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Picture of David Margolis

David Margolis

The Master Class

Not all of them were Jewish, but they were definitely the chosen people — five Los Angeles and 33 Israeli film students brought together for a two-week \”master class\” in screenwriting at Tel Aviv University. Held under the auspices of the Tel Aviv-Los Angeles partnership, the class was designed to give a boost to Israel\’s film industry by improving the capabilities of Israel\’s future scriptwriters. A further aim — a subtext, to use the screenwriting term — was to strengthen sympathy for Israel among American film professionals.

Israel On Broadway

Rabbi David J. Forman, who has lived in Jerusalem for more than 25 years, goes on to claim that his message, while it may seem an all-out attack on liberal Judaism, represents the views of \”a vast number\” of Reform professionals in America.

Focus on Forensics

Barry Fisher, director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff\’s Department crime laboratory, showed up in Jerusalem this week, invited by the Israeli Police Department to give a couple of lectures and the benefit of his 30 years\’ experience to the forensics people of the Jewish state. In a wood-paneled room at National Police Headquarters, along with about 25 Israeli police officers, I caught his second lecture, \”Forensic Science After O.J. Simpson.\” (I will assume that, despite so many breathlessly absorbing high-profile murders and sex scandals since then, you still vaguely remember O.J. Simpson.)

On Guard in the West Bank

Is this me? Eight o\’clock on a Tuesday evening, I\’m strolling down the ordinary street of my town, carrying an M-16 rifle. Tonight, it\’s my turn again to do shmirah, guard duty, a chore required about once a month of every male resident here at Beit Yattir, the West Bank village where I live part time.

The Young Leaders

Israel is on its way to becoming a back-burner issue in much of the American Jewish community. Studies show that the younger the Jew, the less connection he or she feels to what is, let\’s try to remember, the Jewish homeland. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which used to give Israel 50 percent of the funds it raised, has cut that figure by nearly half. One of the Federation\’s \”old leaders\” pointed out to me that Israel isn\’t even mentioned any more in Federation advertising — it\’s bad for business. Israel has become a wormy apple for many American Jews — all this unpleasantness with the Palestinians and, on top of that, a hot, fuming plateful of disrespect for Conservative and Reform rabbis and the Judaism they practice.

Making the Miracle

I heard the following anecdote from Menachem Perlmutter, who was there when it happened. David Ben-Gurion, Israel\’s founding father and first prime minister, was visiting a settlement in the Negev. As he was being shown around, he pointed in one direction and said, \”I would like to see orchards here;\” further along, he gestured again and said, \”Here I would like to see vegetables.\”

Mideast

A couple of months ago, Dov Dribben, age 28, was clubbed and shot to death by Palestinian Arabs on a tract of Israeli \”government land\” attached to the West Bank settlement of Maon, about 40 miles south of Jerusalem.

Getting Stoned

I was in the back seat looking in theother direction, so I did not actually see the young Palestinian who,from an elevation at the side of the road, lofted a block of concreteabout 10 inches in diameter in our direction. He made an almostperfect hit, near midpoint on the front windshield. Thunk!

Missing America

And why, oh why, entreat the Americans, did weever leave a country full of discount stores to move to one withbadly made goods at high prices, a 17 percent sales tax, a separateannual tax on your television, and fees for the \”free\” publiceducation of your children?

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