A scene from "Austerlitz," a documentary that chronicles the tourist experience in two former concentration camps. (Courtesy of Austerlitz/Loznitsa)
NEW YORK (JTA) — How do people behave when they visit a concentration camp or a Holocaust memorial? Do they act as if there are in place of reverence or mourning? Or do they behave as crowds do at any tourist attraction — taking selfies, goofing around, snacking and drinking… Read more »
Jason and Julianne Kanter started talking about religion more seriously when they started to think about having children. (Courtesy of Julianne Kanter)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Leading up to their wedding in 2012, Julianne and Jason Kanter hadn’t really discussed how they would incorporate their respective religions into their home. Julianne was raised by Catholic and Presbyterian parents, while Jason grew up culturally Jewish. At first, it was simple to mark… Read more »
Jeffrey Cornish with children from a remote village in The Gambia, where he was Peace Corps director before coming to Tucson in 2012. Cornish is director of the International Rescue Committee in Tucson.
(Courtesy Jeffrey Cornish)
Jeffrey Cornish wants to dispel the myth that refugees in the United States are a threat and a burden to society. “We need … to change the conversation about refugees,” says Cornish, the director of the International Rescue Committee in Tucson. “These people have fled oppression and the terror… Read more »
As a young attorney, Linda Hirshman, realized that fighting for the disenfranchised was her calling. “I wanted to do something that was hard, so if you accomplished it, it would be an honor,” says Hirshman, now a political pundit and author. “And there was no honor in making powerful… Read more »
The Tucson Festival of Books returns to the University of Arizona campus March 11 and 12. Now in its ninth year, the festival is the third largest in the country, with more than 300 authors and millions of visitors attending each year. While Jewish authors have always been among… Read more »
Rabbi Richard Address How should we be thinking about and preparing for the likelihood that we will live longer lives than our ancestors? Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min., founder of the Jewish Sacred Aging project, will discuss new ways to approach life’s “third age” as this year’s Albert T. Bilgray scholar-in-residence. Address… Read more »
Jerry Sonenblick (David J. Del Grande/AJP)
At 85 years old, Jerry Sonenblick, a former attorney and local author, still wants to max out on life. “I believe to retire completely is to stagnate,” says Sonenblick. “They say in order to keep your mind going you must engage in something new. For me it’s writing, that’s… Read more »
Rabbi Zalman Levertov Break out the schnapps! This year, Chabad of Arizona celebrates 40 years of serving the state’s diverse Jewish population with a gala dinner at Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort on Feb. 26. Rabbi Zalman Levertov, regional director of Chabad of Arizona, says the celebration marks four decades of… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 15, 2017. (Andrew Harrer/Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – One state. Flexibility. Two states. Hold back on settlements. Stop Iran. When President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: What a press conference! But wait. In the Age of Trump, every post-event analysis requires a double take. Not so much “did he mean what… Read more »
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the Union for Reform Judaism president, speaks at the movement's biennial conference in Orlando, Fla., Nov. 7, 2015. (URJ)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Reform Jewish leaders largely oppose President Donald Trump’s policies — and they haven’t been shy about saying so since his election. They’ve marched in the streets by the thousands. They’ve protested at airports. And last week, some were arrested in front of a Trump hotel… Read more »
About 700 people attended a New York City rally in support of refugees organized by HIAS, Feb. 12, 2017. (Josefin Dolsten)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Over 100 years ago, Barnett Levine was greeted by the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty as he arrived in the United States, having fled anti-Semitism and pogroms in his native Poland. On Sunday, his grandson saw those very same sights when he… Read more »
Asylum seekers protesting at the Holot detention center in the southern Negev Desert of Israel, Feb. 17, 2014. (Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Defending his executive order directing the construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, President Donald Trump pointed to Israel as a model, saying “a wall protects.” With another swipe of his pen two days later, on Jan. 27, Trump enacted a… Read more »
French independent presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron speaking to the media in Berlin, Jan. 10, 2017. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(JTA) — With old favorites knocked out of France’s presidential race and the far-right National Front party making worrisome gains, many Jews are joining fellow voters in supporting Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old independent politician and surprising front-runner. A banker who is 18 years younger than the average age of… Read more »
Bryan Davis, executive director of the Jewish History Museum, leads cadets from the Southern Arizona Law Enforcement Training Center on a tour of the Holocaust History Center, Jan. 11, 2017. (Courtesy Jewish History Museum)
Tucson’s Holocaust History Center is raising the consciousness of new law enforcement officers. The “What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust” program marks a new educational partnership between the Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center and law enforcement in Arizona. The classes focus on teaching new cadets about the… Read more »
Local poet Brandon Shimoda speaks at the Holocaust History Center on Jan. 20. (Samuel Ace)
More than 100 people packed the Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum on Friday, Jan. 20 for a gallery chat, “States of Exile: Arizona’s place, and the place of Arizona, in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans,” with Tucson poet Brandon Shimoda. After acknowledging the ancestors of… Read more »
Tucson Hebrew High students Rachel Davenport
(left) and Ann Tumarkin
As part of a campaign in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, members of the Tucson Holocaust Survivors group at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, teens from Tucson Hebrew High and staff at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona joined over 200,000 people worldwide posting photos holding “We Remember” signs… Read more »
David Alexander Johnston, who plays two Holocaust survivors, takes Germany up on its offer of return, as citizens (Lucille Petty and Steve Wood) bear witness in ‘Lebensraum.’ (Tim Fuller)
Invisible Theatre will stage “Lebensraum” by award-winning playwright Israel Horovitz Feb. 7-19. The play is set at the dawn of the 21st century. The new German chancellor invites 6 million Jews from around the world to make Germany their home as a gesture of reconciliation. Three actors play more… Read more »
The Prunus amygdalus, or almond, is native to the Middle East and will grow well in Southern Arizona. (Jacqueline A. Soule)
Jews around the world have been celebrating Tu B’Shvat at this time of year every year, for about 3000 years. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar, the date varies in Western eyes, but on the 15 of the month of Shevat, this Jewish Arbor Day, also called “New Year… Read more »
Rabbi Susan Silverman Activism and family values are in Rabbi Susan Silverman’s DNA. Raised in a secular Jewish home in New Hampshire by parents committed to liberal politics, she is active on behalf of asylum seekers in Israel, advocates for liberal Judaism and is founding director of Second Nurture, which promotes adoption… Read more »
Rabbi Steven Wernick, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said the current standards don't make sense in today's world of intermarried couples actively participating in synagogue life. (Mike Diamond Photography)
(JTA) — Responding to a rising number of interfaith families, Conservative synagogues will be voting on a measure from their umbrella body that would allow congregations to admit non-Jews as members. Currently, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Standards for Congregational Practice restrict synagogue membership to Jews. But the new language, which congregations… Read more »
