If you asked Shlomo Pri-tal 30 years ago what his retirement would look like, he never would have imagined it would include making glass art.

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 …

Chloe Breger, a seventh-grade science and social studies teacher in the Glendale Elementary District, is eager to get back to the classroom next month.

Steve Goode doesn’t usually visit Arizona in the summer.

A few years back, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, was invited to debate one of the candidates for Chief Rabbi of Israel in the Knesset.

Chabad of Arizona is opening two new high schools in August.

Holocaust survivor Oskar Knoblauch has touched thousands of lives, sharing his survival story and its lessons. And despite being 95, he will continue his work for decades to come with the high-tech help of Phoenix’s future Holocaust education center.

The Phoenix Hebrew Academy is teaming up with Gesher Disability Resources to combat the “summer slump,” the gap of time between students’ last day of school in the early summer and when they start again the next fall. The leaders of Gesher and PHA suspect it might be more dramatic this year …

For Rachell Krell, summertime isn’t about taking a well-deserved rest. After finishing her junior year at Northern Arizona University, where she was recognized for her work in the honors college, awarded scholarships and selected for a place in STARS College — an organization for students pu…

When Princeton University announced last fall that it was not ready to let students return to campus, Jacob Miller, 20, decided it was time for a different type of learning experience. He took a leave of absence from Princeton, determined to be living in Israel by January 2021.

Menachem Mendel Academy will begin its 2021 fall academic year with a new offering: a preschool.

Judi Gyory Missel grew up not knowing much about her extended family.

Emma Schwarz, 16 and a sophomore at Verde Valley School in Sedona, won first place in this year’s Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate® essay contest. Her essay, “A Generational Legacy,” was inspired by her grandfather’s efforts to spy on the Ku Klux Klan and report on its activity to …

Rebecca Wolf remembers when she first learned about the Holocaust. She was about 8 or 9 years old and in Hebrew school.

More than a decade ago, Ettie Zilber set out to tell her mother’s story of surviving the Holocaust.

Candice Gimbel has a lot to say about Israel, but she isn’t offering many thoughts on social media or in large gatherings these days.

Ellen Tuckman is currently gathering items for Cactus ORT’s auction on June 6. Among them are a set of luggage, a Waterford decanter, a one-week stay at a Caribbean hotel, restaurant and museum certificates and jewelry. The money raised at the Zoom auction will be sent directly to ORT Americ…

What do you do with 50ish unused yarmulkes from a wedding 25 years ago?

The East Valley Jewish Community Center launched its “Conversation with the Rabbi” podcast March 30.

The world looks different now than in 2019 — the year Arizona State University published the first study of the local Jewish community since 2002. Still, its findings have major implications for Jewish organizations and synagogues looking to engage more of the community.

University of Arizona Hillel welcomes new executive director

When Shearim Torah High School for Girls opens next fall it will be in a new building. The school is set to purchase a site that is three times that of its current location. Conveniently, it’s also across the street.

A new Jewish high school in Scottsdale is offering full scholarships for its fall 2021 incoming class.

Temple Beth Shalom is the only Reform congregation in the West Valley, and we have a multi-generational and egalitarian membership. We are proud of our history of inclusivity and that we are able to offer a full range of educational programming, community and social functions and religious s…