Donald Trump at a rally at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 3, 2016. (Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Rebecca Raab was shopping recently in a South Florida Costco, wearing the trademark Orthodox outfit of a long skirt and baseball cap, when an employee waved to her and said “Shalom! We’re voting for Trump because we can’t have Hillary in the White House. She’s… Read more »
Pepe the Frog, an internet meme, has become a symbol of the alt-right. (Twitter/Lior Zaltzman)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Can you go alt–right without going anti-Semitic? The movement that has emerged from conservatism — and in some ways has turned against it — appears to be nudging its way into the American mainstream as it attaches itself to the success of Donald Trump, the… Read more »
Relatives of Holocaust victims walk the memorial march in the Lithuanian town of Molėtai (Malat) , Aug, 29, 2016. (Malat Memorial Foundation)
When Israeli soccer agent Tzvi Kritzer decided to build a monument in the Lithuanian town of Molėtai (Malat in Yiddish), where most of his family was murdered during the Holocaust, and to bring the relatives of the victims to the town for a memorial march, he was told to… Read more »
The Turkish government ship Lady Leyla in Mersin before being sent to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza following the completion of the reconciliation deal between Turkey and Israel, July 1, 2016. (Sezgin Pancar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel and Turkey ought to be friends, geopolitically speaking. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put it in January: “Israel needs a country like Turkey in this region. We, too, should admit that we need a country like Israel.” But the regional powers often can’t seem to make… Read more »
Carlos Galindo-Elvira
Carlos Galindo-Elvira, the Anti- Defamation League’s new Arizona regional director, wants Tucson Jewish community leaders to know the ADL is there for them, “whether it’s a 411 call, to get information or resources, or a 911 call” in a situation where the ADL can play a role. Galindo-Elvira is… Read more »
Rachel Levy, left, and her mother, Nanci Levy (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)
Rachel Levy spent her childhood struggling with ulcerative colitis, but she didn’t give in to self-pity. While learning how to manage the symptoms of the disease, she reached out to help others, earning the title of “Hero” from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. “My dream is to… Read more »
Alexander Sandweiss Understanding how to provide narcotics for pain management, while avoiding potential addiction to opiates, can be difficult for physicians and patients alike. Chronic pain affects more than 100 million Americans and opioids such as morphine have been the mainstay therapy for many years. Yet growing evidence suggests that prescription… Read more »
(L-R): Tucsonans Bobby Present, Fran Katz and Deborah Oseran in Paris on the Jewish Federations of North America Campaign and Directors Mission in July.
This July, as incoming 2017 Campaign chair for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, I had the opportunity, with my husband, Bobby Present, and Fran Katz, JFSA senior vice president, to participate in a Jewish Federations of North America Campaign and Directors Mission to France and Israel. The emotional… Read more »
Paige Hector “What would happen to me if I had a severe stroke and couldn’t communicate?” “What would happen if my spouse gets dementia and stops eating?” People sometimes choose to ignore these kind of tough issues rather than talk about them. To help change that, Jewish Family & Children’s Services… Read more »
James Gutierrez, “Pieces,” 2016
The Fine Art Gallery at the Tucson Jewish Community Center will present selected artworks from the most recent Mapping Q project through Sept. 29. Mapping Q is a community arts education program where LGBTQ+ youth explore representations of self within art, museums and the wider community. The program originated… Read more »
Children peer out from a doorway as armed soldiers patrol outside their school in the Jewish quarter of the Marais district in Paris, France, Jan. 13, 2015. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
PARIS (JTA) — Twenty-five years after he graduated from a public high school in the French capital, Stephane Tayar recalls favorably his time in one of the world’s most thorough education systems. As for many other French Jews his age, the state-subsidized upbringing has worked out well for Tayar,… Read more »
Immigrants take their oath of U.S. citizenship at the Federal Building in Newark, N.J., Nov. 20, 2014. (John Moore/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — How extreme does vetting need to be to keep anti-Semites from entering the United States, and is Donald Trump’s plan worth the effort? The Republican nominee’s proposal to apply an ideological test to potential immigrants is based on precedent: The United States in the last century instituted… Read more »
The famously agitated Jewish comedian Lewis Black is returning to Broadway. (Clay McBride)
(JTA) — Remember Pixar’s 2015 film “Inside Out?” It was about an 11-year-old girl, Riley, and the five primary emotions raging inside her: Joy and Sadness, Fear and Disgust. And Lewis Black. Sorry. We meant there was Anger. It’s an easy mistake to make. From railing against AT&T (“it’s a… Read more »
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, right, at the Republican Jewish Coalition spring leadership meeting in Las Vegas, April 25, 2015. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
(JTA) — With the presidential race heating up, a number of progressive Jewish commentators have portrayed the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, as a conservative extremist opposed to Jewish beliefs and values. As officers of the only statewide, grassroots Jewish and Israel advocacy organization in Indiana —… Read more »
Then-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, left, speaks with Rabbi Jack Moline and Moline's son Max at the Virginia Statehouse. (Courtesy of Jack Moline)
(JTA) — American Jewish voters have naturally voted for Democratic candidates because it has meant voting to support strong social justice and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. Hillary Clinton and her vice presidential choice, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, will continue Democratic action on economic and educational opportunities, retirement security… Read more »
Florida State Sen. Dwight Bullard, wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh, or headscarf, at the Democratic National Convention, July 2016. (Ben Sales)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Pro-Israel activists in the Miami area plan to protest a Florida state senator active in the Black Lives Matter movement who visited the West Bank as the guest of a group that backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Organizers of the protest against Dwight Bullard said… Read more »
The cover of a new Russian translation of the Talmud (Courtesy of Knizhniki publishing house)
(JTA) — A century ago, passages from the Talmud were translated into Russian to be used as evidence in the anti-Semitic show trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis, a Jew charged with — and eventually acquitted of – murdering a Christian boy. The prosecution in that 1915 trial, which was decried… Read more »
Blake Yospa and Rachel Leeds in Annapolis, Md. (Courtesy of Blake Yospa and Rachel Leeds)
(JTA) — In the two-part finale of the third season of “Broad City,” the show’s main characters, Abbi and Ilana, embark on a “Birthmark” trip — a thinly veiled allusion to the famed Birthright Israel trip that sends Jews aged 18 to 26 on free 10-day trips to… Read more »
Daniel Radcliffe in a scene from "Imperium." (Lionsgate Premiere)
(JTA) — In his new film, “Imperium,” Daniel Radcliffe plays FBI agent Nate Foster, who goes undercover to take down skinheads planning to set off a dirty bomb. The film, which opens Friday, is taut and exciting. It is also a movie the former “Harry Potter” star doesn’t want his… Read more »
New York City Mayor David Dinkins, fourth from right, looks on while a Hasidic Jew and a black man argue during riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991. (Anthony Pescatore/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Much has changed in Crown Heights in the past 25 years, since the accidental death of a black boy touched off three days of rioting in which black youths attacked religious Jews in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Many called it a riot. Some Jews call the events of… Read more »
