Despite plans that could have led to the closure of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion\’s School of Jewish Communal Service in Los Angeles, the board of governors decided Tuesday to keep admissions open for the 2010-2011 school year.

After almost two years of proposals, hearing and protests, the Museum of Tolerance\’s planned expansion received unanimous approval today from the City Council.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other city officials joined with leaders of the Jewish community and pro-Israel demonstrators this week in a show of solidarity with Israel during its Gaza operation.

\”[Israel] must act against the Hamas leaders targeting the innocent. And it must be allowed to exercise its right and responsibility to defend itself,\” Villaraigosa said Monday.

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A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last week dismissed the criminal case against four Iranian American Jews. One woman and three men were accused of kidnapping and holding for ransom a man the defendants claimed had cheated them out of $100,000 in a business deal.

\” . . . People are thinking psychologically that they are poor, or less wealthy, so it creates this difficulty for institutions to raise basic capital, as well as operational monies . . . \”

Kevin MacDonald had just completed the first in a series of books that would come to define him.MacDonald, 64, has been deemed America\’s \”foremost anti-Semitic thinker\” by civil rights experts.

Aragon was a notorious fighter who relished packing the Grand Olympic Auditorium downtown and bringing the crowd to its feet, not with cheering but raucous booing.

A group of blacks and Jews have in recent months sought to rekindle a decades-old friendship in hopes of fostering better relations among their broader communities. Sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), First AME Church, the Brotherhood Crusade and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an interfaith seder became the object of much anticipation earlier this month after one of its organizers was accused of being an anti-Semite.