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Picture of Diane Arieff

Diane Arieff

Multimedia Ode to Jerusalem

The mood in the Jewish state may not be one ofcelebration at the moment, but plans to commemorate the country\’supcoming 50th birthday continue, both in Israel and right here in LosAngeles. One of the more unique cultural offerings to be presentedlocally will be \”Jerusalem — A Mystical Journey,\” a newdance-theater piece to be performed by the Keshet Chaim DanceEnsemble on Feb. 21 and 22.

PhotographyImages from the Territory of Belief

In the company of his friend, fellow world traveler and photographer Maxime du Camp, French novelist Gustave Flaubert visited Jerusalem in 1850. The urbane and sophisticated Flaubert was decidedly unimpressed with this crumbling backwater of the Ottoman Empire: \”Jerusalem stands as a fortress; here the old religions silent rot away. One treads on dung; ruins surround you wherever your eyes wander — a very sad and sorry picture.\”

That same year, a Rev. George Wilson Bridges also made his way tothe Holy City. An English cleric and an amateur photographer, Bridges and his young son traveled through Palestine as part of a seven-year journey around the Mediterranean and the East. Bridges undertook the journey as a form of solace: He had just buried his wife and daughter in Jamaica — victims of a tropical fever they contracted while the reverend was there doing missionary work. Steeped as he was in grief and religious conviction, Bridges found that Jerusalem\’s atmosphere of melancholia and desolation suited him. \”What sight,\” he observed after witnessing Jews praying at the Western Wall, \”even in this wondrous city, so touching, so impressive as this — Jews mourning the ruins of Jerusalem….\”

The Chief of Staff

Abraham Joshua Heschel said that he prayed for one thing: the gift of wonder. He prayed for astonishment, for the capacity to be surprised. As he wrote, \”I try not to be stale. I try to remain young. I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendouslysurprised at life and at ideas. This is to me the supreme Chassidic imperative.\”

Canadian Corn

Like some of his Jewish contemporaries to the south, Canadian novelist Mordechai Richler has mined a literary career from the fertile terrain of assimilationist Jewish culture, most notably inbooks such as \”The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz\” and \”Joshua Then and Now.\”

Jewish Life on Film

If Los Angeles is the nation\’s undisputed film capital, in recent months it also seems eligible for the title of the Jewish film capital, and that is largely because of the efforts of the Laemmle Theatres organization. Laemmle\’s played host to the recent Israeli Film Festival and to its own screenings of independent films of Jewish interest throughout the year.

A Hole in Kosher L.A.

By deciding to introduce meat products into its formerly all-dairy outlets, Noah\’s Bagels has provoked a strong response from observant Jewish noshers

Haute Kosher

Combine ancient laws of kashrut with the finest chefs from Europe and the United States. Mix well. Stir in a couple of Israeli mashgiachs and a liberal splash of French artistic temperament.Season to taste with Hebrew, English and Italian.

Tummeling

Before Carl Reiner invented the \”Dick Van Dyke Show\” and thetemperamental, toupee-clad Alan Brady, before Mel Brooks was aYiddish-spouting Indian chief in \”Blazing Saddles,\” indeed, beforethe dawn of Christianity, there was The 2000 Year Old Man.

Spectator

Apples and honey, a spinning dreidel, a Red Sea parted — all thevivid highlights in the Jewish holiday cycle — get their due in thislively assemblage of poems, fables, stories, traditional songs andbrief forays into history and custom.

The City by

Once-sleepy Haifa is now a tourist mecca, and MayorAmram Mitzna is spreading the word

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