When Temple Chai Rabbi Bonnie Koppell arrived in Arizona in 1987, people were shocked that she was a rabbi. She was the first woman rabbi in the state. Many times, she heard the words, “I didn’t know that women could be rabbis,” she told Jewish News.

John Pregulman was in Phoenix the weekend of Dec. 11 to see some old friends from BBYO. While in town, he sought out Holocaust survivors living in the area.

Gesher Disability Resources, which serves children and adults affected by a disability through inclusion assistance in the classroom, resource referral, residential support and social groups, celebrated its annual gala on Nov. 6, 2021.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, famously said, “We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”

Change is in the air at Temple Emanuel of Tempe. Rabbi Cookie Lea Olshein and Jessie Rubenstein, religious school director, both came aboard last summer ready to put their stamp on the community. Additionally, a new managing director might be in place early next month. In short, temple leade…

Marcy Lewis has known about Momentum for years.

As 2022 approaches, Arizona State University’s Jewish organizations are examining their goals for the coming year to better serve Jewish students.

Chabad at Arizona State University hosted its annual Chanukah Extravaganza on Tuesday, Nov. 30. Attendees called it a success.

As part of our alumni association leadership panel series, the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI) recently sponsored an educational panel called the Founder’s Club. The panel was moderated by Jennifer Rogers of the WLI, and featured Becca Hornstein and Andi Minkoff, founders of two of our co…

Roberta Harmon has always been drawn to working with people with special needs.

Dr. Robert Ziltzer, 58, could have spent his entire medical career running his successful primary care practice in Scottsdale. It was his plan when he went to medical school in New York, where he was also born and bar mitzvahed. He even stayed in school an extra year in order to become board…

Twins Eli and Brian Hemmert of North Scottsdale weren’t sure what they wanted to do for their b’nai mitzvah project — until Aug. 27.

Emery Kutz knows all too well how food can bring people together---and keep them apart.

Five-year-old Levi Miller has been asking to go to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix for a year.

On Nov. 1, antisemitic flyers were found on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University for the third time in three years. Despite the chilling effect this may have had on some Jewish students, the university boasts a wide variety of Jewish organizations, which try to include all students l…

Jewish students at Arizona State University held a “Jewish and Proud” rally on the Tempe campus last Thursday, Nov. 4, in response to several antisemitic flyers found around the school a few days earlier on Nov. 1.

After a year and a half without an on-the-ground presence in Arizona, the Anti-Defamation League is back in action locally.

When news spread that antisemitic flyers, accusing Jews of controlling the world through banks, media, big business and pornography, had been posted around Arizona State University’s Tempe campus on Nov. 1, the school’s Jewish organizations, as well as its Jewish students, reacted quickly.

Oasis High School in Scottsdale is making progress toward welcoming its first class of students next fall.

Several Jewish organizations are praising the Chandler Unified School District for its handling of antisemitic remarks made during a governing board meeting on Oct. 27.

Kim Klett has taught about the Holocaust for 20 years. When her Holocaust Literature class debuted at Dobson High school in 2001, it was only the second of its kind offered in a public Arizona high school.

Books line the dining room table and even the floor at Ettie Zilber’s house, and more are on the way. All the books are about the Holocaust. Zilber will soon deliver them to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey sparked debate this fall with his policy ruling out COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates in the state’s public schools. One Jewish politician has been vocal with her objection.

Greeting the new first-grade class at Congregation Beth Israel’s Mark L. Haberkorn Religious School last month, Stacy Rosenthal looked around the room at the small faces and thought many seemed familiar. She asked to see the hands of those who had gone to preschool there. All hands shot up i…

Becca Hornstein’s move to Phoenix in 1983 coincided with reaching her breaking point: She had had enough of her son’s exclusion from Jewish life.

For the longest time, LeahHadas Targovnik Jacobs felt she was a Jewish misfit. Her neighbors in Phoenix are Orthodox and she considered them “the real Jews.”

Now that students are back on campus at Arizona State University after months of hybrid and remote instruction and activities, Hillel Jewish Student Center has resumed much of its pre-pandemic schedule of events and services.

The Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International are working together to document antisemitism on campus.

Bob Braudy wasn’t yet 10 years old when somebody painted a swastika on the steps leading up to his family’s house in Yonkers, New York.

Jennah Bauernfeind was raised in a Lutheran household but never really took to her Christian faith. Meanwhile, Joshua, her husband, grew up without much religion at all. But the absence of faith marked a deficit in their lives, and as 2019 came to a close, they each decided to investigate wo…

Lox in a box, along with a bagel, some cream cheese and a few other treats were delivered to about 100 people on Sunday, Sept. 12. And along with the food, the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix served up some knowledge — all par for the course for the women behind the organization.

On Aug. 17, 2021, five men broke into Yeshiva Toras Chaim in Denver, Colorado and attacked the students and rabbis learning there. Shmuel Silverberg, a 19-year-old boy from Cleveland, was killed.

Miriam Hirschl prioritizes education, and at 102 she still enjoys learning about a lot of things, including ballet and art. She also listens to a variety of lectures offered through Jewish Family & Children’s Service Virtual Center for Senior Enrichment.

Rabbi Dean Shapiro has always been interested in justice and making the world a better place. That’s why he became a rabbi in 2008.

Jewish learning is a lifelong journey and the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix is celebrating its dedication to teaching with a series of programs commemorating 50 years of existence.

Stacy Rosenthal, Congregation Beth Israel’s senior director of education and youth engagement, has been working in Jewish education for nearly two decades and has held about every position there is. Now, she is one of several educators at the start of something new for Reform teens in Greate…

After more than a year, buses filled with youth tour groups were again zipping around Israel this summer.

In May, New York-based Chidon Sefer HaMitzvos hosted its annual international Jewish law competition for grades four through eight. More than 5,000 students were tested through a series of exams and competitions on their knowledge of the Torah’s 613 commandments.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Rabbi Minna Bromberg’s work addressing weight stigma in Jewish communal spaces took her to a lot of synagogues. She was often bewildered when organizers provided her a chair that was too small. Getting people to acknowledge her body and their discomfort with it …