Despite our tradition that sets the 13th year as the start of adulthood, 13 is not the end of childhood or the beginning of adulthood. Instead, it is the start of a new stage — teenager. Neither an adult nor child, a teenager is like Dr. Doolittle\’s Push-Me, Pull-You: Sometimes he seems to be pushing toward adulthood, and at other times he is pulling back toward childhood.
Is our culture trying to scam us into having kids?
This is an epic question and I only have 850 words, so let me start close to home, with my grandma.
\”Listen to me,\” she said last week over the phone from Reseda. \”You have to have kids. You\’ll never regret it. It\’s the best thing you\’ll ever do. Listen to your grandma.\”
Catch any celebrity parent on a talk show and you\’re likely to hear the same sentiment about the singularly life-changing effects of parenthood. When Jude Law, Eminem, Denise Richards and Esther Strasser agree on something, you have to give it consideration.
I was raised on Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx by a woman who could have taken Olympic gold in Jewish mothering. Sonia, Abie-the-tailor\’s wife, never stopped fearing for my life.
Rachel Firestone and Michel Grosz, both juniors at Milken Community High School, were among the 26 teenagers across North America to receive 2003 Bronfman Youth Fellowships that entitled them to spend five weeks in Israel this summer.
On Shavuot, we read special sections from the Torah. One of those is the Ten Commandments. The first five are engraved on the right tablet. The second five on the left. The first five, according to the rabbis, fall into the category of commandments \”between humans and God\” — like: Do not make idols or worship other gods. The second five fall into the category of \”between human and human.\” But the commandment \”Honor thy father and mother\” is on the second tablet. Is this a commandment between humans and God?
As a longtime Jewish Community Center (JCC) devotee and one-time Hollywood-Los Feliz director, I find our community\’s possible loss of any part of the JCC system as tragic and appalling (\”Flourish, Not Fail\” and \”JCCs in Jeopardy,\” Nov. 30).
For the past three years, in meetings that often go toward midnight, a handful of local parents, educators and community leaders have been coming together to plan Los Angeles\’ next non-Orthodox Jewish high school.
Now it has come to pass. Late last month, the Core Group, as the parents call themselves, announced the September 2002 opening of the New Community Jewish High School in the West Valley.
The two voices began screaming inside Murray Mednick\’s head the minute he sat down to write a play some years ago. The characters were arguing viciously about money.\n\nThey sounded alarmingly familiar.
First comes love, then comes marriage. But when baby makes three, an interfaith couple has to face hard decisions about their child\’s religious upbringing.
Shirley Levine is a woman with many admirers. She was the founding principal of both Abraham Joshua Heschel Day Schools in Northridge and Agoura and has been dedicated to their success for more than 25 years. Just speak with one of the many parents whose children attend one of the Heschel schools and he or she will be quick to list her talents.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.