\”Looking at what\’s happening locally and nationally, we\’ve found that fewer teen boys enroll in informal Jewish activities than they did in previous years,\” said Lori Harrison Port, senior associate director for planning and allocations at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.
Michael Chorost climbs the flight of stairs to a room filled with metal file cabinets. He\’s never been to this place before, but he\’s greeted like a long lost relative. A smiling woman hands him what he has come to see: file No. 27392.
Hearing Loss Helps Writer Find Voice
Like many native Angelenos, Ilene Feder has never been to the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena. However, the Studio City resident not only will be attending the New Year\’s day festivities on Monday, Jan. 2, for the 118th Rose Parade, but will have a vantage point few get to experience: She\’ll be riding on a float.
A lively, heartfelt tribute to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin brought more than 400 people to the University of Judaism to mark the 10th year since an assassin took his life.
When California voters passed a $3 billion stem cell research initiative, they not only opened the door to medical advances but also to a collaboration with scientists from Israel, which is an established leader in the field.
To seed that partnership, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recently hosted a two-day symposium that attracted more than 300 physicians, scientists, bioethicists and entrepreneurs.
In the five years since Priddy\’s father passed away, portable defibrillators (also called automated external defibrillators) have become increasingly common in public venues.
In the summer of 2002, Liza Wohlberg had no idea that her life was about to irrevocably change. The 7-year-old, who loved to dance and play with her dog, was enjoying the summer vacation between first and second grade. On a family trip to Canada, Liza\’s mother, Terry, noticed that her daughter couldn\’t seem to get enough to drink. When the problem persisted, Terry took Liza to the pediatrician. She was immediately diagnosed with juvenile-onset (type 1) diabetes.
This is not your grandmother\’s Jewish music. Like other recent Jewish parody CDs, \”Meshugeneh Mambo\” carries on the tradition of Jewish humor popularized by such forbearers as Mickey Katz and Allan Sherman.
George Smith hates to lose. A Harvard Business School graduate, Smith founded one of Southern California\’s largest, most prominent real estate investment banking firms and will receive an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University next week. Still, he smarts a little from a grievance endured at Hamilton High more than 50 years ago.
\”I graduated second in my class to a home economics major,\” said the 70-year-old real estate guru and father of four. \”She had one B in three years and I had two. My physics teacher graded me at a different level than anyone else because she knew I was going on to Cal Tech.\”
He holds no grudge. And this small injustice would help to fuel rather than blunt his drive to succeed, which has served Smith well in building a firm that exceeded $2 billion in commercial financing last year. He never imagined that he\’d also apply this indomitable will another way: in a fight to save his daughter\’s life.
Becca Smith was 5 years old in 1983 when she was diagnosed with Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T), a rare, progressively degenerative neurological disease for which there is no cure. Children with A-T have difficulty walking and with balance, and are more susceptible to infection and certain cancers. Smith and his wife, Pam, were told that Becca was unlikely to reach her 20th birthday.
Rabbi Toba August likes to accentuate the positive, and the new year is no exception.
\”Too often for the High Holidays, we\’re told about our shortcomings,\” August said. \”I want to concentrate on what we\’re doing right…. We don\’t recognize the things we do that matter. I want us to walk out of services feeling elevated and validated and renewed.\”
August has reason to focus on the positive, because this summer she was made the principal spiritual leader of Adat Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in West Los Angeles. Currently, August is one of only two women to head a longstanding Conservative congregation in Los Angeles. (The other is Rabbi Sally Olins of Temple Bnai Hayim in Sherman Oaks.) Her appointment comes just as the Conservative movement is grappling with the disparity of women rabbis in the movement.
Once upon a time, children didn\’t step into a classroom until kindergarten. There, 5-year-olds got their first real introduction to ABCs and 123s, colors and shapes and how to share and take turns.
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