We are coming up on the traditional time for celebrating the giving of the Ten Dibrot or utterances (usually translated as commandments). Naturally, much has been written about these instructions, utterances, mitzvot (many names because they are not well understood at all) as we struggle to pattern our lives… Read more »
Tagged HEADLINES
Tucson artist discovering Jewish heritage
Edna Feldman San Miguel is a sixth generation Tucsonan who has spent more than two decades discovering her Jewish ancestry. In February, the artist and illustrator led a tour for visiting Israeli artists of the San Xavier Mission, where she’d worked as a conservationist, which was followed later that… Read more »
Lugar’s defeat raises specter of more partisanship on foreign policy
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Richard Lugar was never considered to be one of Israel’s leading advocates on Capitol Hill. The veteran Republican senator from Indiana, who suffered a primary defeat last week after 35 years in office, is famously his own man. Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations… Read more »
Israeli pastry chef makes it big as ‘Sweet Genius’
TEANECK, N.J. (JTA) — As the minutes on the clock tick away, the chefs run about their kitchens furiously trying to complete their Taj Mahal-themed desserts. “What have I got for you now?” booms the thickly accented master pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel as he overlooks the chefs’ workstations. “Another… Read more »
Amid security concerns in Tunisia, a smaller Hiloula celebration
DJERBA, Tunisia (JTA) — Two thousand years ago, a mysterious woman who was unable to talk arrived on this island. Every sick person she touched was healed. Although she died when her wooden house caught fire, her body remained intact and did not burn. That’s a local legend. Another… Read more »
With a side of wry, a ‘schmucky’ deli truck rolls into L.A.
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It’s not a dinner for schmucks but a lunch served by one. That may sound harsh, but how else to introduce a new food truck rolling on the streets of Los Angeles called “Schmuck with a Truck”? On only his eighth day of business, the… Read more »
For new Israeli coalition, haredi army exemptions issue is front and center
(JTA) – Israel’s new unity government may not alter Jerusalem’s strategy for curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons program or do much to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It could, however, dramatically change something at home about which a huge number of Israelis care deeply: haredi Orthodox exemptions from military service.… Read more »
Jewish flavor seasoned Sendak’s works, entertaining children and adults
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — A few months after my first child was born, I went to a bookstore to buy a few books that I thought needed to be on the bookshelf of my new baby’s nursery. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” was one of those… Read more »
For Jewish transsexual, no easy path to being a daughter
If your mother has never seen your face — if you have never had a face to be seen — if, in a sense, you have never been born — do you have a mother? If your mother has always called you “son,” can you ever really become her… Read more »
South Sudan is a Jewish cause
Anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Islamic world is a major problem, but we shouldn’t allow the fixations of enemies to divert us from the reality that we do have friends — and that we owe these friends our support when they fall upon dark times. The great Jewish… Read more »
Title VI should be used on true hatemongers, not political opponents
In the eyes of the Zionist Organization of America, the most depraved enemies of the Jewish people are obnoxious college campus loudmouths. As the editor of New Voices, a national magazine by and for Jewish college students, I have a different perspective. The ZOA led the campaign to have… Read more »
Rabbi, Secular Humanists to explore Torah
The Secular Humanist Jewish Circle will sponsor a lecture, “Torah as Mythology,” by Rabbi Miri Fleming, Ph.D., on Saturday, May 19, from 2-4:30 p.m. at the Dusenberry-River Library, 5605 E. River Road (at Craycroft). Fleming will address the question of what the Torah, or five books of Moses, is… Read more »
Are Netanyahu and Barak bluffing on Iran, or are they already committed to war?
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Has Israel’s game of chicken with Iran jumped the shark? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in recent months have been more explicit than ever about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran to keep it from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.… Read more »
What’s in a word? For ‘ordained’ rather than ‘invested’ cantors, a lot
(JTA) — What’s the difference between investiture and ordination? Plenty, say officials at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which has announced that for the first time since establishing its cantorial school in 1948, it will ordain rather than invest its graduating class of cantors. Six… Read more »
Israel 64 Festival invites Tucsonans to ‘Celebrate Jerusalem’
The Weintraub Israel Center will be taking the Israel 64 Festival to the next level, literally and figuratively. Guy Gelbart, Israel Center director and community shaliach (emissary from Israel), explains that this year’s festival, which will be held May 6 from 1 to 6 p.m., will use both floors… Read more »
Increasing number of Israeli entrepreneurs focusing on social justice
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Capitalism in pursuit of social justice. The notion is becoming more common in Israel as a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators in the fields of high-tech, industry and real estate is delving into philanthropy. “The culture of venture capital and the startup nation also… Read more »
‘America’s rabbi’ seeks congressional seat
(NJ Jewish News) — Known by some as “America’s rabbi,” he is a Lubavitcher rabbi, a television host, frequent talk-show guest, and the author of 27 books — among them such provocative titles as “Kosher Sex” and “Kosher Jesus.” As of March 12, Englewood, N.J., resident Shmuley Boteach can… Read more »
In debate over nuclear Iran, lessons of Auschwitz remain relevant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the Holocaust in his March 5 speech at AIPAC for the same reason that President Shimon Peres referred to it in his speech the day before and President Obama alluded to it in his news conference the day after: Because in the… Read more »
Seeing the world through Auschwitz lens amounts to Jewish PTSD
When I learned of the murder of dozens of members of my family in the Holocaust and then met my Israeli relatives whose Auschwitz numbers could hardly be missed on their arms, I decided to dedicate my life to challenging war, the denial of human rights, the hatred of… Read more »
Polish Jews fight to survive harrowing ‘Darkness’
In the last few decades, German and French filmmakers — reflecting and, in some cases, bravely advancing national attitudes — have examined the Holocaust with both blunt candidness and shades-of-gray maturity. Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s profoundly responsible and beautifully made “In Darkness” represents a rare cinematic attempt to address… Read more »