Krystal has faced some of the many challenges young adults who have aged out of foster care deal with — homelessness, pregnancy, drug abuse, mental illness and unemployment.
Approximately 600 students from around the world have descended on Phoenix for the 105th Alpha Epsilon Pi International Convention this weekend. During the convention, the young men will take part in class sessions that will teach them how to combat anti-Semitism and how to deal with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that has swept across many universities nationwide.
As the Jewish Genetics Diseases Center of Greater Phoenix prepares for a community screening in Scottsdale on Aug. 19, Wendy Carriere, executive director of the center, still feels the presence of late co-founder Dr. Sherman Minkoff in every decision she makes.
As many readers in the Valley’s Jewish community know, I am not Jewish. I was raised a Catholic in a Mexican-American neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, and somehow ended up in the “Jewish part of town.” I learned about Judaism from my friends and their parents. I learned to respect Judaism from my parents.
Although URJ Camp Newman was held in a university setting instead of its former home in the mountains of Santa Rosa, California, this year, the camp feeling is alive and well, by all accounts.
Growing up in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, in what is now Uzbekistan, Arthur Rothstein still recalls the challenges of life under a totalitarian regime and the rampant anti-Semitism that went with it.
In many ways, Dr. Daniel and Hana Lowenstein and their four boys, ages 7, 6, 4 and 2, are the newest poster family for North American aliyah. Deeply committed to the Jewish community — she works for the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, while he’s a rabbi and psychiatrist — they decided to move to Israel because there was never a question about making their permanent home anywhere else.
Elad Nehorai — the writer of the popular blog Pop Chassid and a contributor to the Forward, Haaretz and other Jewish media outlets — was drawn to spirituality from a young age.
In our weekly Flashback section, we go into our archives to find treasures we can share with you. This week, we have a recollection from Dan Abrams, who has lived in Phoenix since 1946 and recently retired from Abrams Realty & Management. Here, he shares his connection to the early days of the Jewish News and its first publisher.
Americans spend billions on books and media in the self-improvement genre, whether on stalwarts like Tony Robbins or on more whimsical titles like the current New York Times bestseller “Girl, Wash Your Face.” Though the genre really took off in the 1930s, self-help texts have been around for much longer than that — including the section of the Mishnah called Pirkei Avot (literally: Ethics of Our Fathers).
Starting in August, when the 2018-’19 fall semester begins, Jewish students attending Arizona State University’s Tempe campus will have new options when it comes to purchasing food on campus.
Sheryl Press is the director of Campaign & Women’s Philanthropy for Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. She and 10 other Valley Jewish leaders in the community took part in Jewish Federations of North America’s mission to Berlin and Budapest. Here are her reflections on the trip.
After 9/11, Richard Johnson, then a captain for the Tucson Fire Department, thought Arizona needed to be more proactive in preparing for potential mass casualty events, as few departments around the U.S. had any repeated experience with them.
It was looking like a very good year for the Jewish Tuition Organization of Greater Phoenix and the state’s corporate private school tax credit program.
As lightning flashed and a heavy rain fell outside last Saturday in Flagstaff, roughly 40 women within Congregation Lev Shalom formed a large oval around three cantors, who led the group in song as they all clapped their hands and danced.
“The Reds,” “The Red Scare,” “The Red Menace.” Those of us who lived during the Cold War remember hearing those phrases or at least being familiar with them. As part of the last generation to enter adulthood with the Soviet Union still in existence, the phrase I most remember was President Ronald Reagan’s “The Evil Empire.”
This Community page features photos of community members around the Valley and the world. Submit photos and details each week to photos@jewishaz.com by 10 a.m. Monday.
On July 9, President Donald Trump announced Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, thus setting the stage for another high-court showdown.
Summer in Arizona is the deadliest time of the year. With temperatures regularly hovering between 110 and 115 degrees, the homeless are particularly vulnerable, especially when they lack access to drinking water.
Last week, 170 Jewish American and Israeli teens gathered in Los Angeles for the Israeli American Council Eitanim Summer Hackathon, where groups of teens developed solutions to real-world challenges while receiving advice and training from mentors.
With excessive heat warnings expected to be in effect across the Valley and the Southwest this weekend, sisterhoods from a number of synagogues are heading north to Flagstaff to beat the heat and attend the Women of Reform Judaism Southwest Area Day, also called “ReJEWvinating in the Forest.” It is the first WRJ Area Day to take place in Flagstaff.
On the evening of June 23, the Balsz Community Center in Phoenix was filled with the smell of injera bread, the colorful ensembles of Karen dancers and poetry, and rap in at least four languages. It was part of Many Voices and One Humanity, the last in a series of events held throughout the week as part of World Refugee Day Phoenix.
It’s tough being a weekly newspaper. We send the paper to press on Tuesday and then, as if on cue, some major event happens a few days later. It’s inevitable. But the Jewish News always finds a way to keep a story fresh and relevant for the following week by getting local reactions and reporting on the aftermath.
Jewish groups and individuals have had mixed reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week that upheld President Donald Trump’s latest iteration of a ban on travel from several mostly Muslim nations.
The Council of Religious Advisors at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus elected Debbie Yunker Kail, executive director of Hillel at ASU, as its new president.
For several years, the Jewish News did not publish any issues in July. The staff essentially took a summer break. But in the summer of 1976, that practice led to this paper not writing anything about one of our nation’s most important milestones: our 200th birthday.
Alma Hernandez is a Mexican-American Jewish millennial and daughter of immigrants who founded a progressive Jewish group in Tucson and is running for the Arizona House of Representatives.Photo courtesy of Alma Hernandez
Last Wednesday, a group of concerned mothers from diverse faiths gathered in front of Sen. John McCain’s Phoenix office to express their opposition to the administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents.
When terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, employees were putting to bed the Sept. 14 issue of the Jewish News. That issue was meant to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, but the sorrow of what had happened to our nation was still palpable in those pages.
In late April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released findings showing a 15 percent increase in autism spectrum disorder over previous estimates. But Arizona bucked this trend by reporting a slight decrease.
As traditional taxi services continue to lose business to rideshare companies such as Lyft and Uber, some seniors have been left stranded. However, a number of organizations, particularly within the Jewish community, have stepped up to fill the gap.
When the new website Mitzvah Hub, a partnership between Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix and Jewish Family and Children’s Service, launches this fall, it will become much easier to find volunteer opportunities within the Jewish community.
Children taken from their undocumented parents will soon be living in tent cities along the Texas-Mexico border, including Tornillo, about 40 miles east of El Paso. The Tornillo facility is one of several to house nearly 2,000 children separated from their parents as a result of a “zero tolerance” policy on border enforcement announced by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in April.
Lauren Saks barely breaks a sweat as she jumps and squats while cheering on a panting crowd via her headset. You’d never know the leader of Fall into Fitness, a free group exercise class offered by the city of Phoenix through its FitPHX initiative, once avoided exercise.
Rachel Kaplan dreamed of having a fur baby since she was in preschool at Temple Kol Ami. In her second book, “The Adventures of Smokey,” she recounts the tale of adopting and learning to care for her first dog.
The Arizona Israel Technology Alliance and the Arizona Technology Council will lead a state contingent of business people and investors on a trip to Israel this October.
On Jan. 15, 1948, the very first issue of the Jewish News was published. Almost four months to the day later, the State of Israel was founded. That has always been a source of pride for this newspaper. Obviously, we had nothing to do with the founding of Israel, but it does make us feel special that we share our birth year with the Jewish homeland.
In 2016, 65.6 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced, more than at anytime since World War II. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom.
Danielle Gross is a first-year member of Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet. She joined the national cabinet through her work with Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix’s NowGen program, which engages Jewish adults in their 20s through 40s in philanthropy, connections to community and leadership.
Charlotte Adelman was checking her Facebook account in 2016 when she noticed a message that took her back 70 years to when she was hiding under a bed while German soldiers looked for her, nearly stabbing her with a bayonet as they did so. The message was from Alain Quatreville, the son of the family that had hidden Adelman for nine months during the war.
The New Americans Campaign co-hosted free citizenship and new voter workshops at two Valley locations on Saturday, June 1. The group is one of several working to help the almost 9 million legal permanent residents in the U.S. become citizens. Local immigration organizations, faith-based groups, legal service providers and more took part in the event.
A n immigration policy that separates asylum-seeking parents from their children is drawing criticism from immigration advocates and leaders within the Jewish community, both nationally and here in the Valley.
Rachel Hoffer, a board adviser with Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix’s NowGen program, traveled through Morocco and Spain with Danielle Gross, a first-year member of Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet and a participant in NowGen.
The “Inspired by Israel” video contest has started its 10-day period of online voting to determine which 10 video entrants will move on to the final phase of the contest and be evaluated by an elite panel of judges.
