Joan-e Rapine Let’s End Abusive Households, a program of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona, hosted an interactive discussion with mental health counselor Joan-e Rapine on Oct. 28 to help engage the community on domestic abuse awareness. Rapine talked to the audience about red flags that might indicate abuse… Read more »
Immanuel Abraham (courtesy The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre) It was a Jewish adaptation of “Sesame Street” called “Shalom Sesame” that inspired Immanuel Abraham to pick up the instrument that would shape his life and career. Filmed in Tel Aviv, “Shalom Sesame” regularly featured renowned violinist Itzak Perlman performing and Abraham was amazed by his craft. “I thought… Read more »
Firefighter and co-owner of Sentinel Peak Brewing Company, left, with Samantha Berkson, Sentinel Peak general manager (Courtesy Sentinel Peak Brewing Company) Quite a few firefighters open restaurants. But how many can say they’ve also celebrated a bar mitzvah at the Kotel? Matt Gordon of Sentinel Peak Brewing Company can. Gordon is a Tucson native who graduated from Catalina Foothills High School in 2001 and joined the Golder Ranch Fire District… Read more »
Instructor Virgil Jones, left, works on a piece in the Sonoran Glass School’s hot shop. (Courtesy Sonoran Glass)
This spring, 11 locally owned businesses began learning how they could become more sustainable through a Local First Arizona pilot program called SCALE UP, which stands for Sustainable Communities Accessing Lending and Expertise Upon Performance. Representatives of these businesses met weekly for six weeks with local experts to learn… Read more »
Nissim Kol shows off his merchandise to a prospective shopper at Amsterdam's so-called Jewish market, Oct. 26, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Growing up, Jaap Soesan would count the days until his parents would take him to Waterloo Square, a central area that many people here call the Jewish market. “It was a treat to go there,” recalled Soesan, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor from the Amsterdam suburb of… Read more »
German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a joint news conference in Jerusalem, Oct. 4, 2018. Merkel spoke of Germany's "everlasting responsibility" to oppose anti-Semitism during the visit. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)
BERLIN (JTA) — Israeli author Eldad Beck regards Angela Merkel‘s engagement with Israel and Judaism as “spectacular.” Germany’s chancellor has “developed a very personal connection to the State of Israel and the Jewish people, one of the rare German politicians who – when speaking about lessons learned from the past – really knows what… Read more »
Nehama Drober, 91, waits to enter the restored synagogue in Kaliningrad, Nov. 8, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
KALININGRAD, Russia (JTA) — Walking to school and back, Michael Wieck twice a day would pass by one of Europe’s largest and most spectacular Jewish places of worship: Koenigsberg’s New Synagogue. The mammoth shul was built in 1896 in the Aesopian style in the bustling port city that is… Read more »
Elaine May stars in Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery," her first Broadway appearance in over 50 years. (Brigitte Lacombe)
(JTA) — On the phone last week, just before the revival of his play “The Waverly Gallery” opened on Broadway, Kenneth Lonergan sounded harried. There had been some set malfunctions earlier in the week, just as critics were getting ready to start their reviews. He acknowledged the play is… Read more »
Marcella White Campbell, on the right, at her son's bar mitzvah. (courtesy of Marcella White Campbell)
On Saturday, I received a text: “why do they hate us so much?” It was from my daughter, a first-year student at college who is thousands of miles away from home but, at that moment, was reaching out for comfort, wishing she was curled up on the couch beside… Read more »
Mourners walking at the funeral of Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Nov. 1, 2018. (Arielle Kaplan)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Bernice and Sylvan Simon were married in the sanctuary of Tree of Life Congregation 62 years ago. Week after week they attended services there, chatting with the Holocaust survivor who sat a row in front of them. And on Saturday, hours before they were to gather with their… Read more »
A mourner wearing a Star of David around his neck at the Squirrel Hill memorial service for the victims of the shooting at the neighborhood's Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Penn., Oct. 29, 2018. (Matthew Hatcher/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(JTA) — My father, whose own father changed his unpronounceable last name to Carroll when he came to America, would often tell a story about job hunting in the late 1940s and 50s. It was only after the interview that the men across the desk would ask, “And all… Read more »
Rose Mallinger was a member of the Tree of Life Congregation for more than 60 years. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Rose Mallinger, the oldest victim in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, was remembered Friday at her funeral as a loving and sharp-witted woman who was a fixture in the Jewish community. Hundreds of mourners attended the service at the Rodef Shalom synagogue. Mallinger was the final of the 11… Read more »
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman speaks to thousands at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh during a service to honor and mourn the victims of the mass shooting at the Tree Of Life synagogue, Oct. 28, 2018. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Six days ago, on Shabbat, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman was hiding in a pitch-black storage closet as one of his congregants was shot dead in front of him. The time since has been filled with funerals, counseling congregants and figuring out how to move forward as a community,… Read more »
A crowd of more than 1,200 turned out for the vigil at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Monday, Oct. 29. Eleven candles on the stage were lit to honor the people killed in the shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, Oct. 27. Standing on the stage, from left, are Rabbis Robert Eisen, Samuel M. Cohon, Avraham Alpert, Ruven Barkan, Helen Cohn and Batsheva Appel, and cantorial soloists Marjorie Hochberg, Diana Povolotskaya and Nichole Chorny. (Steven Braun)
Prayers for peace, kindness and love, for a better world for ourselves and our children, rang out at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Monday night, as more than 1,200 people of all faiths came together for a candlelight vigil in memory of the 11 Jews killed in an attack… Read more »
Activist Michele Freed, center, and other young professionals protest with HIAS in front of the White House, March 1, 2017. (Katie Jett Walls)
(JTA) — Before he shot dead 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Robert Bowers blamed one Jewish organization: HIAS, an immigrant aid group that has been helping refugees since the 1880s. “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he wrote on his website. “I can’t sit by and watch… Read more »
Caskets are carried out of Rodef Shalom Temple following the funeral of brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal in Pittsburgh, Oct. 30, 2018. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Cecil Rosenthal would always ask after your sick mother or inquire about your marriage — or divorce. His brother, David, a jokester, loved the police and every year would buy the same sunglasses with mirrored lenses. At a moving ceremony Tuesday, relatives stood before a… Read more »
Michael Oren speaks at a conference in the Israeli parliament in 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The deadly shooting at a Conservative synagogue in Pittsburgh has underlined tensions in Israel over the haredi Orthodox rabbinic establishment’s disenfranchisement of the Diaspora’s non-Orthodox Jewish streams. Following Saturday’s rampage by a gunman that left 11 worshippers dead, an Israeli government minister and the country’s opposition… Read more »
A havdalah vigil organized by high school students after the shooting drew thousands of people, Oct. 27, 2018. (Ron Kampeas)
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — It is after all, as any local will tell you, Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. People here look out for one another. So when a group of students from Alderdice, a high school in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, emerged from their synagogues, their homes, their cafes after three… Read more »
Jon Simon Jazz composer and performer Jon Simon will headline an evening of music and dining on Tuesday, Nov. 27 to launch the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Northwest Division’s annual campaign. Simon tours North America performing selections from his ninth and latest album, “SOAR,” as well as five highly successful… Read more »
"Kristallnacht: Shattered, Yet Unbroken" mandala by Robert Wertz Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, refers to the windows broken at synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses that were plundered and destroyed during a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938 throughout Germany, Austria, and the Czech Sudetenland. The event is commonly thought to be… Read more »
