Tagged FRONTTOP

Jewish Federation, Foundation help address mounting problem of food insecurity in Southern Arizona

Community Food Bank team members provide food supplies in the drive-up emergency food distribution operation that runs Tuesdays and Thursdays at Kino Sports Complex. (Photo courtesy Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona)
November 12, 2020 / Jon Kasle, Special to the AJP

It has been a long time since the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson has hosted more than a thousand cars on a regular basis. Yet that has been the scene many Tuesday and Thursday mornings in recent months as vehicles of all types, their occupants representing the diversity of… Read more »

JFSA bringing community together to honor Nancy and Stu Mellan and kick off annual campaign

Nancy and Stuart Mellan (Photo courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
November 9, 2020 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold a drive-in event, “Celebrating Our Past — Creating Our Future,” on Tuesday, Nov. 17 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. to celebrate community, launch the 2021 annual campaign, and honor recently retired president and CEO Stuart Mellan and his wife, Nancy. “Twenty-five years ago,… Read more »

How an annual religious pilgrimage created a year-round Jewish community in Uman, Ukraine

Jews pray on a street near the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine, Sept. 20, 2006. (Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)
September 7, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Before deciding to stay permanently, Chaim Chazin would visit the small city of Uman, Ukraine, every year around Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. For Chazin, a religiously observant music producer from Israel, the brief annual visits were energizing spiritual experiences away from money troubles back home.… Read more »

Zach Banner wants to team up to fight hate. He’s also looking forward to lots of Shabbat dinners (after COVID-19).

Zach Banner after a game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa, Fla., Sept. 24, 2018. (Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
July 16, 2020 / Toby Tabachnick

(Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — Just two days after Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson posted an anti-Semitic message he attributed to Adolf Hitler on social media, Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner came to the defense of the Jewish community. In a series of tweets and videos,… Read more »

For this Black Jewish leader, George Floyd protest movement shows some Americans finally get it

As senior vice president at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Gamal Palmer is in charge of professional development for the federation’s staff and does leadership development for its board. (Courtesy of Gamal Palmer)
June 25, 2020 / Alix Wall, JTA

Gamal Palmer has spent virtually his entire professional career working to advance racial diversity, equity and justice. As a Jew of color in charge of leadership and professional development at the Los Angeles Jewish federation, he’s spent years running diversity workshops and pushing for conversations about race within the… Read more »

Some believe ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ was staged somewhere in the world every day since the ’60s. COVID-19 ended that.

Zero Mostel and Maria Karnilova, center, in "Fiddler On The Roof" on Broadway in 1964, the year it debuted. (Stage Production/Getty Images)
June 16, 2020 / Stephen Silver, JTA

(JTA) — The coronavirus pandemic has done something that no war, natural disaster or other calamity has been able to do for more than 50 years: It’s put a stop to stage performances of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The current North American tour of “Fiddler” was halted on March… Read more »

In a dramatic shift, AIPAC gives lawmakers a green light to criticize Israel over annexation

People gather to stage a demonstration to protest against the annexation plan of the Jordan Valley, located in the occupied West Bank and illegal Jewish settlements in West Bank, Tel Aviv, Israel on June 6, 2020. (Nir Keidar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
June 10, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The leading pro-Israel lobby in the United States is telling lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israel’s looming annexation plans — just as long as the criticism stops there. Two sources — a congressional aide and a donor — say the American Israel Public Affairs… Read more »

Portugal’s ruling party wants to limit Jewish law of return policy

Two Israeli women arrive in Lisbon, Portugal, Feb. 15, 2020. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
May 14, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Portugal’s ruling Socialist Party says it wants to stop giving citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews, partly because the application process has turned into a business venture. The announcement came in a draft amendment submitted Monday by the party to a 2015 law that ensured the naturalization… Read more »

Tucsonan Lindsey Baker tapped as first COO for JFSA, JCF

Lindsey Baker
April 17, 2020 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Lindsey Baker returns to her hometown on May 1 to accept the inaugural chief operating officer position for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation. “Creating a sustainable, single-chief executive model is what we have been working toward,” says Graham Hoffman, JCF president and CEO,… Read more »

The upside to celebrating in isolation: This might be the holiest Passover ever

A mezuzah is seen in the doorway of a Jewish home during the celebration of Passover (Mikhail Tereshchenko / TASS via Getty Images)
April 14, 2020 / Elad Nehorai, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Sitting at my Seder table with my two eldest daughters and my wife, I was struggling to find something to say that would provide meaning to this moment. Here we were: alone, beginning a Passover unlike any other we had ever experienced and, please God, will… Read more »

An unwanted symptom of the coronavirus crisis in France: Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories

Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, left, and Alain Soral arrive at the Paris courthouse for Soral's trial for inciting hatred against Jews, March 12, 2015. (Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images)
April 2, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Anti-Semitism has plagued French society for centuries, flaring up in times of crisis — especially during epidemics. In the 14th century, for instance, Jews were massacred in France during the Black Death epidemic after they were blamed for spreading the disease by poisoning water wells. In the… Read more »

‘I’m mentally preparing for a few months’: Meet an Israeli doctor on the coronavirus front lines

Dr. Elli Rosenberg, right, with colleagues in the coronavirus unit of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, Israel. (Courtesy of Rosenberg)
March 19, 2020 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

(JTA) — When it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would reach Israel, Elli Rosenberg was one of a small number of medical professionals at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva to answer a call for volunteers to treat the sick. Rosenberg, a clinical immunologist who works as an… Read more »

I’m a veteran expert in stopping epidemics. Here’s why Jewish institutions should cancel everything.

Keeping the synagogue pews empty temporarily is seen as one way to stop the spread of COVID-19. (Getty Images)
March 13, 2020 / Gary Slutkin, JTA

CHICAGO (JTA) — I am an infectious disease epidemiologist who worked at the World Health Organization on epidemics in over 25 countries around the world. As a physician and member of the Jewish community, I prize the Jewish teaching that places the saving of a life above all other laws and… Read more »

A 4th-generation Vermont Orthodox Jew is starting the state’s first Jewish day school

Kids in the Chabad-run preschool in Burlington, Vermont, play in the yard. (Courtesy of Draizy Junik)
March 3, 2020 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Draizy Junik is well acquainted with the challenges of living a Jewish life in Vermont, a state that while home to a well-known Jewish Democratic presidential candidate has a total Jewish population of about 20,000 people. As a kid, Junik was homeschooled until the age of 13… Read more »

2 months after deadly shooting, Jersey City’s kosher supermarket is starting to reopen

Some of JC Kosher's shelves are fully stocked with staples in its new location two blocks from the original store. (Ben Sales)
February 27, 2020 / Ben Sales, JTA

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (JTA) — Two months after his wife was murdered in the attack on this city’s only kosher grocery store, owner Moshe Ferencz was back behind the counter this week. The store, which has partially reopened in a new location, still doesn’t have regular hours. But the reopening… Read more »

New York City’s latest tactic to combat anti-Semitism: An ad campaign featuring diverse Jewish New Yorkers

Marquis Hollie hopes the campaign can increase awareness of diversity in the community and bring Jews together. (NYC Commission on Human Rights)
February 19, 2020 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — New York City is hoping that a new ad campaign will make Jewish New Yorkers feel comfortable despite a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks. The campaign, launched Wednesday by the city’s Commission on Human Rights, consists of four ads each featuring a photograph of a… Read more »

The key points of the Trump Middle East peace plan, explained

President Donald Trump talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu near the Oval Office of the White House, Jan 27, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
January 29, 2020 / Gabe Friedman, JTA

(JTA) — President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday, and the release event was a doozy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Trump at a news conference and compared it to President Harry Truman’s recognition of the State of Israel in 1948. Netanyahu also… Read more »

Israel’s Olympic baseball team preps for Tokyo and looks to expand the sport

Team Israel players Danny Valencia, left, and Jeremy Bleich with students at the Hand in Hand Galilee School in Eshbal, Israel, Jan. 16, 2020. (Hillel Kutler)
January 27, 2020 / Hillel Kuttler, JTA

MISGAV, Israel (JTA) – As more than 20 men wearing blue-and-white baseball uniforms walked along Tel Aviv’s bustling Allenby Street on a recent Tuesday, a motorcyclist called out in Hebrew and English. “Good luck! We’re behind you!” the man shouted to the group, members of the baseball team that… Read more »