Volunteers spent five hours uprooting dead trees and planting new ones; setting up herb planters in front of stores; repainting curbs, poles and fire hydrants; sweeping mulch and dirt off the sidewalks; and lugging heavy garbage bags in the predominantly Orthodox neighborhood of Pico-Robertson in West Los Angeles.
On Oct. 30, as talk-show host Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive take place in Washington, D.C., they will be simulcast at a Los Angeles rally at the Levitt Pavilion at MacArthur Park.
The San Gabriel and Pomona valleys’ 12th annual Jewish Book Festival opens tonight with Sheryll Bellman discussing her travelogue and recipe book, “America’s Great Delis: Recipes & Traditions From Coast to Coast,” at Temple Beth Israel. Other scheduled appearances include Annie Korzen (“Bargain Junkie: Living the Good Life on the Cheap”), Nov. 3, Temple Beth Israel; Rabbi Naomi Levy (“Hope Will Find You”), Nov. 4, Temple Ami Shalom; Robert K. Tanenbaum (“Betrayed”), Nov. 7, Beth Shalom of Whittier; and Jake Ehrenreich (“A Jew Grows in Brooklyn”), Nov. 20, Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center. Sheryll Bellman: Sat. 7:30 p.m. $18 (advance), $20 (door). Temple Beth Israel, 3033 N. Towne Ave., Pomona. Through Nov. 30. Various times, locations and prices for other appearances. (626) 445-0810. jewishsgpv.org.
The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual Holocaust Education Workshop, which emphasizes Holocaust education in the classroom and will feature four sessions Nov. 3-10, will, for the first time, overlap with “Bearing Witness,” the organization’s long-running, three-day workshop for Catholic-school teachers, seminarians and priests, which takes place Nov. 7-9.
In the introduction to his new book about volunteering, “Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins” (Hudson Street Press), Big Sunday founder and executive director David Levinson warns readers not to mistake him for a good person.
“Worth a Thousand Words: Images of Jewish Reinvention on American’s Pacific Edge” brings together Ellen Eisenberg, Ava F. Kahn and William Toll, co-authors of “Jews of the Pacific Coast: Reinventing Community on America’s Edge,” for a lecture and slideshow examining the Jewish social impact on the West Coast from the 1800s to the present. The event kicks off with a reception and book signing. Tue. 4:30-7 p.m. Free. Loyola Marymount University, University Hall 1000, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles. (310) 338-2806. lmu.edu.