Tagged HEADLINES

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Foreign students planning to begin their studies in Israel this fall will be permitted to enter the country despite coronavirus restrictions that ban non-citizens. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said in a statement reported by The Jerusalem Post that “we have been making great efforts to maintain… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s education minister made it clear: Rise in coronavirus cases or not, schools in the country will open on time. “I say here to the citizens of the State of Israel, the school year will open on Sept. 1. Period,” Yoav Gallant said in an interview… Read more »

(JTA) — Seven rabbis from the Portland, Oregon, area are pushing back against the Department of Homeland Security’s covert activity against protesters in their city. Portland has been the site of protests against racial inequality and police brutality for the past 50 nights, in the wake of the death… Read more »

During the coronavirus pandemic, Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona’s Older Adult and Adult with Disability Services programs have continued to provide robust services for the community. These programs include the Trusted Advisors Project, Jewish Elder Access, and Select Care. Through the Trusted Advisors Project, JFCS provides short-term care management… Read more »

Comedy icon Carl Reiner left a message for these trying times through ‘Dispatches from Quarantine,” an online video series. His interview, conducted in May, was the last from the comic legend behind TV’s “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” who died June 29 at age 98. Presented by Reboot, a… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner posted a video late last week in response to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic screed against Jews. After describing his horror at the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Banner preached that as important as the work of Black… Read more »

Contingency plans are the order of the day as Tucson’s synagogue religious schools and Tucson Hebrew Academy look ahead to the first day of school next month. On June 29, Gov. Doug Ducey announced that the target date for Arizona schools to open with in-person instruction had been pushed back… Read more »

When Arlo Foote read the Arizona Jewish Post’s May 1 article, “Tucson Hebrew Academy makes fast switch to online learning,” it inspired the 8-year-old to wonder what other kids have been doing with their free time during the COVID-19 quarantine — and to create a Zoom club for Lego… Read more »

Gianna Lampert, a teen participant in the Tracing Roots program that brings together students from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Hebrew High and residents at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, is the 2020 winner of the Better 2 Write contest sponsored by the Legacy Heritage Better Together… Read more »

Barbara Russek

With great trepidation I headed to the Tucson International Airport on June 8. Several friends had told me they would not even set foot on a plane during the COVID-19 crisis and here I was going forward on a trip that would take me through three different airports within… Read more »

Kenneth Marcus

(JTA) — A top-ranking official at the U.S. Education Department is returning to the organization he started eight years ago to combat anti-Semitism at colleges and universities. Kenneth Marcus will become chairman of the board of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law after two years… Read more »

(JTA) — The Southern Poverty Law Center has added White House adviser Stephen Miller to its Extremist Files, a database of extremists that includes former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan. Miller, who helps design much of the administration’s immigration policy, was… Read more »

(JTA) — Jennifer Grey, the Jewish actress who starred in the original “Dirty Dancing” film, is collaborating with Lionsgate on an untitled dance movie in which she will star and executive produce, Deadline first reported Tuesday. Lionsgate holds distribution rights to the original “Dirty Dancing” films, which include the 2004… Read more »

(JTA) — Synagogues in California have been shut down again following statewide restrictions announced by the governor with cases of the coronavirus there continuing to rise. The order issued Monday closes all indoor dining, bars, zoos and museums throughout the state, as well as gyms, houses of worship, hair… Read more »

(JTA) — Two Reform synagogues in Sarasota, Florida, were vandalized with swastikas and other unspecified hateful messages. The incidents at Temple Sinai and Temple Emanu-El reportedly took place early on Wednesday morning, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. The Temple Sinai campus was extensively vandalized, including many walls made of porous… Read more »

The Arizona Department of Revenue reminds taxpayers that tax scam artists do not take a summer break when it comes to identity theft. Thieves use tactics including card-skimming devices, access through unsecured Wi-Fi, stealing mail, hacking email accounts, phishing schemes or using false pretenses. ADOR has prepared a checklist… Read more »

(JTA) — Actor and television host Nick Cannon offered his “most deepest and sincere apologies” to the Jewish community for  the “hurtful and divisive words” he used in an episode of his podcast. “They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of… Read more »

(JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has returned home after being hospitalized with a suspected infection. Ginsburg, 87, is “is home and doing well,” a court spokeswoman said on Wednesday, CNN reported. Ginsburg was hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday after “experiencing fever and… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims who travel each year to Ukraine for a Rosh Hashanah rite will have to make different plans for September. The Ukrainian government has barred the trip to Uman, where the revelers mark the Jewish New Year at the burial… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Police arrested a man suspected of turning the water blood red in a fountain in a square in Israel named for Donald Trump. The Hebrew words for “Annexation will cost us in blood” also were found painted in red on the ground at the site in… Read more »