Who are your readers, a friend asked me recently. He is not Jewish, which perhaps explains the question.I gave a pat answer: Young and old; men and women; observant and secular; liberal and conservative; survivors and their offspring; families that often trace their history through three generations. The usual; you\’ve met them all. I waved away the question.
From a Jewish perspective, this past week in Los Angeles was a tremendous success. Among other things, it tended to confirm the influential role of the Jewish community in L.A. From the parties that President Clinton attended to the panelists at the Shadow Convention who derided and dogged the very proceedings at Staples Center, Jewish organizations and activists were dominant figures.
We now can see that the talks were probably doomed from the beginning. A dream, worth the effort for some, to be denounced by others, is now behind us.
There is a sense at this moment that \”time has stopped.\” That all political voices have become silent, in Israel no less than in the United States, while Messrs. Arafat, Barak and Clinton struggle over language, issues and principles in an effort to reach a peace agreement.
The charge of spying on its face appeared so preposterous that it has drawn widespread condemnation – from an international community that has not often sided with Israel.
The first report on Assad\’s death caught me by surprise. It was from Eric Silver, our Jerusalem correspondent (see page 20), and it recounted his interview with the former chief rabbi of Syria, Avraham Hamra, who now lives in Israel.
Deep down I knew that I had begun, quite consciously, the difficult task of becoming my own person, and wanted time and space in which to sort things out. At camp, without much effort, I had that chance.
My first and only experience at summer camp was magical, or so it seemed to me. I entered a world I had never known before, and by summer\’s end had gained some recognition into who I was and who I was not. No mean feat at 13.
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