Staff preparing the Ets Haim Jewish library in Amsterdam for a tour, May 17, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Livraria Ets Haim is the world’s oldest functioning Jewish library. As such, it is no stranger to the prospect of imminent destruction. Founded in 1616 by Jews who fled Catholic persecution in Spain and Portugal, the three-room library is adjacent to Amsterdam’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue… Read more »
Members of the student-led ‘Puzzle’ youth program in Kiryat Malachi (Courtesy Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona)
Leah Avuno has spent the last year in Tucson as one of Tucson’s first pair of shinshinim, teen emissaries from Israel. Three years ago, Avuno was a 15-year-old immigrant to Israel from Ethiopia living with her mother, aunt and siblings in Kiryat Malachi, a city known for its diversity.… Read more »
Koreen Johannessen (Courtesy Johannessen)
Koreen Johannessen, 70, had some difficulty retiring. She first announced that she would step down from her clinical social worker position at the University of Arizona Campus Health Service in 2000. Johannessen had been working with U A students with mental health issues throughout the 1990s. “It became clear… Read more »
‘Chair Yoga’ is an ongoing class at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. (Courtesy Tucson Jewish Community Center)
From “Painting the World Jewish” to “Senior Shimmy Belly Dancing” to kosher cooking, the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Arts & Culture, Fitness & Wellness, and Jewish Life & Learning departments will offer a wide array of programs for seniors this fall. The Tucson J will partner with Ballet Tucson… Read more »
A scene from 'Shalom Italia,' a documentary by Tamar Tal Anati (PBS)
On the run from Nazis, three Italian Jewish brothers spent months during their childhood hiding in a cave in the Tuscan countryside. Nearly 70 years later, after immigrating to Israel, the three reunite in the country they were forced to abandon and rediscover their hiding place. “For years I’ve… Read more »
Rabbinical student Harry Kleinerman, left, and Robert Nye of Green Valley study together at Congregation Chofetz Chayim in 2016. (Courtesy Southwest Torah Institute)
“In the Driver’s Seat” is this year’s theme for the Southwest Torah Institute’s Dr. Paul W. Hoffert Spirit Program, which begins Wednesday, July 26 and runs through Tuesday, Aug. 8. Begun in 2000, the program offers two weeks of free learning for Jewish men and boys ages eight and… Read more »
The Women’s Academy of Jewish Studies will hold its annual Women’s Summer Reading and Brunch event with Esther Becker on Sunday, Sept. 10 at 10:45 a.m. at Congregation Chofetz Chayim. For nearly two decades, this event has been held during the High Holiday season. “This event has become a… Read more »
Grey Schwartzberg (left) and his father, Gary, carry Torahs at their b’nai mitzvah ceremony on May 6 at Temple Emanu-El. (Courtesy Gary Schwartzman)
A bar or bat mitzvah brings families together in a special way. In recent months, three Temple Emanu-El members with interfaith backgrounds created new family traditions as they demonstrated their commitment through this age-old rite of passage. A father and son celebrated a joint b’nai mitzvah, and the son of… Read more »
A Palestinian boy cools off during a heat wave at the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, July 2, 2017. (AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – An internal Palestinian dispute has left Gaza’s nearly 2 million Palestinian residents dangerously vulnerable to a heat wave, but Israel could get burned, too. The West Bank Palestinian Authority has recently spearheaded a sharp reduction of electricity to the coastal enclave with Israel’s cooperation, resulting… Read more »
A view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem during Sukkot 2015. (Gil Cohen/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Daryl Messinger knows she’s going to visit Israel again. But the next time she flies there, it won’t be on El Al. Messinger, the chair of the Union for Reform Judaism, will be boycotting Israel’s national airline as part of her protest of the… Read more »
Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomon Jacobs' parents survived the Holocaust in hiding, and he often speaks to schoolchilren about the genocide at Westerbork. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
WESTERBORK, Netherlands (JTA) — Nothing about the footage that Rudolf Breslauer filmed here on May 30, 1944, suggests that it was taken inside one of Europe’s largest Nazi concentration camps. In the film by Breslauer, a German-Jewish inmate of the Westerbork camp in Holland’s northeast, prisoners are seen playing… Read more »
Retired U.S. fighter pilot Roy "Bubba" Segars, left, and retired Israeli fighter pilot Jacob "Booby" Daube holding a photo they took together during the 1973 Yom Kippur War at the same Tel Nof air base in Israel, June 28, 2017. (Courtesy of IDF Spokesperson)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The arrival of U.S. fighter jets in Israel, part of a monthlong arms drop, was critical to turning the tide of the Yom Kippur War in favor of the Jewish state. But for the American pilots who volunteered to deliver the aircraft, it was… Read more »
Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein (Courtesy of Eisenstein)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Haredi Orthodox Jews agree with their non-Orthodox brethren on one thing: The future of the Jewish people is at stake in the debate raging over who controls the Western Wall and conversion in Israel. Other than that, though, there is little common ground. According to Nachum… Read more »
Haredi Orthodox Jewish men and Israeli soldiers, seen here at the main entrance of the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Oct. 12, 2015, are what many Americans think of when they picture Israel, according to a new study. (Musa al-Shaer/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — What do you think of when you think of Italy? Maybe you picture beautiful works of art set against rolling Tuscan hills. Maybe a steaming plate of spaghetti topped with marinara sauce served with a deep red wine. Now what do you think of when you… Read more »
Marchers at the New York City Pride Parade hold signs for an LGBT synagogue in Manhattan, June 25, 2017. (Harold Levine)
NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, Laurie Grauer had waved a rainbow flag emblazoned with a Jewish star at the Chicago Dyke March, sometimes marching near activists waving Palestinian flags. It had never been a problem. But this year, Grauer was confronted by the LGBT parade’s organizers, questioned about… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, leads the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, June 25, 2017. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)
(JTA) — American Jewish leaders are calling it a betrayal. They say that 17 months after achieving a historic agreement to provide a non-Orthodox space at Judaism’s holiest prayer site, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reneged in a Cabinet vote June 25, effectively canceling the deal and caving to… Read more »
Benjamin Netanyahu, center, arrives at the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, June 25, 2017. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)
(JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shelved a controversial bill that would have made the haredi Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate the only body authorized by the government to perform conversions in Israel. Netanyahu’s office announced Friday that the legislation will not be considered for six months while a “team” he will appoint… Read more »
(L-R) Rabbi Robert Eisen, CAI students, Lynne Falkow-Strauss, Marianne Langer and Stephanie Roberts at the June 6 groundbreaking for the Lynne Falkow-Strauss Foyer and Courtyard. (Yvonne Ethier)
Congregation Anshei Israel is recognizing Lynne Falkow-Strauss, director of its Esther B. Feldman Preschool/Kindergarten for 45 years, by creating a new courtyard and foyer in her name. The beloved educator, who has welcomed multiple generations of students, will be honored in a unique way that reflects her leadership style.… Read more »
(L-R) Eliana Siegel, Ellah Ben-Asher, Elana Goldberg, Sigal Devorah (Tucson Hebrew Academy teacher), Breanna Yalen, Lily Isaac, Shira Dubin, Eliana Tolby, Dani Lee, Ava Leipsic and April Glesinger (THA parent) at the Western Wall. (Courtesy Breanna Yalen)
Seeing, hearing, smelling, actually being in Israel is magical for Tucson teens who spent years studying about the Jewish state at Tucson Hebrew Academy. It is a powerful experience for eighth-grade graduates to travel with classmates and teachers, building lifetime friendships and memories. Twenty-one students made the trip this… Read more »
Christian Friedel as Georg Elser in "13 Minutes." (Bernd Schuller/Sony Pictures Classics)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) —What if Adolf Hitler had been assassinated shortly after his armies invaded Poland to start World War II? How would global — and Jewish — history have played out? The question is not answered directly in the German film “13 Minutes.” But the movie, based… Read more »
