Tagged FRONT

(JUF News via JTA) — When Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jason B. Rosenthal first got married, they brainstormed long-term marriage goals. Some that made the list: “Get dressed up and go on dates,” “Record our kids’ voices every year” and “Whenever we sign something ‘Amy & Jason,’ we both… Read more »

(JTA) – In the space of just 48 hours, Orthodox lawmakers in New York have gone from calling on the city’s mayor to open playgrounds, to threatening to open the parks themselves, to actually cutting the chains off a Brooklyn playground. State Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, City Councilman Kalman Yeger… Read more »

(JTA) — When Rabbi Capers Funnye attends a synagogue that’s not his own, he must brace himself for the reaction that he knows will follow after he walks through the door. Even though he comes in wearing a kippah and holding a prayer shawl, Funnye knows that if a… Read more »

(JTA) – Protesters have been a daily sight in Brooklyn over the last few weeks. But the protesters blocking traffic Thursday on the streets of the New York City borough’s Orthodox neighborhoods were a little younger than usual. Their shouting — “We want camp!” — quickly made their aim… Read more »

Temple Emanu-El staged a car parade on Sunday morning, May 31, for community members to say goodbye and thank you to Rabbi Batsheva Appel, who is leaving Tucson after seven years with the synagogue. Stephen Shawl, an Emanu-El board member, took photos of hundreds of carloads of people who stopped… Read more »

The Southern Arizona Jewish community has joined communities across the globe in expressing outrage at the murder of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. And it is grappling with how best to support the struggle for racial justice. On June… Read more »

Anne Hameroff

Retired attorney Anne Hameroff, the new chair of the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, wants to see the Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona work together in ways that make them “more nimble and responsive” to meet the overall philanthropic desires of their donors. It’s a goal… Read more »

Groceries for distribution to the immigrant community are set outside the Jewish History Museum, June 7. (Courtesy Laurie Melrood)

Paisanos Unidos (Citizens United) is an immigrant self-defense organization that works to inform members of the immigrant community about their rights while living and working in the United States. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jewish History Museum has partnered with the organization to provide an outdoor space in which… Read more »

Matthew Schwartz of KVOA News 4 Tucson shares more than 40 behind-the-scenes stories from his 37-year career as a hard-hitting journalist in his newly published memoir, “Confessions of an Investigative Reporter” (Koehler Books). Hard hits come with the territory. He’s been swung at with a baseball bat, hit by a… Read more »

Yes, it is true. We are going back to Israel, ending our shlichut in Southern Arizona. It has been a remarkable and a challenging year, and my family and I are extremely grateful for the experience. We were blessed to be chosen to take part… Read more »

(JTA) — Like many small business owners, Ian Yosef Hertzmark’s small flour operation saw a precipitous drop when the coronavirus pandemic hit the Unites States in March. Almost overnight, Hertzmark’s Migrash Farm, which produces certified kosher flour from grain grown in the Chesapeake Bay region, lost virtually his entire… Read more »

(JTA) – Shevi Samet started her Instagram livestream by letting out a long, deep breath. “How are you?” she asked her co-presenter and fellow Instagrammer Shoshana Greenwald. “So, so nervous,” Greenwald replied. “So nervous, so nervous,” Samet echoed. “I just want to address that briefly: Shoshana and I are… Read more »

The Southern Arizona Jewish community lost one of its most energetic and beloved volunteers when Patty Vallance, 62, died June 3, 2020. “We lost a one-of-a-kind force for good,” Stuart Mellan, former president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, wrote on Facebook. “She wore her Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) — Nearly half the Jewish sites in Syria and a quarter of the sites in Iraq have been destroyed, according to a research project. In Iraq, at least 68 out of 297 Jewish heritage sites have deteriorated to the point that they are beyond repair, the London-based Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) – Shuly Rubin Schwartz’s appointment as the Jewish Theological Seminary’s eighth chancellor comes just in time for the historian to guide the institution through a period of unprecedented crisis management. The flagship university of Judaism’s Conservative movement recently completed a major renovation project of its Morningside Heights campus… Read more »

(JTA) – On Sunday night, Rabbi Richard Altabe marched arm in arm with two black politicians protesting police brutality at a demonstration in Far Rockaway. The next morning, Orthodox Jews in the same New York neighborhood showed up at the local police precinct to drop off pastries for the… Read more »

(JTA) — It has been a trying week and a half for Beejhy Barhany. Her Israeli-Ethiopian fusion restaurant, Tsion Cafe, had already been struggling to make ends meet after months of closure due to the pandemic. Then the protests over the death of George Floyd swept through the city,… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — As Kielahtiel Barton stood across from the former American embassy here, on a sidewalk next to a downtown beach, a large crowd around her chanted slogans calling for racial equality. “Why am I here? I’m black as hell and my skin color is the first… Read more »

(JTA) – Jewish Community Action, the leading Jewish social justice organization in Minneapolis, was supposed to be closed last Friday for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Instead, its staff started organizing individually as protests broke out all over the city in response to the killing of George Floyd in… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s announcement last week that an Israeli consortium would build Sorek 2, the world’s largest desalination plant, surprised many who had been watching the deal: The contract had been expected to go to a Hong Kong-based company. But that was before the Trump administration ramped up… Read more »