About 200 women, as well as a couple of men, turned out on Oct. 30 for the first Jewish Women’s Conference, sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women of Los Angeles (NCJW/LA), Hadassah and Na’amat USA, and held at the NCJW/LA headquarters on Fairfax Boulevard.
Last weekend, I was talking to a friend in New York who is a top IT manager for an advertising firm. My friend is in the process of remaking the Web presence for a hair-products conglomerate, and his staff is divided among the firm’s offices in New York, Argentina, Singapore and London. On one level, he told me, it’s not a problem: The work can be shared via the Internet, and group conversations can take place on Skype. But here’s the catch: In order to manage people on three other continents, my friend is working at 2 a.m., 5 a.m., noon, 4 p.m. — around the clock. This isn’t “Mad Men,” with time for two-martini lunches, it’s insanity.
When an e-mail arrived in my inbox recently announcing a public conversation between Gloria Steinem and Mona Eltahawy, I knew I had to be there, even though it was scheduled for midday on a Thursday across town at UCLA’s Hammer Museum.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Israeli Consulate and the Israeli Leadership Council announced Sunday that they are jointly organizing a community program for Tuesday, Oct. 18, to allow the community to come together to watch and commemorate the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held captive by Hamas since 2006.
Wearing a three-piece suit and looking more elder statesman than the artist he is, Art Spiegelman addressed an audience of about 100 at the high-toned Soho House on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood late in the afternoon of Oct. 9. The occasion was the taping of a conversation with book scholar Michael Silverblatt, host of the KCRW public radio program “Bookworm,” who on this occasion was recording for a new online-only program, “UpClose,” which KCRW will edit and then post on the Web on Oct. 19.
Are you hungry? Chances are you’re only a short reach away from your next meal or snack. If you’re reading this on Yom Kippur, your wait is probably longer. But either way, when you say you’re hungry, you probably know where your next meal will come from.
I broke a bone in my foot several weeks ago, and I’ve been limping around in an expensive, ugly boot and shlepping to doctors ever since. A simple slip costs lots of money — happily, not entirely to me. I have health insurance; I’m lucky.
I’m standing in a room with Sheldon G. Adelson, the tough, outspoken billionaire casino magnate. And I’m wondering: Where is he?
I’d love to know if, in the long history of human evil, a great musician ever became a mass murderer. I ask this question because I’ve always had this crazy theory that when someone is busy and obsessed with creating and playing music, he or she doesn’t think about killing other people.
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