Southern Arizona well represented at PJ Library conference in Aspen Several local PJ Library benefactors attended a PJ Library leadership gathering in Aspen, Colo., earlier this month. Front row (L-R): Marilyn Einstein, Jill Rosenzweig, Herschel Rosenzweig; back row: Steve Sim, Rosalie Eisen (PJ Library program officer), Harold Grinspoon (PJ… Read more »
Jewish Funders Network President Andres Spokoiny speaking at the group's international conference, March 20, 2017. (JFN)
ATLANTA (JTA) — For decades, the Lippman Kanfer family has focused its philanthropy on local Jewish communities and national initiatives to teach Torah — funding causes from the Anshe Sfard Congregation in Akron, Ohio, to a Jewish day school network. But since Nov. 8, Election Day, the family has… Read more »
Jewish Family & Children’s Services will highlight its book, “To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona” at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 11 and 12. Visitors to the JFCS booth (#244) also can create Passover greeting cards for Holocaust survivors and Matza & More recipients.… Read more »
(Illustration from 'Shanghai Sukkah')
A family Sukkot celebration, “Shake It Up in Shanghai!,” sponsored by the Tucson Jewish Community Center and PJ Library, will be held in the sculpture garden at the J on Thursday, Oct. 20, from 5-6:30 p.m. The organizations invite families to be their ushpizin (Hebrew for “guests”) in the… Read more »
CLAIRE’S CAFÉ, owned by CLAIRE JOHNSON, is a finalist for the Good Neighbor Award, one of the 2016 Torch Awards to be awarded by the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona. The award recognizes a company “that has shown a commitment to making southern Arizona a better place through… Read more »
Super Extraordinary Sunday The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona held its Super Extraordinary Sunday fundraiser and Mitzvah Day on Jan. 31. With 150 phone and clerical volunteers logging more than 480 pledges and donations to the 2016 Community Campaign, the phone-a-thon raised $225,000. Thirty-four people donated blood through the… Read more »
Eliot Barron, a volunteer, makes a call at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Super Extraordinary Sunday on Jan. 25, 2015.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will hold its Super Extraordinary Sunday fundraiser and Mitzvah Day on Sunday, Jan. 31, 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m., at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event will include a phone-a-thon with volunteers seeking donations to the Federation’s 2016 Community Campaign to support humanitarian and… Read more »
“Penina Levine Is a Potato Pancake” is one of the PJ Our Way selections for November. The PJ Library program in Southern Arizona is expanding to include kids ages 9-11 with PJ Our Way. Offering free, age-appropriate monthly books with Jewish content, PJ Our Way puts kids in control of their book choices via a protected, regulated website, pjourway.org. Kids can also contribute book reviews,… Read more »
The Southern Arizona Jewish community has been chosen to participate in a special initiative called PJ Goes to School. Many local families already particpate in PJ LibraryTM, a national Jewish engagement program that mails free, high-quality Jewish literature to families raising Jewish children. The program here is coordinated by… Read more »
Tucsonan Nora Sevy enjoys PJ Library books (Courtesy Libby Quinn) The PJ Library program in Southern Arizona is expanding and will now be available for all families raising Jewish children through 8 years of age. When the program launched in Southern Arizona in 2009 it was available for families raising Jewish children from 6 months through 6 years of… Read more »
Israeli Arab children at a school in Baqa al-Gharblyye reading books from the Lantern Library, a spinoff of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation's PJ Library. (Akmal Nagnagy/Harold Grinspoon Foundation) NEW YORK (JTA) — A Religion News Service article about the PJ Library is headlined “Free books — 10 million of them — help keep Jewish kids Jewish.” Now the foundation behind the widely lauded nine-year-old program — which distributes free books to more than 130,000 Jewish children in… Read more »
A group of women hold hands around the Torah during the Shabbat morning service at the Union for Reform Judaism's biennial conference in San Diego, Dec. 14, 2013. (URJ) SAN DIEGO (JTA) – What do you get when you bring together 5,000 of the Reform movement’s faithful for a conference in sunny San Diego in mid-December? Four days of singing, learning, schmoozing and worrying at a gathering that seemed equal parts pep rally and intervention session. For pep,… Read more »
Harold Grinspoon, the founder of PJ Library, reads one of the program's books with a gaggle of children. (PJ Library) NEW YORK (JTA) — PJ Library wants to come between parents and children — literally. Every month, PJ Library mails free Jewish-themed children’s books to nearly 100,000 households in North America with a grand ambition: that somewhere between Dr. Seuss and the Berenstain Bears, a child may turn to… Read more »
Many parents savor memories of cozy nights reading to their young children, looking at beautiful illustrations, and appreciating the cadence of a story told well. Those moments connect children not only to their parents, but also to a love of reading so vital to literate, inquisitive young minds. The… Read more »
BOSTON (JTA) — Once upon a time it was hard to find a wide selection of Jewish children’s books. Mostly there were books on Chanukah and Passover, plus retellings of Bible stories and folk tales. The market was small and uncertain, and mainstream publishers could not count on large… Read more »
