps, July 27, 1944. (Orn Hayon)
After my grandmother Jeannette died in December 1996, the process of settling her estate worked in the same way it does in most families: There was a house to be sold and possessions to be distributed. The surviving family members were left with a few souvenirs of my grandparents’… Read more »
Rohingya men wait in line for food dispersal from aid agencies. (Andrew Stanbridge)
The Jewish History Museum is currently showing “Call Me Rohingya,” an exhibition that illuminates the persecution of Rohingya people, an ethnic minority in Burma, through the photographic works of Andrew Stanbridge. Staged in the Allen and Marianne Langer Contemporary Human Rights Gallery in the Gould Family Holocaust History Center… Read more »
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman (Courtesy of Zimmerman)
Editor’s note: Last week, students at Baraboo High School in Wisconsin were seen in a photograph taken last spring in which they appeared to be giving the “Heil Hitler” salute. Although the photographer who took the photo on the steps of a county courthouse said the camera caught the boys… Read more »
Deborah Lipstadt, author of the forthcoming book "Antisemitism Here and Now," says the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting reaffirmed her warnings. (Osnat Perelshtein)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The advance copies of Deborah Lipstadt’s new book, “Antisemitism Here and Now,” display a cover photo of white supremacist carrying a tiki torch. But that iconic image of the August 2017 white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, could now be replaced by another one: Police… Read more »
Lazar Wall, left, wrote a song for Holocaust survivor Freddy Glatt. (Marcus Gilban)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – Freddy was 5 years old when he saw a paving stone shatter his dad’s storefront in Berlin. Later, while his family watched, Nazis beat up his father. In 1933, Adolf Hitler had already made life unbearable for the Glatts, forcing them to scramble to… Read more »
A view of the Ilan Ramon Day School in Agoura, Calif., after the fire. (Courtesy of Yuri Hronsky)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The Woolsey Fire, which began two weeks ago and engulfed a massive swath of Southern California, has killed at least two people, burned nearly 100,000 acres and ravaged hundreds of structures — including several touchstones of Jewish life in this city. Three historic Jewish sleepaway… Read more »
Lior Gross, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder, created a Hebrew grammar that lets speakers avoid identifying as male or female. (Patrick Campbell)
(JTA) — Some college students who think about becoming rabbis aren’t sure whether they will want to work in a synagogue or school. Others get hung up on which seminary to attend or denomination to join. Lior Gross had a different dilemma: How to speak Hebrew in the first… Read more »
Moshe Holtzberg with his nanny Sandra Samuel in 2010. She rescued the boy from the Chabad House attack in Mumbai and followed him to Israel. (Abir Sultan/Flash 90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — “Everything is good.” Sandra Samuel is riding on a bus from Afula in northern Israel to the city apartment in Jerusalem that she shares with four other women from India and has agreed to talk to a reporter. She is coming from a weekly visit with… Read more »
Marvel Comics Publisher, Stan Lee, poses with a book of "Spider Man" comics which he created along with comics on the "Hulk" and others. Photo from Washington Post Archive scanned on 2/17/2009. (Photo by Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(JTA) — When Stan Lee died on Nov. 12 at 95, he left behind a vast legacy. Between 1961 and 1969, his greatest sustained burst of creative activity, he co-created a vast array of iconic characters, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Thor,… Read more »
Rabbi Hara Person says "it's hugely historic, and also it's time" for a woman to be heading the Central Conference of American Rabbis. (Courtesy of CCAR) NEW YORK (JTA) — The Reform movement’s rabbinical wing has appointed Rabbi Hara Person as its first female chief executive. The Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represents 2,100 Reform rabbis around the world, made the announcement on Thursday. Person succeeds Rabbi Steven Fox, who is retiring in June after… Read more »
A police officer stands guard outside Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh, Nov. 2, 2018. The synagogue is a half mile away from the Tree of Life Congregation, which was attacked by a lone gunman less than a week earlier. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — After a mass shooting in a heavily Jewish area shocked the nation, Rabbi Yakov Saacks felt like his Long Island congregation was at risk. So the rabbi installed 17 cameras on the synagogue’s exterior that can zoom in to read numbers on license plates, as… Read more »
Firefighters battle a blaze at the Salvation Army Camp on November in Malibu, Calif., Nov. 10, 2018. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The death toll and damage continue to rise in California in the wildfires ravaging the state. More than 6,400 homes have been damaged and at least 31 people have been killed, according to CNN. Like other Californians, Jewish residents are evacuating their homes and dealing with the… Read more »
University of Arizona senior and Hillel student leader Calli Bagshaw lights a candle at the UA Hillel Foundation vigil for victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Oct. 29. (John de Dios /UA News)
The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation, Chabad, and Jewish Arizonans on Campus held a vigil on the UA Mall Monday, Oct. 29 for the 11 victims of the Oct. 27 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Participants observed a moment of silence, sang prayers and lit… Read more »
Weintraub Israel 2018 multifaith mission group in the Old City of Jerusalem, Oct. 20. Front row (L-R): Ricki Shore, Mary Cochran, Jill Feldhausen, Dawn Gunter, Oshrat Barel, Michael Solan, Susan McMahon, Debe Campbell, Steve Wool, Jarrod Rulney (University of Arizona graduate student at Hebrew University), Gil Alvidrez; middle row: Andrea Crane, Debby Shore, Sara Ross, Bonnie Shore-Dombrowski, Dina Rosengarten, Grace Hartman, Theresa Dulgov, Florence Solan, Gayle Marrett, Pam Sorock, Michele Canney, Jacquelyn Feller, Ron Feller, Wendy Weinberg; back row: Harry Crane, Janice Brundage, Robert Wolk, Marshall Humphrey, Richard Hartman, Muki Jankelowitz (tour educator), Jeff Weinberg, Britt Feldhausen, David Zeinfeld, Lawrence Kinet, Todd Rockoff, Marsha Kinet, Jim Dever, Vicky Lunday, Michelle Kroeger, Richard Canney. (courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)
Weintraub Israel Center hosted its second annual multifaith mission to Israel in mid-October. A group of 43 participated in the nine-day journey from Tucson to Tel Aviv and around the nation’s interior. “We believe the most effective way to fulfill our mission to build living bridges is for participants… Read more »
