A new president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) was inaugurated in a moving ceremony held Oct. 13 in the ornate Plum Street Temple in downtown Cincinnati.
The Republicans ran on terrorism and the Democrats ran on the economy. The Republicans won.
Why is it that the majority of Jews in Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley oppose secession?\n\nThe most recent poll that counted Jewish voters, conducted last July by the Los Angeles Times, found that 57 percent of Jewish voters opposed secession and 34 percent said they were for it, with only 9 percent saying they were undecided.\n\nAlthough the number of Jewish voters was too low to allow for a breakdown of Valley Jews versus city Jews, Susan Pinkus, director of the Times Poll, said that even in the Valley, Jewish voters were strongly against the breakup.\n\n
It has been one year since a financial crisis engulfed the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles (JCCGLA). In response to this crisis, JCCGLA was forced to close facilities, cut services and lay off scores of staff. Programs that served more than 1,000 people were discontinued. It was a very difficult year — but we survived.
Below is an excerpt from a speech delivered by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) at the Shadow Convention in Los Angeles on Aug. 13, 1999. Wellstone, his wife, daughter, three campaign aides and two pilots were killed in a plane crash Oct. 25, see story, p. 18.
The question has been posed to me frequently over the past several months: Is Valley secession \”good for the Jews?\”
Truthfully, it\’s a difficult question to answer. Other current matters are easier to address. Is President Bush good for the Jews? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon certainly thinks so. Are the Dodgers good for the Jews? Shawn Green\’s 42 home runs certainly say so.
But secession? Does it really matter for the Jews of Los Angeles whether they live in one city of 3.35 million people or two cities of 2 million and 1.35 million each?
On the Sept. 30 MSNBC show \”Hardball,\” Chris Matthews hosted a debate between Pat Buchanan and Republican political analyst David Frum. Buchanan opposed a United States-led invasion of Iraq, while Frum supported President George W. Bush\’s plan for tough inspections first followed by — if those inspections fail — the forceful removal of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power.
The issue of evangelical Christian churches attempting to convert Jews has arisen once again — this time as an accompaniment to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert\’s acceptance of a $500,000 gift from a church in San Diego.
Instead of finding relief, I\’ve been much reminded of life back home.
As a historian of Jewish-Christian relations in Germany, and as a professor who has taught at several German universities, hostility toward Jews and Judaism in university settings is certainly nothing new to me.
