Linda Sarsour speaks during a Women for Syria gathering at Union Square in New York City, April 13, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — One of the best symbols of the current Jewish political divide is a Muslim woman. To Jews on the left, Linda Sarsour is a courageous and effective activist who builds bridges and breaks stereotypes. To Jews on the right and some in the center, she’s… Read more »
President Donald Trump gives a joint statement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, May 3, 2017. (Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would help bring about the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group. “I know President Abbas has spoken out against ISIS” and other terrorist groups, Trump said Wednesday at a White… Read more »
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaking to a crowd of supporters at a unity rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, April 21, 2017. (George Frey/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – You’re a Jewish donor or macher and you need to talk to someone at the Democratic National Committee, stat. Who’s most likely to return your call? Tom Perez, the party chairman, according to Jewish and Democratic insiders. Perez is also pretty much it – no one… Read more »
Sebastian Gorka participating in a discussion during the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 24, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Sebastian Gorka, who advises President Donald Trump on counterterrorism, reportedly is leaving the White House for a role elsewhere in the administration. Gorka has been an object of Jewish attention since he was photographed at an inaugural ball sporting a medal of the Vitez Rend, a movement founded… Read more »
Staff Sgt. Joana Chris Arpon on Israeli soldiers saving her grandmother in the Philippines: “I was like, “Whoa, that’s what I want to do.” (Courtesy of IDF Spokesperson)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Staff. Sgt. Joana Chris Arpon isn’t Israeli, or even Jewish. Her service in the Israel Defense Forces is personal. Arpon, 20, is the daughter of Filipino parents who came to the Israel to find work. She said she enlisted as a combat soldier because an Israeli army team rescued her… Read more »
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: Cartoonist Bob Mankoff attends New York screening for NEW YORKER PRESENTS at Crosby Hotel on February 9, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Amazon Studios)
(JTA) — Bob Mankoff has been the cartoon editor at The New Yorker for 20 years. But he’s been a Jew for 72. The celebrated cartoonist, who is stepping down from his prestigious perch in May, has therefore had a long time to formulate his thoughts on Judaism and Jewish… Read more »
Jeff Artzi and Joyce Stuehringer are the JFSA Man and Woman of the Year
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will wrap up its 70th anniversary year at its annual meeting and awards celebration. The salute to “The Next 70” will be held Thursday, May 11 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Jeff Artzi and Joyce Stuehringer will be honored… Read more »
The “Cruz de los Sepharditos de Nuestra Tierra Sagrada” by artist Carlie Sánchez illustrates the confluence of cultures. (Courtesy Jewish History Museum) “Fluid Identities: New Mexican Crypto Jews in the Late 20th Century” is currently on display at Tucson’s Jewish History Museum. On loan from the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, “Fluid Identities” is part of a larger exhibition entitled “Fractured Faiths.” The Tucson exhibit offers an opportunity to… Read more »
(L-R) Tom Warne, JFSA chair; Len Kronman, Sister Jose volunteer; Stuart Mellan, JFSA president and CEO; Shelly Silverman, JFSA board chair nominee; Bruce Ash, JFSA Sister Jose project co-chair; Ori Parnaby, Jewish community concierge; Fran Katz, JFSA senior vice president; and Jane Ash, JFSA Sister Jose project co-chair, at the April 20 ribbon-cutting celebration at Sister Jose Women’s Center. (Danielle Larcom/JFSA)
Sister Jose Women’s Center held a ribbon cutting ceremony at its new location on Park Avenue South on Thursday, April 20. The nonprofit center is a haven for homeless women. Its new location, a remodeled 9,000-square foot warehouse, will enable the center to serve far more women than it… Read more »
The Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition at the Newseum, a museum that promotes free expression and five freedoms of the First Amendment, in Washington, D.C., during their annual trip to Congress, April 2, 2017. Standing (L-R): Megan Ramirez, Ellie Friedman, Aliya Markowitz, Chloe Goorman, Lisa Kondrat, Aaron Green, Max Silverman, Nicolas Rios, Hannah Weisman, Lew Hamburger; kneeling: Shari Gootter with Indy, Francisco Lopez (Facebook)
Lobbying in Washington, D.C., for an increase in protections for immigrant families was an invigorating experience, says Nicolas Rios, a high school student and member of Tucson’s Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition. Rios, 16, a junior at BASIS Tucson North, heard about the JLTC from his college preparatory counselor. Growing up… Read more »
Amy Hirshberg Lederman (Courtesy Lederman) A group of leaders from the local Jewish community recently received a unique opportunity to study 21st-century leadership issues from a Jewish perspective. The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona sponsored the flagship LEAD 2017 leadership program, held Jan. 4-March 22 at Tucson Hebrew Academy and the Jewish Federation. A… Read more »
Sophie Loeb Sophie Loeb, a second-year medical student at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, has a strong commitment to care for those in her own backyard. Loeb is the 2017 recipient of the Shirley Curson Medical Scholarship from the UA Hillel Foundation. The scholarship recognizes the commitment… Read more »
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrives for a military parade in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. The picture was released the following day by the state's Korean Central News Agency. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Trump administration last week endorsed a narrative long promoted by critics of the Iran nuclear deal: It’s North Korea all over again. “An unchecked Iran has the potential to travel the same path as North Korea, and take the world along with it,” Secretary of State Rex… Read more »
National Front leader Marine Le Pen addresses activists at the Espace Francois Mitterrand in Henin Beaumont, France, April 23, 2017. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Supporters of Emmanuel Macron were not alone in cheering his victory Sunday in the first round of France’s presidential elections. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who finished second in the voting, saw it as excellent news. The two will face off in the final round next month after… Read more »
Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein with Emily Watson as his wife Elsa in National Geographic’s show "Genius." (National Geographic/Dusan Martincek)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Think “Albert Einstein,” and certain images or phrases likely come to mind: “genius,” “kooky,” “wild hair,” “theory of relativity,” “E = mc2” — maybe even “Zionist.” Sex and violence? Not so much. Then there’s “Genius,” a TV series premiering on Tuesday — National Geographic channel’s first scripted… Read more »
French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon at a campaign rally in Lille, April 12, 2017. (Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Even before the communist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as a serious contender for the presidency in France, the elections were shaping up to be a fateful moment for the country’s 500,000 Jews. Many of them are deeply worried about the rise in the polls of Marine… Read more »
A map of Israeli Cabinet minister Yisrael Katz's proposed regional railway. (Courtesy of the Intelligence Ministry)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Gaza is rebuilt. The West Bank is flourishing. And the trains run from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital. This is the peaceful future being pitched by Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz. In recent months, he has been shopping around a pair of ambitious economic… Read more »
4 things to know about Bret Stephens, the latest Jewish New York Times columnist
NEW YORK (JTA) — At first glance, The New York Times’ hiring of another white, Jewish male opinion-page columnist is anything but news. But the arrival of Bret Stephens, formerly the foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, may be especially resonant for American Jews. Stephens, 42,… Read more »
Lilian Farahani and Benjamin de Wilde portraying Anne Frank and Zef Bunga at the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, March 5, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Decades after her death at a Nazi concentration camp, Anne Frank’s restless spirit in heaven finally finds a soulmate in Zef Bunga, an Albanian teenager who was murdered in a revenge killing. Anne, whose world-famous diary recounts her two years in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam with… Read more »
Jon Ossoff is one of three Jewish candidates in a field of 18 vying for a congressional seat in Georgia. (Courtesy of the Ossoff campaign)
Editor’s note: Democrat Jon Ossoff will face Republican Karen Handel in the June 20 runoff election. Ossoff won 48.1% of the vote April 18; Handel won 19.78% WASHINGTON (JTA) – One candidate has the endorsement of a civil rights giant. Another boasts that he changes his oil in… Read more »
