Tagged FRONT

Handmaker, Hebrew High plan new ‘Tracing Roots’

Hebrew High students Maya Krause, left, and Rachel Levy, right, collaborate with Handmaker resident Lois Waldman to trace her family tree. (Courtesy Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging)

Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging and Tucson Hebrew High will launch a Tracing Roots 2.0 intergenerational program next month, bringing together Handmaker residents and Jewish teens. The original program, which began in fall 2015 and wrapped up in 2017, built “beautiful connections,” says Nanci Levy, Handmaker’s community outreach… Read more »

Synagogues grow youth, family education programs with Federation funding

Congregation Bet Shalom members work on the pollinator garden for the Midbar Project. Later project development will include beehives, gardens, and chickens for lessons about desert and Biblical gardening traditions. (Courtesy Congregation Bet Shalom)

Local congregations are enhancing youth and family education programs while increasing inter-synagogue collaboration to enrich Tucson Jewish life. Participants credit expanded funding from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona for this boon. “The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has always allocated grant money to synagogues, but additional funding through… Read more »

THA dinner to honor Ronnie Sebold for community devotion

Brooke Sebold, left, with her mother, Ronnie Sebold, at a Sept. 29 tribute event in Denver for trauma surgeon Ernest E. Moore, who saved Brooke’s life 25 years ago after a skiing accident. Brooke will be the keynote speaker at Tucson Hebrew Academy’s Tikkun Olam Award dinner Nov. 4. (Courtesy Ronnie Sebold)

I’ve always considered Tucson Hebrew Academy as my fourth child and this community to be my family,” Ronnie Sebold recently told the AJP. With hands-on involvement within the school for 37 of its 45- year history, she has dedicated a lifetime to nurturing the academy. For this dedication to… Read more »

Writer A.J. Jacobs traveled thousands of miles to thank everyone who had a hand in his morning coffee

A.J. Jacobs, right, picks coffee cherries, which contain coffee beans, in Colombia. (Courtesy of Jacobs)

(JUF News via JTA) — Author A.J. Jacobs has encouraged his three sons to be grateful for all they have. He and his wife urge them to write thank-you notes, to thank the bus driver — even thank their household robot Alexa for weather forecasts. Jacobs, who is Jewish, sometimes says… Read more »

Ardently pro-Israel presidential candidate wins first round of Brazil’s elections

Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is shown after casting his vote in Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 7, 2018. (Fernando Souza/AFP/Getty Images)

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Jair Bolsonaro, an ardently pro-Israel candidate who is highly divisive among Jews for his sometimes politically incorrect rhetoric, won the first round of Brazil’s presidential election and remains the front-runner to lead the Latin American nation. Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old conservative Christian congressman, won 46… Read more »

An exhibit on Jewish life during World War I energizes a Midwestern community

A handbill made by the Jewish Welfare Board in 1918 is on display at the exhibit "For Liberty: American Jewish Experience in WWI" at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo. (Gift of the Anne and John P. McNulty Foundation)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The scribbled, shorthand note is faded, but the formal origins of the first modern Jewish state are clear: “H(is) M(ajesty’s) G(overnment) accepts the principle that P(alestine) shld. reconstitute as the Natl. Home of the J(ewish) P(eople) …” Jotted on stationery from London’s Imperial Hotel, the memo… Read more »

These non-Jews are fighting Labour anti-Semitism from the inside

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 26: Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn addresses delegates on day four of the Labour Party conference at the Arena and Convention Centre on September 26, 2018 in Liverpool, England. In his closing speech to the conference the Labour leader will promise to 'kickstart a green jobs revolution' and expand the provision of free childcare should Labour win power. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Steeped in anti-Semitism accusations involving him and his supporters, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has made many Jewish enemies — including inside his own party. But one of his most effective critics is not Jewish. He is a meteorology student at the University of Reading who describes himself… Read more »

A Chicago teacher showed her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. Now Lithuania is paying attention.

Silvia Foti visits a friend in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 2013. (Ina Budryte)

(JTA) — Barring unexpected delays, Silvia Foti is months away from fulfilling an old promise that’s become her life’s work: to write a biography of her late grandfather, who is a national hero in his native Lithuania. Foti, a 60-year-old high school teacher from Chicago, made the pledge to… Read more »

UA music school festival to mark Debussy, Asia milestones

Daniel Asia

The 11th annual Music + Festival at the University of Arizona will focus on the music of Claude Debussy, in commemoration of  the 100th anniversary of his death, and Daniel Asia, in honor of his 65th birthday and 30 years in residence at the UA’s Fred Fox School of… Read more »

Tucson community generosity inspires hospital’s healing art therapy program

Lauren Rabb, left, and Jacquelyn Feller stand before “Untitled Rainbow,” donated to Tucson Medical Center by artist Bob Kray II. It hangs near TMC’s south orthopedic unit entrance. (Debe Campbell)

Healing literally surrounds you upon entering Tucson Medical Center. The largest single-story hospital in the U.S. has nearly eight miles of hallways that have transformed into an expansive art gallery through the TMC Healing Arts Program, curated by Lauren Rabb who, like many in this story, is a member… Read more »

UA guided imagery study aims to help smokers quit

Judith S. Gordon, Ph.D.

The University of Arizona is launching a new guided imagery-based smoking cessation program called the Be Smoke Free program. Led by Interim Associate Dean for Research Judith S. Gordon, Ph.D., the study focuses on retraining a participant’s brain both in the need for nicotine and the habit of smoking… Read more »

Mega Challah Bake entering fifth year

(L-R): Danya Horwitz, Haley Fried, Hilary Kleppel and Belle Soyfer join in the dancing while waiting for dough to rise at the Mega Challah Bake on Oct. 26, 2017 at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. (Chabad Tucson)

The fifth annual Mega Challah Bake, bringing together hundreds of women for an evening of community and instruction in the art and mitzvah of baking challah, a staple of the Shabbat table, will be held Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event, for… Read more »

Fifth annual Ride for the Living affirms Jewish vitality today — in Poland

Tucsonans Boaz Cohon (front left) and Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon at the Ride for the Living in Krakow, Poland, June 29 (Rabbi Samuel Cohon)

This summer my son Boaz and I traveled to Poland for the great pleasure and privilege of participating in the Ride for the Living, a 55-mile bicycle ride from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the Jewish Community Center of Krakow, Poland, from the scene of the greatest destruction of our people to… Read more »

‘Fauda’ screenwriter wanted to depict terrorists as ‘real human beings’

Laetitia Eïdo, left, and Lior Raz in a scene from "Fauda." (Courtesy of Netflix)

(JTA) — Moshe Zonder noticed it quickly: “My students are completely serious. They are writing. They are doing the assignments. All of them. It’s great teaching here.” Zonder shouldn’t be that surprised. For an aspiring screenwriter, who better to study with than the man who wrote the entire first… Read more »

The ‘best football player who grew up in Israel’ seeks a spot at US college

Yuval Fenta plays running back for the Tel Aviv Pioneers. (Hillel Kuttler)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Yuval Fenta saw two guys tossing a football on the beach in Herzliya. He asked to participate. “You’re too small,” they responded. A dejected Fenta retreated, but not before hearing them mention an American football league that played in Israel.… Read more »