Ryan Torok
Jews for Photography
As part of their Be True project, Jews for Judaism, an international education and outreach organization, is holding its first photo contest. Students ages 10-22 living anywhere in the world can submit photos along with brief descriptions. The theme is: “The Joy of Judaism.”\n
Rabbis Buy JDate Memberships
Three years ago, JDate initiated an unofficial program offering rabbis the chance to purchase memberships at 18 percent off the regular price. Since then, rabbis around the country have been buying in bulk and giving out free JDate memberships to congregants.
Forbearance: a true life in comedy
It’s Thursday night at an Italian restaurant in a Ventura County strip mall. Bruce Fine is standing at the back of a small room where he performs his weekly Las Vegas-style variety show, “The Laugh Pack,” an homage to the Frank Sinatra-Rat Pack genre of the 1960s.
Open-mic night at the Improv
Comedy’s living legends — like Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and Richard Lewis — all started out, at least in part, as nobodies playing The Improv on Melrose Avenue. It’s long been a place committed to showcasing new talent, and these days, every Tuesday at 5 p.m., the storied comedy club hosts a popular open mic for striving comics. It has been running in this time slot for more than two years.
Picks and Clicks for Feb. 27 – Mar. 5, 2010
TribeLive presents “Out on the Bimah: An Open and Honest Conversation With Gay Clergy in Los Angeles,” featuring Rabbis Lisa Edwards (Beth Chayim Chadashim), Denise Eger (Congregation Kol Ami), J.B. Sacks (Academy for Jewish Religion, California), Zachary Shapiro (Temple Akiba) and Jocee Hudson (Temple Israel of Hollywood). The Jewish Journal Managing Editor Susan Freudenheim moderates. Tue. 7:30 p.m. $10. Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills. (213) 368-1661 ext. 251. outonthebimah.eventbritecom.
Jewlicious opts for music and art over religion and politics [VIDEO]
\”If you want to make something where everybody will come together, focus on things that people have in common, [like] love of music,\” said Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, organizer of the Jewlicious Festival. Indeed, music, art and family took center stage last weekend for the three-day, sixth annual Jewlicious, which brought nearly 1,000 people — including Jews of all denominations — from 22 states to Long Beach\’s Alpert Jewish Community Center.
Once More, With Feeling
Peter Wollstein lived in the Shanghai Ghetto when he celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1947. But now, looking back more than six decades later, he says he is unhappy with his Chinese simcha.\n\n“I memorized a couple of prayers, and that was about it,” said Wollstein, whose family fled Nazi Germany prior to the start of the Holocaust. “It wasn’t very demanding.”\n\nWollstein, 75, has become more deeply involved in Jewish life in recent years, and his cursory bar mitzvah in China has inspired him to go back and give it another try. Last year, after the High Holy Days, he joined a class to study for a second, more authentic experience.