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When Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker was taken hostage along with a few of his congregants in their Colleyville, Texas synagogue in January 2022, it sent a shudder through the nation’s Jewish communities, specifically its synagogues. Jewish clergy were already keenly aware of the vulnerability t…

Avery Chadwick didn’t know it when she was first assigned a project about the Holocaust, but she soon discovered that she had something of a personal connection to the subject. Her grandfather’s longtime friend, Marc Yablonka, was the son of a survivor, the grandson of a murdered victim and …

It is approaching the best time of the year: summer vacation! Marvin the Monster and his friends are ready to have some fun at the park! The only thing standing between Marvin and his friend’s summer is the neighborhood bully — Drake the Dreadful!

In 2001, ninth-grader Shulamit Izen, an out Jewish lesbian who felt isolated in her suburban Boston Jewish high school, decided to start a gay/straight student alliance (GSA). The struggle she faced convincing her fellow students, teachers, principal and broader Jewish community to accept he…

A makeshift shuk lined the far side of the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus’ parking lot on Sunday afternoon, serving as the entrance for the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center’s community-wide celebration of Israel’s 75th birthday. A multitude of Israeli flags and vendors selling J…

Jeremy Rovinsky has always held firm when it comes to spending Purim with his family rather than at work. Although it’s a holiday that doesn’t prohibit observant Jews from driving, using technology or other work-related things, Rovinsky views it as an important day to set aside exclusively f…

The week of April 17-21, the 11th annual Rosenbluth Family Charitable Foundation Genocide Awareness Week (GAW) brought together genocide scholars and survivors, as well as artists and activists, for an educational initiative involving lectures, exhibits and storytelling on Tempe’s Arizona St…

Nona Siegel cares deeply about the environment. She has a degree in environmental science, follows a vegan diet and is a founding member of Temple Chai’s Eco Chai group, the Phoenix Reform synagogue’s “green team.”

A few years ago, when Rabbi Laura Geller was still the senior rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, she began to notice that many of her older congregants had started to drift away and she wanted to know why. At the time, she was also contemplating what her life after retirem…

Antisemitic vandalism in Arizona remained worryingly high last year, with 53 reported antisemitic incidents across the state, nearly double the amount from 2018, 2019 and 2020 and roughly the same as 2021. That number comes from the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit of antisemitic …

Linda Zell has been the face of the Jewish Tuition Organization (JTO) for the last two decades, but come July she will pass the executive director baton to Janet Silva to spend more time with family, travel and finally do some of the things she enjoys but hasn’t always had time for.

Temple Kol Ami (TKA) is rolling out a new option next fall for kids not quite ready for traditional kindergarten. The new class, called K Prep, is a certified-kindergarten program that offers a low student-to-teacher ratio, small-group instruction, a multisensory approach to math and literac…

On most weekday mornings, Morah Lakie Blech makes breakfast for her family, gets her three children ready for school and heads out the door. When the weather is temperate, the kids grab their bikes, even the youngest, who is three and new to riding without training wheels — though Blech brin…

In July 2018, Israel’s controversial nation-state bill established Israel as the historic home of the Jewish people with a “united” Jerusalem as its capital and declared under law that the Jewish people “have an exclusive right to national self-determination.”

Pardes Jewish Day School has a challenging, but very exciting, decision to make by the end of the school year. After about 18 months of work, “Resistors in Color,” the eighth-grade class’ artistic composition, which showcases many of the brave souls who not only resisted but fought back agai…

From 2020 to 2021, antisemitic incidents reported to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) rose by 5% nationally. In Arizona, there was a 65% increase in reported incidents during those years. The highest concentration of incidents reported occurred in the Phoenix metropolitan area and in Tucson,…

Tisha Herrera isn’t the typical candidate for Masa Israel Teaching Fellows, an immersive and long-term educational program for people ages 18-30. Her father is Ndee (Apache) and her mother’s heritage is a combination of Greek and Spanish. Six years ago, her mother discovered her Jewish ances…

In the first of four “Mussar: The Jewish Way of Building Character” classes, offered in February by the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI), Sharona Silverman invited her students to explore the concept of “humility.”

On March 13, Brandeis National Committee Phoenix Chapter hosts its annual Book & Author event, bringing authors and patrons from across the country. The day includes author talks, book sales and signings, boutiques and a luncheon. This year celebrates the 75th anniversary of both Brandei…

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, one out of every 100 people in the U.S. is in a prison or jail. Nearly half (47%) of the approximately 1.25 million people in state prisons are parents of minor children…

Dozens of hands shot up last Tuesday night the moment Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz opened the floor to audience questions. In person and on Zoom, roughly 100 people attended Valley Beit Midrash’s (VBM) panel “Can the Phoenix/Scottsdale Community be United?”

Anyone with a TikTok account might have seen a recent video by Congregation Beth Israel Cantor Seth Ettinger on the final night of Chanukah 2022. Dressed in his by-now-famous, Chanukah-themed blue suit and wearing a large hat shaped like a Chanukah menorah with all nine candles ablaze, Ettin…

When Nancy Eisenberg began her career in 1977, there were relatively few women doing research in developmental psychology. Throughout her 44-year career, she’s watched women increase in number until they reached parity and even a majority of professionals in the field.

Jews in every community across the country are being pummeled daily by news of antisemitism in politics, in pop culture and in recent memory — Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life massacre just marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 27.

On Nov. 2, the Tax & Legal Seminar, Arizona’s premier estate-planning event, will take place at the Arizona Biltmore. After attending virtually the last two years, the state’s CPAs, estate planning attorneys, financial planners and many more will meet in person once again.

Running, tripping over dead bodies and an overwhelming sense of fear are the things that Marion Weinzweig remembers most from her childhood in Poland. She was one of only a few family members to survive the Holocaust.

A flyer for Chaparral Theatre Company’s production of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”

Last month, 16 Chaparral High School students brought “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the world’s biggest and best-known art and media events held annually in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the fourth group of student actors and crew that Ed Como, Chapar…