Bertha Reynolds was born Bertha Hurwitz in Poland. (Courtesy of Shirley Thaler) (JTA) — When Eleanor Roosevelt or Bess Truman sent a formal invitation to one particular White House staff member, they often addressed it in the customary form of days gone by: “To Mrs. William Reynolds,” the envelope would read. Mrs. Reynolds, a dark-haired beauty who handled presidential correspondence, lived… Read more »
Participants in the National Walkout to protest gun violence marching toward the U.S. Capitol, April 20, 2018. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — As Senate Republicans worked to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last summer, the American Jewish establishment sent an unequivocal message: Kill the bill. “The Senate’s ‘Better Care Reconciliation Act’ would be devastating for millions of Americans and irreparably harmful to Jewish social service… Read more »
A man wearing a kippah at a gathering in Berlin to protest anti-Semitism, April 25, 2018. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The debate about wearing a kippah in Western Europe returned only a decade or so ago, but it has nonetheless come to follow a rigid pattern even in that short period of time. The cycle – there have been dozens of such cases — begins with… Read more »
Natalie Portman speaking at the Environmental Media Association's 27th Annual EMA Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., Sept. 23, 2017. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Environmental Media Association) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Natalie Portman’s statement explaining why she declined to attend an award ceremony in Israel in her honor was a pointed rebuke, and of a particular individual. “I did not want to appear as endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu,” she said of the Israeli prime minister. But it also… Read more »
From left: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams and Alessandro Nivola in "Disobedience." (Agatha A. Nitecka/Bleecker Street)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Sebastian Lelio, the director who recently won the Academy Award for best foreign film for “A Fantastic Woman,” grew up Catholic in Chile knowing almost nothing about observant Jews. So when the Jewish actress Rachel Weisz approached him a couple of years ago and suggested… Read more »
Leonard Cohen's grave, next to three generations of his family, in the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim cemetery in Montreal. (Ben Harris)
MONTREAL (JTA) — Just inside the gate of the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue off Boulevard du Mont Royal, a gravestone bears an unusual Star of David, the sharp angles of its two opposing triangles — one reaching heavenward, the other aimed at the earth — softened into the shape of… Read more »
A participant at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow blows a shofar, April 22, 2018. (Jakub Wlodek)
KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — At one of Poland’s plushest synagogues, leaders of this city’s small but vibrant Jewish community welcomed visitors from around the world to a celebration of what the hosts call their minority’s “revival” in this country. The occasion for the party Sunday at Tempel Synagogue was… Read more »
Van-mounted billboards in central London were the latest escalation in British Jews' publicized row with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. (Courtesy of Jonathan Hoffman)
LONDON (JTA) — Keith Walker was having a sandwich in Parliament Square when he saw something that made him sit up straight and cut short his lunch. What did the 42-year-old activist for disabled people’s rights find so fascinating? It was three billboards on wheels that circled around the… Read more »
‘Flame’ by local artist Tidhar Ozeri overlooks the Jane and Rabbi Lee Kivel Promenade between the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Tucson Jewish Community Center. (Ronen More)
A new glass and metal sculpture, “Flame” by Tidhar Ozeri, was installed late last month outside the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy. The new work is part of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s intention to use architectural elements and art in the new building to reinforce… Read more »
Howard Schwartz, left, and Deborah Oseran
The Jewish Community Awards Celebration and Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona annual meeting will be held Thursday, May 10 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. New this year, the evening will include special recognition awards honoring outstanding lay or professional leaders from each of the Federation’s… Read more »
Sarah Lichter admires the plaque dedicated to Holocaust survivors at Fort Huachuca on April 9. Behind her, from left, are her husband, Pawel Lichter; Teresa Dulgov; and Wanda Wolosky.
The Fort Huachuca annual Days of Remembrance Holocaust Observance has been a unique gathering of survivors, local dignitaries, U.S. military members and their families, and German Army officers for 15 years. The event educates about the past and protects the future, but also promotes face-to-face healing. On April 9,… Read more »
Students in Challah for Hunger (from left) Michal Chetrit, Bridget Ott and Zevi Altus sell their homemade challah on the University of Arizona mall, April 13.
A group of students at the University of Arizona Hillel Foundation has come together to fight hunger, using skills they may have learned helping out in the kitchen at home. They are members of Challah for Hunger, a national organization that connects students to raise awareness for social justice issues… Read more »
A new mural by local artist Michael B. Schwartz is part of the garden space at the Sister Jose Women’s Center, which the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona refurbished as its 70th Anniversary Mitzvah Project.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold a dedication of its 70th Anniversary Mitzvah Project at the Sister Jose Women’s Center, 1050 S. Park Ave., on Sunday, May 6 from 11 a.m. to noon. Participants can tour the facility, learn how the outdoor space — the focus of… Read more »
Maria Martinez, LPN, is one of the first Handmaker staff members enrolled in the Diane and Ronald Weintraub Scholarship Fund.
Staff at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging are being offered opportunities to improve their careers in healthcare through the generosity of community philanthropists Diane and Ron Weintraub. The couple recently collaborated with Handmaker President and CEO Arthur Martin to establish parameters for the grant. It offers individuals up… Read more »
Rhina Gerhauser
A familiar face at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, Rhina Gerhauser in March marked a quarter-century there as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer. Her motto is, “It’s never too late to start living healthier. And always too soon to stop.” In 2015, she was voted Tucson’s Top Group… Read more »
A Holocaust commemoration ceremony at Riga's Freedom Monument, Nov. 30, 2017. (Courtesy of Lolita Tomsone)
RIGA, Latvia (JTA) — Each year on March 16, a macabre event unfolds on the square around this capital city’s most famous monument. Known as the Memorial for Latvian Legionnaires, it is the world’s only march by veterans of Nazi Germany’s elite SS unit. A handful of them, including… Read more »
(JTA collage)
NEW YORK (JTA) — This won’t be the first time Jewish Currents, a 72-year-old magazine for the secular left, undergoes a transformation. It was founded in 1946 as a communist magazine, clashing with other Jewish institutions such as the socialist Workmen’s Circle. The magazine later abandoned communism as its political ideology,… Read more »
Freshman Abraham Waserstein, right, who organized the Collegiate Moot Beit Din competition, shakes hands with the winning team at Princeton University, Sunday, April 15. (Courtesy of the Princeton Center for Jewish Life)
PRINCETON, New Jersey (JTA) — Does Jewish law allow — or even require — torture? That’s the question six teams of college students from across the country set out to answer at a moot Jewish court competition at Princeton University Sunday. And they came back with a unanimous response:… Read more »
Tourists lining up outside the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, June 15, 2015. (Lex Van Lieshout/AFP/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — When Barry Vingerling asked his employers at the Anne Frank House whether it was okay for him to start coming to work wearing a kippah, he did it mostly as a courtesy. “I hadn’t expected this to be an issue,” Vingerling, 25, told the Dutch-Jewish NIW… Read more »
Simon Gronowski and Alice Weit, who had a reunion 76 years after being separated by the Holocaust, were honored at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, April 12, 2018. (Bart Bartholomew/Simon Wiesenthal Center)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When Alice (Gerstel) Weit last saw Simon Gronowski, she was 13 and he was 10 and, by Alice’s recollection, “the most adorable boy ever.” When they reunited this week, 76 years later, “I opened the door and there he was, a frail, little old man,” she… Read more »
