Past Events

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center and Jews for a Secular Democracy will present a two-part Curious Conversations dinner series exploring immigration, identity, and American democracy. Timed to America’s 250th anniversary, the series invites participants to reflect on the nation not only as it is, but as it aspires to be: a place shaped by ideals of refuge, religious freedom, belonging, and civic responsibility.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center is hosting a roundtable conversation with three local journalists: Patty Machelor, freelance journalist and a professor of practice with the University of Arizona's School of Journalism; Joseph Jaafari, Editor-in-Chief of LOOKOUT Publications; Dylan Smith, Editor and Publisher of the Tucson Sentinel.

The event ties into TJMHC’s Contemporary Human Rights Exhibit, Media Matters, which examines who owns the media, why so many people distrust it, and how AI is changing the way information spreads.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center and Jews for a Secular Democracy will present a two-part Curious Conversations dinner series exploring immigration, identity, and American democracy. Timed to America’s 250th anniversary, the series invites participants to reflect on the nation not only as it is, but as it aspires to be: a place shaped by ideals of refuge, religious freedom, belonging, and civic responsibility.

What’s on My Ballot: 2026 Election Prep

Despite their attempts to cover up their evidence of genocide, the Nazis left behind many eyewitnesses--not just the humans who suffered at their hands, but also millions of pages of documents.

This in-person program will cover anticipated threats to the midterms and how best to counter election interference, while also uncovering who is feeling most vulnerable in this moment and why our vote matters more than ever.

For this gallery chat, let's come together as Miriam Furst presents an hour of smiles and laughter reflecting on Jewish history and beyond. From events in the Tanach up to the present day, Miriam will give a bit of history about various eras and show how major events have influenced and transformed the Jewish sense of humor.

Join us as we gather with teachers, administrators, Jewish education professionals, and other educators of all walks of life for our annual Educators’ Conference. This year our conference features two jam-packed days of professional development, starting Monday, July 20th and ending on Tuesday, July 21st.

Sacred Earth: Common Ground is a creative, engaging way to bridge the cultural, political, and religious divides that threaten democracy, devastate creation and divide communities. One strategy is to take advantage of the bridge-building capacity of the ancient art of storytelling. We believe that the shortest distance between two people is a story and that you cannot hate someone whose story you know.

TJMHC concludes this year’s Lakin Lecture Series on Antisemitism with Ariel Burger, the author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom. He is the founding director and senior scholar of The Witness Institute, whose mission is to empower emerging leaders, inspired by the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel. His work integrates spirituality, the arts, and strategies for social change.

Ted Warmbrand is a folk musician who uses songs to build community, protest injustice, and bring joy to those around him. Join Ted at TJMHC for a conversation about Zum Gali Gali, a Hebrew folksong that is widely known to non-Jews. Ted’s research and passion for music has prompted him to stop and ask: “What’s The Story of Zum Gali Gali?”

The Rabbi Joseph H. Gumbiner Project is proud to partner with Conecta Arizona to host the Southern Arizona premiere of Mosaicos, an exploration of the migrant, Latin, and cross-border beauty framed by the challenging Sonoran Desert.

The project portrays the convergence of fragments of life, culture, and memory—assembled with respect, empathy, and dignity—to demonstrate that our strength lies in our diversity. These photographs build a bridge between generations and geographies, between past and present, and between who we are now and who we once dreamed of becoming.

Please join us for the annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration, “The Legacy We Leave Behind” on April 12th, 2026 in the Tucson JCC Paul and Alice Baker Ballroom.

Join wine industry veteran, Robert Leopardi, as he shares select pieces from his collection of antique and modern corkscrews from around the world.

Hitting the road together for the first time, Jordan Wax and Jake Shulman-Ment draw from many combined decades as bearers and innovators of klezmer and Yiddish song. They masterfully traverse oceans and centuries to conjure ancestral melodies and songs, landing in a playfully genre-bending 21st century America.

Please join us for the grand opening of TJMHC’s newest exhibition, Media Matters: Cutting Through the Noise, on Thursday, March 12, at 6:00 p.m. This year’s installment of the Allen & Marianne Langer Contemporary Human Rights Exhibit explores the evolution of media literacy and the challenges of discerning truth in this new digital age.

Due to overwhelming demand, tickets are now SOLD OUT but you can still click through to sponsor the Purim Prom or make a gift to celebrate this year’s Queen Esther Award Honoree, Lynda Rogoff.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center continues the 2026 Lakin Lecture Series on Antisemitism with Ilana Kaufman, the Chief Executive Officer of the Jews of Color Initiative (JoCI). Guided by contemporary research and the experiences of Jews of Color, and leveraging strategies such as grantmaking, research, and community education, the Jews of Color Initiative works to create communities and institutions that reflect the multiracial reality of the Jewish people.  

Ilana is a prominent thought leader advancing the communal field for Jews of Color and, by extension, the U.S. Jewish Community. She is currently on a national listening tour with Jewish communities around the country, and looks forward to discussing her leadership in the field, JoCI’s current efforts, and the data and research that inspires much of this work. She will make sense of it all in conversation with the community through panel discussion and Q&A. 

NELLY & NADINE is the unlikely love story between two women falling in love on Christmas Eve, 1944, in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. For many years their relationship was kept a secret.

Please join us for the 2026 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Shabbat in partnership with Congregation Chaverim! Shabbat services will be lead by Rabbi Stephanie Aaron and a special Oneg Shabbat honoring local Holocaust survivors will follow.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center kicks off the 2026 Lakin Lecture Series on Antisemitism with Dr. Peter Hotez in conversation with local doctors and scientists. Dr. Hotez is a vaccine scientist, biochemist, and pediatrician who has led or co-led the development of vaccines worldwide. An ardent vaccine advocate and science explainer who combats anti-science and antisemitism around the world, he will join a distinguished panel of local practitioners to discuss the challenges of faith and the changing face of science.

What better way to begin the Festival of Lights than with a bit of joyful Jewish folk music? As Jewish families around the world prepare to celebrate Hanukkah, we invite you to join us at the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center for an afternoon of musical delight featuring the Klezkats.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center announces an innovative new collaboration between the museum, University of Arizona’s Center for Digital Humanities, and our local Holocaust survivors – Intimate Histories in 3D.

Both during and after the Holocaust, Yiddish poets turned to writing in order to respond to their grief and anger. In this talk, we'll read and discuss work by some of the Yiddish language's greatest poets, and explore the ways they tried to express the inexpressible, using art as a means of reckoning with the destruction of European Jewish civilization.

Danny Kraft is a poet, educator, and Yiddish translator. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous publications, and been featured by the Academy of American Poets.

Join Professor Ruth Mandel for an exploration of the Stolpersteine - the largest decentralized Holocaust memorial, created by German artist Gunter Demnig. Together, we will consider how remembrance, reconciliation, and the politics of memory continue to shape public understanding of the Holocaust today.

Jewish tradition emphasizes the concept of tikkun olam, the idea that we are each responsible to help repair a broken world. Over the course of our Mending as Metaphor series, participants have explored techniques such as patching, darning, or embroidery to put cherished things back together.

Through the lens of Visible Mending, we’ve focused on process over product. “Good as new” may not be attainable, but we can still repair in a way that restores wholeness and acknowledges an item’s journey and its service – even its scars – so we can enjoy it for years to come.

This riveting combination of two generations of memoirs combines the writings of László “Laci” Weisz and his son Robert Varady recollecting the last half-century of his father’s life and the family’s journey across Europe to the United States. Laci’s survival of the Budapest Ghetto and multiple forced-labor camps, before bringing his family to start over in the US, is a testament to extraordinary survival and ascension.

Join us at Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center on Thursday, September 18 at 6:00 pm for the launch of this inspirational memoir. The book is already for sale at multiple outlets, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. and e-readers.

Jewish tradition emphasizes the concept of tikkun olam, the idea that we are each responsible to help repair a broken world. In many spaces, this manifests in social action, the pursuit of social justice, or more broadly, ethical behavior.

Patching, darning, and visible mending are only some of the ways we can put things back together. While it may be impossible to make something good as new again, we can still repair in a way that restores wholeness and acknowledges an item’s journey and its service – even its scars – so we can enjoy it for years to come.

Jewish tradition emphasizes the concept of tikkun olam, the idea that we are each responsible to help repair a broken world. In many spaces, this manifests in social action, the pursuit of social justice, or more broadly, ethical behavior.

Patching, darning, and visible mending are only some of the ways we can put things back together. While it may be impossible to make something good as new again, we can still repair in a way that restores wholeness and acknowledges an item’s journey and its service – even its scars – so we can enjoy it for years to come.