All are invited to be a part of Southern Arizona’s annual Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemoration on Sunday, April 12, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. This year’s event, titled ”The Legacy We Leave Behind,” will be held in the Paul and Alice Baker Ballroom at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The commemoration is… Read more »
A volunteer packs groceries at the Met Council's warehouse in Brooklyn. Volunteers there assemble more than 1,200 packages of groceries for Holocaust survivors each week. (Courtesy of Met Council)
(JTA) – Since retiring from his post as national director of the Anti-Defamation League in 2015, Abraham Foxman has had plenty of opportunities to take on other projects in the Jewish world. Until now, he’s always said no. But now the 80-year-old is coming out of retirement with an… Read more »
A driver from the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona senior transportation program prepares to deliver packages from Jewish Family & Children’s Services to Holocaust survivors living in Southern Arizona. (Courtesy Jewish Family & Children’s Services)
Through an emergency grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also known as the Claims Conference, Jewish Family & Children’s Services has extended its assistance to Holocaust survivors living in Southern Arizona during the coronavirus pandemic. With the $17,000 grant from Claims Conference’s Holocaust Survivor COVID-19… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The worldwide population of Jews stands at 14.7 million, still falling short of the pre-World War II numbers, according to a report by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The figures, which are similar to the population of world Jewry in 1925, were released ahead of Yom… Read more »
(JTA) — The Alfred Landecker Foundation has created a fund to provide emergency support for Holocaust survivors affected by COVID-19. The 1 million euro ($1.12 million) fund is meant to support elderly survivors who are vulnerable to the coronavirus and who are suffering from the effects of self-isolation. The… Read more »
When I spoke to the reporter for the profile about me (“At 95, Tucsonan Bill Kugelman still charming, vigorous,” AJP 10/11/19), I misspoke in stating that others didn’t feel the boot of the Nazis during World War II. Anyone of the Jewish faith that lived under the Nazis, their… Read more »
Michael Bennet speaks at the annual J Street National Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Since announcing his presidential run in May, Michael Bennet has been polling between zero and 1 percent. He didn’t qualify for the latest Democratic debate and he’s a long shot to make the next one. The Colorado senator raised only $2.1 million in the third quarter of… Read more »
The Jewish New Year is a time for reflection and commitment toward a more just world. The six Holocaust survivors we feature in this issue are a few among the approximately 75 survivors currently living in Southern Arizona, most of whom were children or teens when the war broke… Read more »
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Netherlands’ national rail company said it will compensate hundreds of Holocaust victims for its role in the genocide. Dutch Railways announced its plan Wednesday in a statement, specifying one-time payments of about $17,000 to each living Holocaust survivor it helped ship to death camps when… Read more »
Collage by Lior Zaltzman
This article originally appeared on Kveller. At first, it seems like John and Amy Israel Pregulman nailed the ideal “digital nomad” lifestyle. The very-much-in-love couple travels the country and the world side by side working for an organization they built together from the ground up. “Every day we wake… Read more »
Bryan Davis, executive director of the Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center, co-chaired the Council of American Jewish Museums 2019 conference in Los Angeles March 3-5. Davis’ co-chair for the conference, “The Creative Challenge: Museums for the Next Generation,” was Gravity Goldberg, director of public programs and visitor… Read more »
Holocaust survivor Wolfgang Hellpap lights a memorial candle at the community Yom HaShoah commemoration on May 1, 2016, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
Wolfgang Hellpap, 87, a child survivor of the Holocaust from Berlin, Germany, tells his remarkable story with matter-of-fact simplicity. He’s told it many times during the past 13 years he’s lived in Tucson, to high school students and other groups. “I want people and especially young people to know… Read more »
Raisa Moroz, Holocaust survivors program manager at Jewish Family & Children's Services of Southern Arizona (left), talks with Yulia Genina, a survivor from Ukraine, in 2014. (Nancy Ben-Asher, AJP)
There are over 400,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors worldwide, but the survivor population is rapidly diminishing. As we celebrate the High Holidays and mark the beginning of another year, each of us needs to reflect on what we have done in the past year to support this shrinking community and… Read more »
Simon Gronowski and Alice Weit, who had a reunion 76 years after being separated by the Holocaust, were honored at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, April 12, 2018. (Bart Bartholomew/Simon Wiesenthal Center)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When Alice (Gerstel) Weit last saw Simon Gronowski, she was 13 and he was 10 and, by Alice’s recollection, “the most adorable boy ever.” When they reunited this week, 76 years later, “I opened the door and there he was, a frail, little old man,”… Read more »
David Jurkowitz plays piano for residents of Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging on Sept. 22. [Courtesy Lisa Jurkowitz)
For Jewish teens, a bar or bat mitzvah project is an opportunity to learn more about their responsibilities as Jewish adults. It’s a hands-on way to learn the meaning of tikkun olam (repairing the world), and serve the community in personally meaningful ways. Several Tucson Jewish teens shared… Read more »
Holocaust Survivors at the Flatbush Jewish Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., remain active and engaged in their community through dance. (Stephen Shames/JFNA)
(JTA) — Nazi death marches crippled Mr. Cohen’s knees. The 94-year-old who survived Auschwitz now felt defeated trying to climb the stairs to his walk-up condo. He and his wife of 66 years used to be highly active in the Holocaust survivor community and frequently spoke at… Read more »
Nanette Konig giving an interview to Estado TV, March 2015. (Courtesy of Estado)
(JTA) — Looking through the barbed wire of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 14-year-old Nanette Konig could barely recognize her friend and classmate from Amsterdam, Anne Frank. Both girls had been caught by the Nazis in the Dutch capital and were sent to starve to death in a… Read more »
(JTA) — The Claims Conference, which manages aid to Holocaust survivors, has negotiated a budget increase through 2018, including the largest one-time increase in homecare funding the organization has ever secured. In talks with the German government, the Claims Conference secured nearly $312 million in homecare funding for survivors… Read more »
Auschwitz and Belsen concentration camp survivor Eva Behar showing her number tattoo in her London home, Dec. 1, 2014. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
(JTA) — They survived unimaginable horrors, yet went on to live productive lives, despite the haunting memories, the profound loss and physical scars from years of deprivation. Now many Holocaust survivors need our assistance so they may live their twilight years with dignity in their homes and communities. Most… Read more »
(Kveller via JTA) — When I was growing up, my father’s parents lived half a world away in Israel. I only met them a handful of times. Back then there was no Internet, so we sent letters and made the occasional phone call. Once, when I was 12 or… Read more »
