Real estate developer Sev Aszkenazy recently settled a lawsuit with the city of San Fernando over a liquor permit he was denied for a planned steak house. He said the denial was due, in part, to anti-Semitic bias.
In the stark black-and-white photo, two small children play in and around water, as children anywhere might do on a hot day. But there\’s something odd about the image: it isn\’t the shore or a recreational pool they\’re playing in, but a concrete irrigation canal.
If you\’re heading down Mexico way, all the way down to Oaxaca, you should know about a bed and breakfast there called Casa Machaya. The name is a sly Jewish reference, a wink at potential clients for the B & B: That\’s right, it\’s not meant to be the Spanish \”ch,\” as in \”change,\” but a guttural \”ch,\” as in mechaya, Yiddish for \”joy.\”
Practitioners of world music are constantly exploring ways to fuse disparate musical strains in new and interesting ways. Given all that, it should not be a surprise that there is a new group that combines klezmer with salsa. Odessa/Havana — \”The Explosive Jewish/Cuban Musical Mash-Up\” — a musical project that brings together these two musical traditions in a jazz context will perform at the Skirball Cultural Center at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 29.
In the 1950s, a few years after Yiddish culture in Europe had been decimated, there was a bustling metropolis in the Western Hemisphere that still had a thriving Yiddish culture. This city had a number of schools in which classes were taught in Yiddish; there was an active theatrical scene, a couple of daily newspapers, books, literary magazines, songs and musicals — all in Yiddish. There were Yiddish comedians, as well as cafes where Yiddish-speakers gathered to chat and drink tea with a bissel (little) lemon. And there were vacation resorts, a few hours\’ drive from the city, where Yiddish was regularly heard. New York? Montreal? Actually, Buenos Aires.
So, this past summer, I made the rounds of alternative synagogues, minyans and chavurot in Los Angeles, to see whether any spoke to me. I visited more than a dozen places that aspire to the spiritual life I associate with the 1960s: They\’re egalitarian, inclusive, committed to social action and steeped in music. They seek joyful experience instead of dogma, connection to one another and the outside world rather than status, healing instead of judgment and passionate involvement rather than merely showing up and mouthing prayers.
\”Master Blaster\” Michael Chusid got down on his knees so he could face Ida and Shirley, who sat on a couch at Encino Retirement Home. In Chusid\’s left hand was a shofar, his spiritual/musical instrument and constant companion during the High Holy Days.
Herb Goldberg has now returned to his lifelong themes in the recently published, \”What Men Still Don\’t Know About Women, Relationships, and Love\” (Barricade Books, 2007).
This was the high-energy moment, the \”money shot\” of an outreach program run by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS). Attended by about 700 fourth- and fifth-graders from Jewish day schools and their counterparts from several largely Latino mid-Valley elementary schools, the concert on April 16 was the culminating event after a series of classroom workshops focusing on connections between Latino and Sephardic music.
When Dr. Rick Hodes prepares a to-do list, it doesn\’t look like anybody else\’s.
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