Week of April 6, 2018
JJ Inside The Print
When it comes to the complicated Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there’s one simple fact that pretty much everyone agrees with: The attempts at a “two-state solution” have...
Last week, sitting under the majestic neo-Renaissance ceiling of Cipriani’s downtown Manhattan restaurant, I listened to speeches about unity, richness in diversity, heroism and humility....
[caption id="attachment_240402" align="aligncenter" width="1945"] Photo from Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Is there anything more Jewish than a debate about debates? I guess there could be a debate...
In November 2014, I moderated a panel on the future of American Jewry at 30 Years After’s fourth biennial Civic Action conference at the Skirball...
This week, the government of Saudi Arabia came under heavy, justified fire for its apparent murder of a Saudi citizen living in the United States,...
I used to enjoy grocery shopping as a pleasant, even relaxing diversion. It was a break from work, a chance to run into friends from...
[caption id="attachment_233906" align="aligncenter" width="5161"] U.S. President Donald Trump displays a presidential memorandum after announcing his intent to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement in...
I know the risk I take when I say anything positive about President Donald Trump in today’s climate of self-congratulatory partisan idiocy. My friends in...
Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are over. We went from fast to feast. I ate enough to last a year....
Adina Elbaz had just celebrated her 16th birthday when she was hit by a minibus on her way to school. Sustaining major head trauma, Elbaz...
[caption id="attachment_240422" align="aligncenter" width="1800"] Lucy Aharish and Tzachi Halevi pose for a photo at their wedding party in Hadera, Israel, on Oct. 11.Photo by Meggie...
[caption id="attachment_240426" align="aligncenter" width="1800"] Craig Taubman in front of the Pico Union Project.[/caption] For musician Craig Taubman, eclecticism has always been the name of the...
It’s deep autumn, and if you made it through this past summer and the Jewish holidays relatively unscathed, good for you. The endless inclement weather,...
One verse, Five Voices. Edited by Salvador Litvak, Accidental Talmudist Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I...
The New Israel Fund (NIF) announced last weekend that UCLA Jewish History Professor David N. Myers has been appointed president of NIF’s board of directors....
Refugees usually arrive in a new country with little to their names, isolated because their language and customs are different. But some refugees who arrive...
Earlier this month, the Burton Sperber Library on American Jewish University’s campus was abuzz with chatter about Galicia, the historic Central European kingdom that straddled...
Under the banner of “Hoops and the Holy Land,” 300 Sinai Temple basketball camp students not only got to meet but also had the opportunity...
Bruce Jay Friedman’s darkly comic play “Steambath” posits a provocative scenario in which a motley crew of recently departed souls discover that the afterlife is a...
Most teenagers have a musical hero: an artist they listen to again and again when they are happy, when they are sad, when they just want...
Civility Is a Casualty in Political Discourse I admit to being a liberal progressive, and thus my political, cultural and social views and values are...
Harkham-GAON Academy held its third annual gala at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Brentwood on Oct. 9. The 2018 gala honorees were Lily and...
I called Amy Ephron, expecting the usual type of interview to take place, presenting one by one the questions I had carefully outlined about her...
The belief in magic harks back to Persia and to the pre-Islamic period of the Zoroastrians. Magi, the term for Zoroastrian priests and learned magicians,...
FRI OCT 19 Pride Shabbat Service The community is invited to a Pride Shabbat service focusing on unity, equality and inclusion for all, regardless of...
[caption id="attachment_240389" align="aligncenter" width="1800"] Halie Soifer[/caption] Most people aren’t in the business of swinging presidential elections at the ripe old age of 30 but Halie...
As the temperatures finally drop here in Southern California and it feels a little bit like fall, you may be in the mood to spruce...