Talya Simha Fanger-Vexler is learning to walk with her new prosthesis. (Courtesy Talya Simha Fanger-Vexler)
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 »
Coach Martin Reichgott, far left, with the U.S. swim team at the 13th Pan American Maccabi Games in Chile (Courtesy Martin Reichgott)
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 »
(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)
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 »
(L-R) Gabby and Avi Erbst and Jennifer Bell, Hava Tequila co-chairs along with Jeff Bell (not pictured) (Omer Kreso Photography)
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 »
Workers installing a 36-foot menorah outside the Dutch headquarters of Christians for Israel, December 2013. (Courtesy of Christians for Israel)
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 »
Donald Trump arriving at a rally at Radford University in Virginia, Feb. 29, 2016. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
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 »
Wayne Gould with his 1961 Messerschmitt KR200, made from airplane parts, at the Tucson Auto Museum (Karen Schaffner/AJP)
Some men go fishing when they retire. Some play golf. When Wayne Gould sold his steel bar manufacturing company and retired, he opened a car museum. “It started out as a man cave in a smaller building,” Gould says. “I retired and I wanted to pick up a couple… Read more »
Amelia Saltsman Amelia Saltsman, chef, teacher and author of “The Seasonal Jewish Kitchen: A Fresh Take on Tradition,” will offer a cooking demonstration and tasting at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Friday, March 11, from 2-4 p.m. Saltsman, whose first book was the “The Santa Monica Farmer’s Market Cookbook,” is… Read more »
Geza Rohrig, right, and other members of the “Son of Saul” cast in Berlin, Germany, Jan. 26, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
BERLIN (JTA) — When the Hungarian-Jewish poet Geza Rohrig agreed to play the lead role in the Oscar-nominated Holocaust drama “Son of Saul,” he knew he was taking on a daunting challenge. With very little acting experience, Rohrig, 48, agreed to portray the complex lead in a shoestring production by… Read more »
Louis and Flora Barzelay photographed in Amsterdam, May 31, 1942. (Courtesy of Stans Barzelay)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Two months before they were deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, Louis Barzelay and Flora Snatager invited a few guests to their wedding in Amsterdam. Instead of the yellow star he was legally required to wear, Louis wore a white flower on his lapel as he… Read more »
President Barack Obama signing the Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act of 2015 at an Oval Office ceremony, Feb. 24, 2016. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The controversy over whether laws protecting Israel from boycotts should include West Bank settlements found its way into a presidential signing statement last week, but President Barack Obama’s decision to ignore a trade law’s requirement to oppose boycotts of Israeli settlements likely won’t settle the argument.… Read more »
Lenny Abrahamson at The Hollywood Reporter's Nominees Night in Beverly Hills, California, Feb. 8, 2016. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter)
NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s the biggest night of the year in Hollywood, so it’s not surprising that Jews are typically well-represented among the annual list of Oscar nominations. But this year, in the absence a major Jewish-themed film, the Jewiness of this year’s Oscars is of the quieter… Read more »
Daniel Goldstein is counsel to the National Federation of the Blind. (Courtesy of Brown, Goldstein & Levy)
(JTA) — To many who know her story, Haben Girma is a hero. In 2013, this daughter of Eritrean immigrants became the first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law School. Two years later she was part of the legal team that helped score a major civil rights victory… Read more »
Muslim students at an anti-Israel protest at the University of California, Irvine in 2006. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Nearly half the states in the country are considering legislation aimed at countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. But critics say some bills are cause for concern, either because they seek to legitimize Israeli settlements or go so far in punishing boycott supporters they… Read more »
Tess Gerritsen When international best selling writer Tess Gerritsen writes a mystery, she is sometimes as surprised as her readers and the characters in her story at who did the dirty deed.… Read more »
(L-R): Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin of Chabad Tucson, Sassy Reuven, Marlyne Freedman and Oshrat Barel, director of the Weintraub Israel Center. (Yvette Critchfield)
It was perhaps the most daring hostage rescue mission ever attempted: a middle-of-the-night raid on a Ugandan airport terminal to retrieve more than 100 hostages. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Israel Defense Force’s historic raid on Entebbe, officially known as Operation Thunderbolt. On Jan. 24, veteran… Read more »
Marcie Sutland drew this illustration in 1966, highlighting the Tucson Jewish community’s annual fundraising campaign and its volunteer leaders.
It was a combination of dry desert air and the Arizona Jewish Post that brought Marcie Sutland’s family to Tucson more than 60 years ago. “When we were deciding to come out West” in the late 1940s, “I wrote to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and somehow I got… Read more »
The Falkow family in 1955, clockwise from left: Lynne, Bess, Cantor Maurice, Richard and Deena (Courtesy Congregation Anshei Israel)
During holiday musaf services at Congregation Anshei Israel, Jack, Alan and Ian Strauss ascend the bimah to recite the priestly blessing. As the son-in-law, grandson and great-grandson of the late Cantor Maurice Falkow carry on their patriarch’s legacy, they cover their heads with their prayer shawls, raise their arms… Read more »
Stuart Mellan Seventy years! My how the world has changed! While we are always trying to keep up with these changes, we remain very much rooted in our values and our mission. Underlying our Federation’s work is the adage that “community doesn’t just happen, it has to be created,” which begs… Read more »
From left, Nathan Lewin, Sima Soumekhian, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Marc Zweben at the Char Bar in Washington, D.C., the kosher restaurant owned by Soumekhian and Zweben, May 2015. (Alyza Lewin)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – “When there was no Jewish justice on the Supreme Court,” Antonin “Nino”Scalia told me, “I considered myself the Jewish justice.” After Abe Fortas resigned in May 1969, there would be no Jewish justice on the court for nearly a quarter of a century, until President… Read more »
