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Leni Reiss, longtime editor of Arizona Jewish weekly, dies at 84
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) — In a June 8 interview with Jewish News of Greater Phoenix for an article on the 75th anniversary of the Arizona weekly, Leni Reiss spoke candidly about her then nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
“I’m getting wonderful treatment and have wonderful doctors and I’m not letting myself be sad,” said Reiss, the former longtime editor of Jewish News. “I’m not bringing anybody down with me.”
She also expressed how “unbelievably wonderful” her family and friends had been since her diagnosis.
Reiss died on Sept. 6, after turning 84 on Aug. 25.
Between her work editing and writing for Jewish News and her lay leadership roles in a range of organizations — including Hadassah, the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix — Reiss was a fixture in the Phoenix Jewish community for six decades, noted for her outgoing personality, quick wit, creative ideas and flair, along with a wide network of friends and colleagues.
On the national level, for many years she directed Do The Right Thing, a mentoring program for college journalists that originated at the New York Jewish Week and was sponsored by the Jewish federation network. From 2005 to 2019, she was associate program director of The Conversation, a North American annual retreat for leaders and emerging leaders in Jewish life, sponsored by the New York Jewish Week.
She was also a member of the board of the Jewish Investigative Journalism Fund, sponsored by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation Philanthropies, in the 1980s and ’90s.
“Leni brought enthusiasm, compassion, curiosity and humor to her interactions with people,” said Gary Rosenblatt, the former editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week. “She was as thoroughly professional in her journalism — reporting and editing — as she was thoroughly charming in her personal life.”
Over the years, Reiss was invited on more than a dozen press trips to Israel and traveled to Lebanon right after the 1982 war there. She told of how she and fellow journalists were on a road outside of Beirut where they had to watch where they walked because of landmines, and how she investigated a cave used by the Palestine Liberation Organization, where there was still ammunition lying on the ground. During that trip, she met professional colleagues whom she kept in touch with for decades.
Raised in New York, Reiss attended Ohio State University, where she got a degree in education and met her husband, Barry, who was from Newark, New Jersey. She joined him in Arizona (“under great duress,” she would say) in August 1961 with their six-month-old son, Mitchell.
Settling into her new home, she joined the Jewish Community Center and met other young mothers there. Reiss then joined Hadassah and became involved with the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix’s young leadership group.
“My Jewish life really took off and never stopped,” she said during a 2008 interview for the Arizona Jewish Historical Society’s Arizona Memory Project. “I credit the Jewish community here with a very full and wonderful family life.”
Reiss started at Jewish News in 1976, working as a columnist and staff writer under then-owners Pearl and Cecil Newmark. She was promoted to managing editor when the Newmarks’ daughter, Flo Eckstein and her husband, Paul, bought the paper in 1981. Reiss worked as managing editor until May 1994.
“I valued her friendship, energy, creativity, commitment to the Jewish community and devotion to getting the facts right in every story,” said Eckstein in an email to Jewish News. Under her leadership, wrote Eckstein, Jewish News won numerous reporting and editing awards from the American Jewish Press Association. “She and I nearly always participated in our association’s annual meetings to accept them in person,” she said.
Reiss was a winner of the Joseph Polakoff Award for Distinguished Service to Jewish Journalism, cited for her career at Jewish News and for chairing several of the AJPA’s editorial workshops.
Rae Janvey, a senior consultant to The Conversation who worked closely with Leni, noted: “The world has lost a warm, loving, generous and larger than life heart-full human being. It was a gift to partner with Leni in our group for all these years. She was a linchpin to the joy we all felt.”
When Reiss left Jewish News, she continued writing for various local and national publications as a freelancer. Locally, she also volunteered her time to Book Pals, a public school literacy program.
During her career, she interviewed prime ministers, politicians and was invited to the White House twice. The second time, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited her to the White House Hanukkah party.
But her first White House visit was much more memorable.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was getting ready to run for president and had just returned from a trip to the Middle East and wanted press coverage, so he invited a handful of journalists from Jewish newspapers across the country to the White House.
Her flight leaving Phoenix was six hours late and through a “series of misadventures,” she arrived in Philadelphia in the middle of the night to a closed terminal. At 6 a.m., when the ticket window opened, she got on a flight to Washington, D.C., without her luggage.
She called White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater and explained the situation. “I’m wearing jeans, sneakers and a Western shirt. I don’t want to in any way seem disrespectful, but I want to come to the White House,” she said.
Fitzwater told her to come, so she took a cab to the White House. When Bush entered the room, he asked, “Which one of you is the young woman from Phoenix?” Reiss said, “Oh, that would be me,” and stood up. He came over to her, and taking her hands in his, told her, “I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.”
Perhaps her favorite story was about her off-the-cuff interview with Sammy Davis Jr. on board a flight to Israel during the Lebanon War. En route to entertain the Israeli troops, he came down from the first-class upper deck of the plane, and Leni introduced herself and convinced him to sit and talk with her for a few minutes. Soon, a crowd of passengers gathered around them, taking pictures. At that point, Leni turned and commented to the star: “Don’t worry, Sammy, this happens to me wherever I go.”
Reiss is survived by her husband, Barry; children Mitchell (Elissa) Reiss and Andrean Maron (Scott Weiss); grandchildren Jasmine, Ethan, Brooke, Isaac and Jory Weiss and Matana, Eden and Shai Maron.
A version of this article appeared in Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.
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The post Leni Reiss, longtime editor of Arizona Jewish weekly, dies at 84 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months
The University of Toronto has received an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on its property. The 98-page decision from Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said that members of the encampment must take down the tents within 24 hours, by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3. Toronto Police will have […]
The post University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The post Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations has opened an investigation into allegations that its special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories accepted an all-expense paid trip to Australia from various pro-Hamas groups.
In November 2023, Francesca Albanese allegedly traversed around the Australian continent on a trip whose high price tag was covered by anti-Israel organizations, according to documentation acquired by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN.
Albanese initially landed in Sydney and subsequently enjoyed flights into Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra, as well as Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand. The glamorous excursion is estimated to have cost a staggering $22,500.
The UN Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) told UN Watch last week that it had alerted the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the allegations of financial impropriety levied at Albanese.
In a letter sent to UN leadership last month, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer outlined evidence based on multiple sources indicating that Hamas-supporting organizations funded Albanese’s trip to Australia, which has been experiencing an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), an organization that lobbies Australian politicians on behalf of the pro-Palestinian cause, claimed on its website that it “sponsored Ms. Albanese’s visit to Australia” to speak at its annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. During the lecture, Albanese thanked AFOPA for “organizing such a busy visit,” in which she met with numerous Australian politicians and foreign ministry officials.
Free Palestine Melbourne (FPM) and Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA) both claimed to have “supported her visit to Victoria, ACT [Australian Capital Territory] and NSW [New South Wales].” Both groups also publicly declare that they participate in explicit lobbying of Australian politicians in an attempt to “change their minds” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While on her visit, Albanese served as a keynote speaker at a PCIA fundraiser. FPM encourages politicians to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage economically and politically as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN) said it was “honored to support” Albanese’s visit. The organization’s president, Nasser Mashni, openly endorses the terrorist group Hamas and has stated that the eradication of Israel is necessary to secure “the liberation of earth.” APAN states that it “facilitated a range of meetings” for Albanese with Australian parliamentarians.
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC) and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) both organized and likely bankrolled Albanese’s trip to New Zealand, according to UN Watch. At the behest of these groups, Albanese helped lobby a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-linked companies.
Albanese outright denied that her trip was funded by Palestinian lobbying organizations, insisting that the UN footed the bill.
“Yet another trail of egregiously false claims agst me,” she tweeted. “My trip to Australia was paid by the UN as part of my mandate’s activities. Continuous defamation agst my mandate may be well remunerated,but won’t work. It just wastes time that should be used to help stop violence in [the Palestinian territories].”
Albanese did not present any documentation confirming that the UN paid for her travel and accommodations. Rather, she pointed at a statement from AFOPA reading, “Ms. Albanese was authorized by the UN to accept AFOPA’s invitation to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The UN funded Ms. Albanese’s travel & accommodation costs. No Palestinian Solidarity group paid for this trip.”
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In April, Albanese issued public support for the pro-Hamas protests and encampments on American university campuses, saying that they gave her “hope.” She has also repeatedly falsely accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and enacting “apartheid” in the West Bank without condemning Hamas’ terrorism against Israelis.
In February, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The UN did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.