Tagged FRONT

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 »

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 »

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 »

(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 »

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 »

  (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 »

  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 »

  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 »

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 »

  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 »

In recent years, Tucson’s community-wide celebration of Israel’s Independence Day had grown from a one-day festival to a week of Tucson Celebrates Israel events. This year, in partnership with local congregations, the Weintraub Israel Center has orchestrated a month of events, beginning April 21, celebrating Israel’s 69 years of… Read more »

The Jewish community’s 2017 Yom HaShoah commemoration, which will include a survivor processional and candle lighting ceremony, will take place Sunday, April 23 at 2 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El. This year’s theme is “Art and Totalitarianism: 80 Years After the ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition.” The “Degenerate Art” (Entartete Kunst) exhibition… Read more »

Why shouldn’t we care about other people, Michael J. Rosenkrantz asks rhetorically, adding that he refuses to live a selfish lifestyle.  “I feel like it’s really important to think about the larger community, and it’s not just the Jewish community — it’s bigger,” says Rosenkrantz. “But in the Jewish… Read more »

Rina Paz has been visiting Hazel Rappeport, a resident at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, for three months. Once in a while Paz says something in English and Rappeport is quick to remind her that they are supposed to be speaking only Hebrew. Nanci Levy, community outreach coordinator… Read more »

Tucsonan Shari Gootter spends her time changing the lives of others in a wide variety of ways. Self-employed as a therapist and yoga instructor, she works daily to help people as they improve themselves emotionally and physically; however, her work as a volunteer for several organizations in Tucson is… Read more »

Cantor Avraham Alpert

Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona and the LEAH program will present two free talks in the Shalom in Every Home Healthy Family Lecture Series, April 23 and 30, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.  On Sunday, April 23, Avraham Alpert, spiritual leader of… Read more »

Congregation Or Chadash will hold a fundraiser, “Revvin’ It Up,” an evening at Wayne’s Toys — Tucson’s Auto Museum on Saturday, April 29 at 6 p.m. Set amid the classic cars, the evening will feature a DJ playing car tunes and music for dancing, a beer tasting and hosted… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – At a Shabbat service in Tel Aviv on Friday evening, congregants recited the mourner’s prayer for those killed in Syria’s civil war. Standing before a mural of the Tree of Life, the rabbi of Beit Daniel, the largest Reform synagogue in Israel, delivered a sermon… Read more »