From the Desk of Lori Shepherd - TJMHC Executive Director As this very long and trying week draws to a close, we look back on these days to see anxious hours filled with fear and worry and also on events that brought us together in hope and community. Here at Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, we continue our work to educate and collaborate with our community while our hearts and minds are with friends, family, and colleagues at home and abroad. While we know that a new and uncertain future will continue to unfold before us, one thing will remain steadfast – TJMHC’s mission to use h ..read more

From the Desk of Lynn Davis - JCRC Director Building State-Level Resistance to Political Violence As part of our work to increase civic engagement and support a resilient democracy, the JCRC for Tucson & Southern Arizona recently hosted a half-day community roundtable, followed by a public lecture, with Rachel Brown and Sam Owen of Over Zero. Over Zero was founded in response to the global need to counteract and prevent identity-based violence and other forms of group-targeted harm. While the organization spent many years working in international conflict areas, they have recently turned ..read more

From the Desk of Lynn Davis - JCRC Director Mapping Racist Covenants exposes Tucson’s race-restricted neighborhoods Several months ago, Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center was invited to become a community partner for Mapping Racist Covenants, a research project by University of Arizona professor and population geographer, Jason Jurjevich. Jurjevich and his team had set out to map the covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CCRs) of Tucson-area subdivisions to determine which of them still contained language prohibiting minority and ethnic groups from owning property within their boun ..read more

From the Desk of Lynn Davis - JCRC Director Passage of SB1713 reflects bi-partisan and interfaith cooperation Since 2004, nonprofit organizations around the country, including many in our local Jewish community, have benefited from the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program. This initiative, spearheaded by Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), provides support for physical security enhancements and activities, including planning and training, to nonprofit organizations that are at high risk of attack due to their mission, identity or beliefs. That program, however, does not grant fund ..read more

Why is the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center hosting a book club that is reading Beyond Magenta: Transgender and Nonbinary Teens Speak Out? This question was posed to me recently and honestly, it’s a question that I was happy to answer. Why is an organization that focuses on educating about Jews of Southern Arizona, Judaism, and the Holocaust reading a book about transgender teens? To answer this question today, we must look back ninety years. In May of 1933 university students from across Germany came together at the urging of the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, J ..read more

As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, we find ourselves looking ahead with a sense of anticipation to a long weekend filled with family, friends, and beloved culinary traditions. In a few days we will come together to cook copious amounts of everything and then eat way too much. On the television there will be a parade in the morning and then a parade of football games for the rest of the weekend. Some of us will argue politics and turkey preparation with that one know-it-all uncle while others will laugh for hours with that one cousin who always gets us into trouble. Even though I will not ..read more

"Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt ..read more

  These last few weeks have been draining for us all. The news seems to bring only heartache and turmoil. Incomprehensibly, there were even more mass shootings in the U.S., with the attacks in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, bringing the total to 213 for the year so far. In Ukraine, war rages on and the casualty counts continue to grow. And the political rancor here in the United States persists at unprecedented levels. I hate to admit it but there were times this past week when hopelessness began to creep up on me. And then, one morning last week, I arrived at my office to find a smal ..read more