According to statistics compiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), during 2004 alone, 540 Israelis were deported or about to be deported. If that many Israelis were caught, it stands to reason that there are many thousands more — in Los Angeles as well as the rest of the United States — who have not yet been located by authorities.
Soccer\’s World Cup, played every four years, is being contested in Germany by 32 national teams from all parts of the world. One week of competition has gone by, three weeks to go before the championship game on July 9. The world is riveted. But not the American sports public, which has reacted with its usual collective yawn.
Imagine that you live in Latin America and you\’re Jewish. Typically, you and your family would belong to a full-service Jewish club with cultural, recreational, educational and athletic activities for all ages. The club is reasonably priced, promotes Jewish identity in a secular manner and is the backbone of your social life.
Jewish Tango Cabaret — a performance at the New JCC at Milken in West Hills on Saturday, May 13.
These days, so much depends upon language. One person\’s \”civil war\” is another\’s \”random violence.\” Someone\’s \”unlawful wiretapping\” is someone else\’s \”terrorist surveillance.\”
In that sense, whether you use \”illegal aliens\” or \”undocumented residents\” partly depends on how you view immigration. But whatever your political attitude, if you think that every illegal/undocumented came into the United States guided by a coyote, then think again.
In Los Angeles, as in other American cities where Jews have moved out en masse from their old neighborhoods, they not only left dwellings behind, they also left behind synagogues, social centers, stores and street corners that connected them to a certain time in their lives and to a particular era in their collective past.
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