Something for everyone: The manner in which this year’s Gift Guide was assembled is the manner in which these gifts are meant to be bought, received, given and enjoyed: from the comfort of home.
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Something for everyone: The manner in which this year’s Gift Guide was assembled is the manner in which these gifts are meant to be bought, received, given and enjoyed: from the comfort of home.
Before COVID-19, I remember traveling to New York City. I had the opportunity to fly first class, and the difference between coach and first class was significant. It made my flying experience extremely pleasant. Rather than feeling eager to get to my destination, I relaxed and enjoyed the flight.
Teachers at Jewish preschools and day schools across the country are among educators who have won grants from bestselling author James Patterson to build their classroom libraries through the Patterson Partnership with Scholastic Book Clubs.
Attempting to discern next summer’s camp landscape a week before Thanksgiving as COVID-19 rates are rising across the country, including in Greater Phoenix, might seem futile. For that reason, Camp: Destination, founded by Desert Jewish Academy and located on the campus of Temple Beth Sholom…
“Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy”
“Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters”
With less than three months until the end of the year, it is time to start thinking about strategic moves you can make to optimize your tax filing for 2020, especially regarding charitable giving. Here is a primer for Arizona residents and taxpayers.
In almost every aspect of daily lives, the Jewish community had to pivot and find new ways to do things. Philanthropic interaction is no exception. But for teens, the current socially-distanced situation provides unique opportunities for engagement for good.
The Jewish Future Pledge — a nonprofit initiative that calls on Jews to allocate half of their charitable estate to Jewish or Israel-related causes — announced a new collaboration with Morgan Stanley’s charitable giving vehicle, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, a donor-advised fun…
Imagine you overheard one end of this telephone conversation:
Cantor Larry Brandspiegel believes everything happens for a reason.
Sam and Risa Kritzstein always looked forward to the programming provided by Jewish Family & Children’s Service’s Senior Enrichment Center. It was free of charge and held at The Palazzo where the couple lives. Non-residents were also free to attend. After the coronavirus pandemic shut do…
When playwright Devorah Medwin started writing “Wooden Nickels” in graduate school, “I was just happy that a character had come and that I could take dictation of what they had to say,” she said.
Our lives at home have changed recently. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we looked toward our personal spaces to meet our needs in different ways. For many of us, our home has become our place of work too — as well as our gym, restaurant, movie theater, vacation destination and so
Online learning returned this fall, and many parents are still worried. Jamie Maier understands: During last spring’s online learning, her then-kindergartner faced long lectures and a lack of participation opportunities as well as peer-collaboration and hands-on activities.
As many school districts across the country continue virtual instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the question arises: How do we get our kids learning when the living room is the classroom?
The past seven months have been transformative, as we strive to learn in real time the subtle nuances between living and surviving in a pandemic.
When COVID-19 shut down most in-person live entertainment, some dramatists decided to get creative. If audiences couldn’t go to the theater, the theater would come to them.
People ask me how they can spruce up their homes easily and comfortably to give them a feeling of both emotional and physical support during this time of change. Change is key in so much these days and design is no different.
Though the book hasn’t been sealed yet, it’s not hard to write that this past year — 5780 in the Hebrew calendar — has been one of the hardest for so many of us. The year included a significant rise in anti-Semitism, an increase in bigotry in the public sphere, violence in the streets and no…
Welcoming questions is normative within the Jewish tradition. We thrive in an environment that supports inquiry and interpretation. However, welcoming people of all shapes, sizes, orientations, may meet with some reservations. While Judaism wrestles with who is a Jew, Jews and non-Jews are f…
It is no secret. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, individuals and communities worldwide are struggling to come up with creative ways to make the High Holidays meaningful and engaging this year.
Rosh Hashanah brings a freshness and delight as we enter into the new year and the season of autumn. Our menus have transitioned from light salads, summer corn and tomatoes and grilling everything possible to baked goods spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, heartier stews and lots of winter squa…
The smell of brisket cooking in the oven brings me such fond memories of holiday meals in my childhood home here in Arizona. We almost always seemed to have leftovers, but reheated brisket doesn’t taste quite as good as the first night, so it got me thinking about ways we could turn the bris…
It’s that time of year: Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner, and synagogues are adapting to unusual times. Some are streaming services and keeping activities entirely online; others are holding small, socially distanced services in person; a few are offering a mix of online, indoor and o…
This year has been like no other. COVID-19 has changed the way we work and play, who we see and how we see them. At Passover, it brought us Zoom seders. Likewise, High Holiday services will be held on Zoom, too.
Several years ago, I realized hosting lunch on Rosh Hashanah had become routine, something that bothered me.
Rosh Hashanah is the holiday we wish each other happiness, health and peace, and I wish you, “Happy home!” to help you have a healthy and peaceful home.
Be it blasting shofars in parking lots or handing out goody bags filled with prayer and activity books and specialized mints to passing cars, the Jewish community in Greater Phoenix is getting creative in order to maintain a sense of community and continuity during High Holidays challenged b…
The High Holidays are a special time of year. They can also be stressful, especially if you or someone in your family has a disability.
Trucks hauling California produce likely would have passed unnoticed by Tim Rosengren if not for the large images of bees painted on their sides. He wondered why trucks would be decorated that way, and after some investigating, he discovered how instrumental bees are to the growing process a…
Lights ... camera ... action!
What do a new puppy, folklore and a virology podcast all have in common? Taylor Swift, of course, and most importantly seeking inspiration during a pandemic. Let me explain.
Nothing brings community together quite like food. With the probability of family and friends being apart this High Holiday season, I wanted to create something that would bring us together in the spirit of the holidays.
No matter the size of our bedrooms, we’re often more concerned with the size of our closets. They’re never big enough.
It’s day whatever in these uncertain times and you’re bored. You planned on spending the weekend with the grandkids at the vacation house, but that’s not possible in this COVID-19 world.
Seniors are one of the most susceptible groups to COVID-19. According to the CDC, the older the adult, the higher the risk for severe illness from the disease. For this reason, seniors are spending a lot of time indoors and a lot less time in their Jewish communities.
Women’s suffrage will celebrate its centennial anniversary Aug. 18, but American women began their effort to win the right to vote long before 1920. Janice Friebaum had the opportunity to teach people that history while she was in college, and it’s something she still feels passionately abou…
Kori Schwarz is 17 and a senior at Phoenix Country Day School. In addition, she’s an entertainer. She sings, she dances, she performs. However, now that she can’t perform on a stage, she is doing what many performers are forced to do in the time of COVID-19. She’s performing online. The diff…
Polymerase chain reaction tests. Contact tracing. Respiratory droplets. Our expanding vocabulary reflects the crash course in public health and epidemiology that has become our pandemic vernacular.
Two members of Congregation Beth Israel in Scottsdale, previously in the pages of Jewish News, were named by Phoenix Magazine in its “Great 48 class of 2020” on June 23.
Much has been written about the reasons Israel is faring better than the United States in protecting its populace from the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent article by JNS Jerusalem Bureau Chief Alex Traiman, for instance, outlines the top 10 reasons for this, among them the fact that Israel close…
The time traveling adventure film “Back to the Future” is one of my all-time favorites. A familiar chorus in the Roth household is, “Roads? Where we’re goin’, we don’t need roads.”
The word “liminal” means threshold. The liminal space is the “crossing over” or transition space.
What would life be without color? Perhaps it would be like watching a black and white TV all the time — pretty boring. Fortunately, color surrounds us, yet we are unaware how much we react to it. Some colors leave us feeling faded and spent while others lift our spirits and energize us.
Thankfully, for the great majority of people who have contracted COVID-19, the symptoms appear to be relatively mild. But some people are falling ill for months, and many of those who get sick will experience cognitive impairment during the course of the illness. It is crucial for everyone, …
She’s the silver vixen of the stand-up — the comedic grandmother audiences wished they had.
Michael Cohen joins a Shabbat service in New York with the help of Zoom.
Skype calls with grandchildren and emails might have made up the bulk of seniors’ dealings with technology until the coronavirus pandemic upended their daily lives and interactions. Fast-forward three months and some octogenarians can be found hopping on a Zoom call to attend Shabbat service…
