Arizona
Where stone meets emotion.
Phoenix · Casa Grande · Tucson · Sedona · Colorado City
The Journey
Arizona was part of one of our longest American journeys, nearly a month on the road through Utah and Arizona, with friends joining us along the way.
Standing at the Grand Canyon was one of those experiences we had seen in pictures our entire lives, yet nothing prepared us for actually standing at its edge. The scale was almost impossible to comprehend. It was one of those places where you stop talking and simply look. After a while, you start singing.
One of the greatest moments came at Horseshoe Bend. We sat on the rocks overlooking the Colorado River as the sun went down, watching the colors change across the entire landscape. We hugged as a family and simply took in the moment. It is one of those memories that will always stay with us.
Then came Saguaro National Park, surrounded by enormous cactuses rising out of the desert in every direction. For the girls, seeing so many of these giant cactuses up close was an experience of its own.
Sedona’s enormous red rock formations, colors, and open landscape made parts of it feel almost unreal. Arizona seemed to change around us as we drove, from desert to canyon to red mountains, each landscape more dramatic than the one before it.
And through much of it, we were traveling with friends. That became part of the memory too. Some places stay with you because of what you saw. Others stay with you because of who was standing beside you when you saw it.
Jewish Arizona
Arizona gave me three different sides of Jewish life.
In Tucson, the old Temple Emanu El building on Stone Avenue tells the story of Jews who were here before Arizona was even a state. The synagogue opened in 1910, two years before statehood, and its original building still stands today as the Tucson Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center.
Phoenix and Scottsdale tell the story of Jewish Arizona today. The area has grown into the largest Jewish center in the state, with synagogues, schools, kosher food, Chabad centers, and communities representing almost every part of Jewish life.
Then came Casa Grande, between Phoenix and Tucson, where I visited a new and growing Hasidic community taking root in the Arizona desert. Seeing Hasidic families, a shul, a kollel, schools, and the beginnings of a real community in a place like Casa Grande was remarkable. This was not the remains of an old Jewish settlement. It was a new one being built in front of us.
Together, the three places told the Jewish story of Arizona beautifully: old Jewish roots in Tucson, a thriving modern community in Phoenix, and a new Hasidic community planting roots in the desert.
What Stayed With Me
I have visited Arizona multiple times. It is one of those states that, when my soul calls for somewhere to go, I sometimes find myself returning to.
There is something about the landscape that does that to me.
Once, Charny and I stood alone at the edge of the Grand Canyon, looking out until we suddenly realized that hours had passed and it was almost getting dark. We had simply lost ourselves in the view.
Another time, I sat on a somewhat broken brown bench in Sedona with the girls, all of us squeezed together, with the giant red rock formations rising in front of us. It was the kind of quiet moment that somehow makes the hardships of life feel worthwhile.
That is what stayed with me about Arizona. Stone, desert, canyon, family, silence, and the strange ability of a landscape to reach something much deeper inside you.
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