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Marlene Adler Marks

Marlene Adler Marks

Men in Black

There in my darkened doorway were two men in black mid-length coats with long, curly beards and black hats; a younger and an older man, with eyes burning so clear and bright that they seemed to be reading from an inner script. There was about their smiling countenances such a sense of purpose, that the word \”messenger\” sprang to mind. They knew and I knew. They had come for me.

New Plagues

Are the Ten Plagues merely a just reward perpetrated against the \”axis of evil\” by a God who is \”on our side\”?

Frequently Asked Questions

I was the oldest child at the Passover table during two decades of social turmoil, and so invariably I was the one to whom questions were directed.

Riordan’s Primary

Say what you will about Richard Riordan\’s abortive primary strategy, and the way he naively stepped into Gov. Gray Davis\’ trap, but Riordan certainly understood one of his key customers: the Jewish electorate. Too bad we\’ll never see the Davis/Riordan face-off that would have told us so much about ourselves.

Sacred Text

Samantha\’s bat mitzvah was seven years ago this weekend. Ki Tisa was her Torah portion. Since then, we\’ve reminisced about the party and the service, but never the point of it all — the sacred text.

Echoes of Esther

The Purim beauty pageant of 1956 is long forgotten in the shtetl that was Queens Village, N.Y. But for me it is the stuff of personal destiny.

A Map Is a Mirror

No one said redistricting is fun. But this once-a-decade political ritual does provide a mirror to how much leverage a community has, or lacks.

On My Mind

The hardest part about writing about brain radiation is writing the words \”brain radiation.\” I assure you that I\’m OK. It\’s my fingers that are typing these words on my computer. It\’s my thoughts that are deciding which of the Yip Harburg lyrics from the Scarecrow\’s song, \”If I Only Had a Brain,\” I should use later in this piece.

The Rabbi’s Wedding

When Rabbi Judith HaLevy of the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue exchanged rings with Edward Toppel of Chicago last Sunday, hope, like the late afternoon winter sun, burned brightly. If remarriage, as the saying goes, is the triumph of optimism over experience, how much more so when the rabbi herself carries white calla lilies?

Judaism From the Bottom Up

One of the most exciting experiments in Jewish transformation is taking place right here in Los Angeles.

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