Andrew Pochter, the Jewish-American student of Chevy Chase, Md., who was stabbed to death during a protest in Egypt on June 28, 2013. (Facebook)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Andrew Pochter, the American student stabbed to death Friday during a protest in Egypt, was active in Hillel and motivated by a desire to encourage peace and democracy in the region. “He went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East, and he… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A slight bump up on affirmative action, a plunge on voting rights, and on gay marriage, the mountaintop: federal legitimacy. It’s been a week of roller-coaster highs and lows at the Supreme Court for liberal Jewish groups. Their collective pledge: Stick it out. “These are critical… Read more »
Margot and Gunther Marx Over the past 18 years in Tucson, Gunther Marx and his wife, Margot, have racked up more than 10,000 volunteer hours with organizations ranging from Tucson Medical Center to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to Project Linus. The Marxes began spending winters in Tucson in 1995 and moved here full-time… Read more »
Michaela Davenport at the Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. (Courtesy Michaela Davenport) Walking through the famous gate “arbeit macht frei” at Auschwitz, I felt sick to my stomach. I’d seen that gate, with its infamous Nazi inscription, “work makes you free,” in history textbooks, photos and movies, but seeing it… Read more »
Isaac Lobel NEW YORK (JTA) — For my Bar Mitzvah, my parents got me a laptop. For what I searched for on it, they got me a shrink. CyberSitter informed my computer-savvy parents that their son was searching gay porn. On the ride to my first therapy session, I stuck my… Read more »
Yeshivat Maharat graduates at their ordination ceremony at Ramaz High School in New York City, June 16, 2013 (Joe Winkler) NEW YORK (JTA) — More than three years ago, following a broad Orthodox backlash to his decision to ordain a woman with the title “rabba,” Rabbi Avi Weiss made a promise: He wouldn’t do it again. So when Yeshivat Maharat, the school founded in 2009 by the New York… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The June 12 Iranian presidential election was fraught with fraud and fear — candidates vetted for their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards, the press muzzled by the imprisonment of independent journalists, and the leaders of Iranian civil society in detention. The absence… Read more »
Marc Fichel at his tall at the Rungis wholesale market in Paris, May 29, 2013. (Cnaan Liphshiz) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} PARIS (JTA) — Using two iPhones, Marc Fischel was overseeing… Read more »
HIAS-assisted refugees in Chad (HIAS) (New York, NY – June 20, 2013) – HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, today launched The Welcome Initiative, a campaign to raise awareness around issues surrounding the treatment and welcome of refugees. Central to the campaign is the Affirmation of Welcome, a call to action to… Read more »
Left to right, Geulah Elementary School classmates Avraham Siton, Ora Bogomolny and Mashiach Moshe Shem-Tov meet for lunch in Florida months before their 60th reunion in Israel. Siton would die two days before the June 12 reunion.(Courtesy Ora Bogomolny) The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Ora Bogomolny sounded subdued, as if the phone call to her Israel apartment had disturbed her sleep. Indeed, she had experienced a nightmare just hours before receiving the call from “Seeking Kin” on June… Read more »
Nathan Shapiro in his apartment at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, with a promotional flyer and photograph from his days as a boy cantor in New York. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) Nathan Shapiro, 95, served in World War II, was married for 61 years and still drives his own car. “I’m a very lucky guy in many respects,” was the first thing he told the AJP in his apartment at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging. “If I have years,… Read more »
In a new initiative for 2013-14, Congregation Anshei Israel will offer free tuition and waive the registration fee for its religious school kindergarten. The offer is available to synagogue members and nonmembers alike. Classes will be taught by Renee Hulsey, who was recently named “Outstanding Judaic Educator” by the… Read more »
The Idan Raichel Project, known for its fusion of diverse musical styles and ethnicities, will perform at the Fox Tucson Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m., in a concert cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. The group, which rocketed to fame in Israel with its… Read more »
The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona recently announced $179,517 in 21 grants to nonprofit organizations in Tucson and Israel. JCF manages 460 individual donor-advised funds, endowments, supporting foundations and agency custodial funds that enable donors to fulfill their own philanthropic visions, but the 2013 competitive grants are the… Read more »
The Steven A. Lightman Family Foundation has opened its 2013 call for grants. The Lightman Family Foundation distributes funds to further the Jewish Community Foundation’s charitable activities that promote health and wellness, on a local and national level, and foster creative and artistic endeavors. The areas of interest include,… Read more »
Miriam “Mimi” Furst, age 4, with her father, Irving Boruchow Crack! Boom! The sound of big fat pebbles pounding the roof and rattling windows. Maybe it’s the Nazis coming to get us! That afternoon my brother Stan and I saw a war movie at a theatre near our home in the Bronx, N.Y. We watched as mighty John Wayne,… Read more »
The nomination of Samantha Power for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has drawn the Jewish community’s attention to her controversial 2002 remark about hypothetical U.S. action against Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide. But Power’s confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate is also likely to address a broader… Read more »
NEW YORK (Corriere della Sera Online) — His Wikipedia page remembers him, in at least 10 languages, as “the Italian police commissioner who saved thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War and for this was deported to the Dachau Concentration Camp,… Read more »
Dr. Cyril Karabus with his wife, Jennifer, three days after returning home to South Africa from nine months of detention in the United Arab Emirates, May 2013. (Moira Schneider) CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) — Cyril Karabus stepped into the arrivals hall at Cape Town International Airport to a rapturous welcome. A multiracial crowd numbering in the hundreds had turned out to greet him. A minstrel troupe was singing “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.” And a rabbi stepped forward to… Read more »
Guy Gelbart It is time to say shalom, the Hebrew word for hello, goodbye and peace. We came in peace, we go in peace. How does one summarize three years? Do you list all the events you created or took part in? Do you make a list of achievements? What was… Read more »
