Tagged FRONT

  (JTA) — Around the picnic tables at Whitefish City Beach on the final Shabbat eve of last month, the Montana town’s tiny Jewish community shared kosher hot dogs, veggie burgers and memories of terror. In a year when white supremacists have been ascendant, at least in their public… Read more »

  {JTA) — A few weeks ago, Holly Davies was getting ready to homeschool her kids and preparing the family for the High Holidays. When Hurricane Harvey hit, she helped evacuate 150 people from her neighborhood by airboat and shelter nearly 100 people in a local church. Then came… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Three leftist Jewish youth movements have refused to attend Brazil’s longest running Israeli dance festival in retaliation for a lecture given by a right-wing politician at a mainstream Jewish center five months ago. Chazit Hanoar, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair say their unprecedented boycott… Read more »

UMAN, Ukraine (JTA) — By selling coffee to Jewish tourists, 18-year-old Yuri Breskov can earn in a week more than his teachers from high school make annually in this provincial city. His revenues peak at $3,000 on the week of Rosh Hashanah, when some 30,000 Israelis and other Jews visit… Read more »

(JTA) — There are almost as many reality cop shows on television as there are Real Housewives. “Cops” is the granddaddy of them all, in its 30th season, plus there’s “Night Watch” and “Live PD,” to name just a few. The newest is “Street Justice: The Bronx,” which premieres… Read more »

Social action, community service, acts of loving kindness, humanitarianism … no matter what you call it, engaging in tikkun olam (repairing or healing the world) is an expression of a core Jewish value.  One idea behind the concept of tikkun olam is that we must act as partners with… Read more »

Renowned Jewish singer Billy Jonas will present a Sukkot concert at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, cosponsored by PJ Library, on Sunday, Oct. 8 from 4-6 p.m. in the Sculpture Garden. The event will include a story from PJ Library and a light, breakfast-themed dinner. For 25 years, Jonas… Read more »

Tucson composer Daniel Asia’s latest CD attempts to contextualize the human experience via a Jewish sacred text, plus the poems of a New York Jewish poet and an Israeli Jewish poet. “To Open in Praise” contains 12 tracks in three sections, written over a 25-year period. The opening composition,… Read more »

Remember “Where’s Waldo?” It’s a fun time looking at maps and pictures and finding funny looking Waldo. Well, I do my own version whenever I travel and I call it “Seeking Seymour.” My default is to always look out for links to Jewish history, culture and people. When we… Read more »

Carolin Haase Atchison

For more than three years, I have been researching my family’s history — and I’m still at it. When I received the results of my DNA test a couple of years ago, I was surprised, like the actors in the Ancestry TV ads. Instead of being of mainly German… Read more »

The Jewish History Museum is asking the public to donate their Jewish music collections — vinyl records only, please. In the summer of 2016, the museum received two dozen vinyl records of Jewish music, and now they want to pump up the volume. The museum wants to bolster its… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — There’s a small music room in the basement of cellist Maya Beiser’s large, kempt house in the leafy Riverdale section of the Bronx. It’s pretty spare — a few cellos, some basic recording equipment and posters from past concerts. Against one wall, though, rests a… Read more »

(JTA) — Berlin’s mayor, many local Jewish leaders agree, could do more to counter the city’s vocal BDS movement. But does that make him an anti-Semite? A report that the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center may include Mayor Michael Müller on its annual list of the world’s 10 worst cases… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel recently got two new statues of political leaders: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Supreme Court President Miriam Naor. However, both statues were torn down within hours. For their creators, that was part of the point. Israel has very few official statues of its leaders —… Read more »

KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — Michal Zielinski, a 47-year-old from this city, grew up unaware of his Jewish roots. Thirty years after discovering that his paternal family is Jewish, following the death of his grandmother, Zielinski and his wife, Elizabeth are active members of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative. Despite resistance from her haredi Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm… Read more »

Ten teen-aged athletes from Tucson teamed up with other Jewish athletes from across the United States, Israel and Ukraine for the 2017 Maccabi Games in Birmingham, Ala., this summer.  And they’re already looking forward to next summer’s games — not just for the sports or the fun, but for… Read more »

Not everyone gets the opportunity to follow their passions, so when I happened upon a program that would enable me to pursue my two greatest loves – travel and teaching – it was an easy decision to apply. TALMA, a teaching fellowship sponsored by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman… Read more »

Even if you don’t follow pop music, you may have heard pianist and songwriter Regina Spektor singing the catchy “Orange Is the New Black” theme song, “You’ve Got Time,” covering The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in the animated feature “Kubo and the Two Strings,” or in numerous… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center and Chabad Tucson will present “Tales of a Hollywood Screenwriter” at the Tucson J on Thursday, Sept. 7, at 7 p.m. David Weiss will share stories of his wild ride to success and spirituality as screenwriter of the Academy Award-nominated “Shrek 2,” “Jimmy Neutron:… Read more »