Caped Crusaders
May 16, 2002
The $114 million opening weekend for the release of \”Spider-Man\” on May 3 was not only a box office record breaker but a resounding triumph for two wily Israeli entrepreneurs.
Ruth Andrew Ellenson
The Faces Behind Fairfax
February 28, 2002
Ask Boris Dralyuk about his student days at Fairfax High School and the impish young man with startlingly blue eyes will mockingly compare himself to one of the great anti-heroes of literature. \”I know about the experiences of Saul Bellow\’s Augie March and the little Jewish kids growing up in tough urban areas, but Los Angeles is not one of those places. There is very little in common between the Lower East Side and Los Angeles. It\’s not a battle to grow up here. It is not a struggle.\”
Watching Big Brother
January 24, 2002
In the culmination of what has been a tumultuous year for the Jewish Big Brothers (JBB) of Los Angeles, Executive Director Jeff Kahn stepped down from his position last week to serve as interim director until a replacement is found.
The Secret History
November 15, 2001
\”The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People,\” by Jonathan Kirsch (Viking Press, $14.95).
Jonathan Kirsch lives a double life that many lawyers only dream of.
‘Sea’ Changes Tide
October 18, 2001
In recent years, Israeli writer Amos Oz has become as well-known for his liberal political views as for his fiction. In his newest book, \”The Same Sea,\” he has created a novel infused with literary artistry that never directly addresses politics, but allows them to hover undiscussed in the corners of his character\’s lives. \”The Same Sea,\” a complex weaving of narratives written in verse and prose about a family coping with loss, features Oz himself as \”The Narrator,\” and he reveals for the first time the suicide of his mother when he was 12. The immense vulnerability Oz describes in himself also drives all of his characters in \”The Same Sea.\”
Holy Land Exploration
September 27, 2001
In a compelling collection of 19th and 20th century images and objects, the Skirball Cultural Center\’s new exhibit of photographs, lithographs and archaeological artifacts tells the story of Israel as, literally, a \”holy land\” — a place that has long held fascination for the three monotheistic faiths, academics and Western tourists hoping to discover the exotic world of the East.
A Citizen of Jerusalem
September 13, 2001
In His New Book, \”At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden\” (William Morrow, 2001), Yossi Klein Halevi, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Jerusalem Report and The New Republic, chronicles his journey as a Jew searching for understanding of Christianity and Islam in Israel.
Finding the Perfect Match
August 16, 2001
As the end of summer nears, a new exhibit offers a glimpse into the world of one of the most sacred and ritualized events in Judaism: the wedding.
Coastal Divide
May 31, 2001
As the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (ZSRS) at the University of Judaism (UJ) in Los Angeles completes its fifth year, it marks not only a transition within Conservative Judaism but the emergence of Los Angeles as a center for Jewish intellectual life. While it used to be that the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York City was the one center for training Conservative Rabbis (with the University of Judaism as an appendix established in 1947), the development of the ZSRS reflects a maturation of the UJ as its own entity, much like a younger sibling emerging from the shadows of an accomplished older child.
Virtual Schmooze
March 8, 2001
We all hear rumblings about a global community, but a global schmooze? That\’s just what the Jewish Community Centers of North America, in conjunction with the 92nd Street Y in New York City, propose to execute. Starting on Sun., March 11, the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles will host an innovative new lecture series through Kallah — a program sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and supported by the Charles and Dora Mesnick Cultural Arts Fund — by bringing such speakers as Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel and Anne Roiphe to you live, via satellite. The lectures will be broadcast from the 92nd Street Y in New York City directly to JCCs across the nation, allowing participants to ask questions to their lecturers in real time for what is being termed a \”virtual gathering.\”
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