Tagged FRONT

First WIC Israel trip sparks new insights, spiritual connections

Weintraub Israel Center trip participants at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Kneeling (L-R): Jane Rodda, Fernanda Quintanilla, Oshrat Barel, Steve Weintraub, Jeff Artzi (standing, wth wreath) and Nicky Anspach. Standing, first row: Carlos Hernandez, Nora Navarro-Hernandez, Deborah Yoklic, James Whitehill, Sally Trattner, Iris Posin, Conrad Plimpton, Stephen Caine, Barbara Yamada, Linda Behr, Stan Behr, Marcia Wiener, Irene Watkins, Linda Horowitz, Martin Horowitz, Phyllis Mack, Ray Carroll and Muki Jankelowitz (guide). Second row: Carol Weinstein, Judith Brown, Richard Fertal, Ken Miller, Karen Paulsen-Balch, Marisa Balch and Riann Balch. Third row: Morris Riback, Paula Riback, Rebecca Crow, Rick Edwards, Neal Savage, Marilyn Medwied, Heather Caine, Myles Beck and Richard Spears. Not pictured: John Crow, Sherry Hoffman-Blum, Tracy Salkowitz, John Winchester and Denise Wolf. (Courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)
March 17, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, AJP Intern

When Tucsonan Nora Navarro-Hernandez, who is not Jewish, visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem for the first time, she had a real awakening. She was there for Shabbat. “I thought it was going to be quiet and really solemn,” she says. “I didn’t think there was going to be… Read more »

Revisiting Ethiopian aliyah after 30 years through photos and film
March 16, 2016 / Debra Kamin, JTA
Shay Yossef and his wife, Efrat, with their children at their West Bank home in Har Bracha. (Beit Hatfutsot)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Orli Malassa doesn’t remember ever feeling anything but Israeli. To her parents, who came to Israel from Ethiopia in 1983 when she was 5 years old, Malassa’s accent-free Hebrew, fluent use of Israeli slang and effortless assimilation into the Jewish state has felt nothing short… Read more »

With Trump’s latest wins, will Jewish conservatives finally embrace him?

Donald Trump speaking at a primary night news conference in Palm Beach, Fla., March 15, 2016. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
March 16, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

  By WASHINGTON (JTA) — Has Donald Trump’s time come, and will Jewish political conservatives embrace him? Trump, the real estate magnate and front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, rolled closer to victory on Tuesday with wins in at least three primary states. His strong showing, earning 161 delegates or more depending on… Read more »

In real-life Anatevka, Ukraine’s Jewish refugees build a community

Rabbi Moshe Azman, founder of the Anatevka community near Kiev, Feb. 29, 2016. (R. Litevsky/Courtesy of the Office of Rabbi Moshe Azman)
March 15, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

ANATEVKA, Ukraine (JTA) — At the age of 53, Sergey and Elena Yarelchenko fled their native city of Lugansk with three suitcases and moved into a wooden room in a muddy refugee camp outside Kiev. Like hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine’s war-torn east, life for this Jewish… Read more »

Israel emerges as campaign issue ahead of voting in 3 big Jewish states

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio speaking at a news conference at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Fla., March 11, 2016. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
March 15, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Israel has prominently emerged as a presidential campaign issue ahead of critical primary contests in five states on Tuesday, three of which – Ohio, Illinois and Florida – have substantial Jewish communities. Israel was the subject of a heated exchange in the Republican debate last… Read more »

Should we get hammered on Purim — and Election Day?

Groggers and beer, two important elements of a Purim celebration (Edmon J. Rodman)
March 13, 2016 / Edmon J. Rodman, JTA

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Purim parties are just around the corner — as is the presidential election. This got me thinking: What does the holiday’s operative phrase, “ad lo yada,” “until one no longer knows,” really mean? Traditionally, this rabbinic license to party, derived from the Talmud, has been taken… Read more »

The Jewish translator behind Elena Ferrante — and Primo Levi
March 13, 2016 / Erica Brody
Editor and translator Ann Goldstein seated in the Conde Nast cafeteria at One World Trade Center in New York City. (Erica Brody)

NEW YORK (JTA) — It was back in the fall, at an event at BookCourt in Brooklyn, when translator Ann Goldstein was first asked for her autograph by an eager reader. Goldstein was caught by surprise. After all, this was before her work appeared on The New York Times list of “100 Notable… Read more »

These may be America’s proudest Shabbos goys

Samir Patel, left, with an associate and his father, right, says he gets about five requests each Saturday to act as a Shabbos goy for Orthodox Jews. (Uriel Heilman)
March 13, 2016 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – For Samir Patel, the term “goy” is no slur. It’s a point of pride. Patel is a manager of Suhag Wine & Liquors, a family-owned business in the heavily Orthodox neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills, in Queens. He’s a Hindu immigrant from India, but the vast majority… Read more »

Non-Jewish activists link arms with Hungarian Jews in ‘symbols war’

Protesters at a 2014 rally in Budapest against the Hungarian government's planned statue that was seen as minimizing Hungarian complicity during the Holocaust. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
March 11, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) – Hungarian officials likely anticipated some Jewish opposition to their decision to erect a monument in Budapest to a Holocaust-era lawmaker who promoted anti-Semitic legislation. What they probably didn’t expect was that the Feb. 24 unveiling of a bust honoring Gyorgy Donath would attract a protest of mostly… Read more »

Pew: 48 percent of Israeli Jews want Arabs out of country

Palestinian women pass an Israeli police checkpoint in Jerusalem, Oct. 8, 2015. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
March 9, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Nearly half of Jewish-Israelis want to expel Arabs from the country. That’s one of several findings from a new survey of Israeli attitudes on religion, politics and Jewish identity conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center. Coming just three years after Pew‘s much-discussed study of… Read more »

Biden, Netanyahu condemn Abbas for silence over terror attacks

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, March 9, 2016. (Hillel Maeir/TPS)
March 9, 2016 / Alexander J. Apfel, TPS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a much-anticipated press conference with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday afternoon, March 9, in which the two criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his failure to denounce the wave of terror. Following Netanyahu’s statement, Biden stated his disapproval of Abbas’ failure… Read more »

In Flint crisis, Jews pitching in with corned beef, Dr. Brown’s — and water

Volunteers loading cases of free water into waiting vehicles at a water distribution center in Flint, Mich., March 5, 2016. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)
March 9, 2016 / David Stanley, JTA

FLINT, Mich. (JTA) – At 86, Jeanne Aaronson is blind and lives alone, but she has seen a lot over the years. She lived in Flint when it was a manufacturing powerhouse, a center of the automotive business and a symbol of American industrial might and ingenuity. She lived… Read more »

Through bravery and hardship: losing a leg, gaining a new home in Tucson

Talya Simha Fanger-Vexler is learning to walk with her new prosthesis. (Courtesy Talya Simha Fanger-Vexler)
March 3, 2016 / Talya Simha Fanger-Vexler, Special to the AJP

My whole body trembled as I tried to fight back the tears that were streaming down my face. “Wait!” I screamed. “One more, just one more photo … please?” I said meekly as I tried my best to swallow through a dry and swollen throat. The pre-op nurses nodded… Read more »

Diversity, unity inspire Tucson coach at Pan American Maccabi Games

Coach Martin Reichgott, far left, with the U.S. swim team at the 13th Pan American Maccabi Games in Chile (Courtesy Martin Reichgott)
March 3, 2016 /

While the Tucson Jewish Community Center continues to build momentum and rosters for this summer’s Maccabi Games for Jewish teen athletes in Columbus, Ohio, another member of the community was able to experience Maccabi on an international scale. Martin Reichgott spent Dec. 26-Jan.5 in Santiago, Chile, as a coach… Read more »

‘Thirteeners’ celebrate, commemorate b’nai mitzvah

(L-R): Congregation Chaverim cantorial soloist Diana Povolotskaya, Cynthia Busby, Ellie Maas, Bill Kugelman, Barbara Holtzman, Michael Lex and Rabbi Stephanie Aaron. The first and second time b’nai mitzvah celebrants, dubbed ‘Thirteeners,’ range in age from Maas, 26, to Kugelman, 91. (Michael Miklofsky)
March 3, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, AJP Intern

When Mike Lex turned 13 he did not celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah. He grew up in a remote part of Wyoming, a place where he says as a Jew he was in a tiny minority and because his parents did not practice, his 13th birthday came and went.… Read more »

Young leaders party in style

(L-R) Gabby and Avi Erbst and Jennifer Bell, Hava Tequila co-chairs along with Jeff Bell (not pictured) (Omer Kreso Photography)
March 3, 2016 /

About 125 people turned out on Saturday, Feb. 20, for Party Royale, the fifth annual Hava Tequila event hosted by Young Leadership of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. The James Bond-themed event, held at Playground Bar and Lounge, raised $6,000 for the Ethiopian National Project in Tucson’s partnership… Read more »

In face of labeling push, Dutch Christians hawking Israeli settlement goods

Workers installing a 36-foot menorah outside the Dutch headquarters of Christians for Israel, December 2013. (Courtesy of Christians for Israel)
March 3, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

NIJKERK, Netherlands (JTA) — As a boy, Pieter van Oordt would often accompany his father, Karel, on the elder van Oordt’s weekly shopping excursions specifically seeking out products made in Israel. A Christian Zionist businessman in Amersfoort, some 25 miles east of Amsterdam, Karel van Oordt sought to strengthen… Read more »

Prospect of Trump nomination poses dilemma for Jewish Republicans

Donald Trump arriving at a rally at Radford University in Virginia, Feb. 29, 2016. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
March 3, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Many Jewish Republicans look increasingly likely to face a dilemma in November unimaginable just a year ago: loyalty to party or community. Donald Trump’s surging candidacy has sent shivers through the ranks of the Republican elite and created deep anxiety among Jewish Republicans, some of whom… Read more »

Skip to content