While some synagogue sanctuaries are adorned with fresh flowers, the bimah of Temple Beth Hillel in Valley Village is lined with towers of fresh apples and oranges. Although the décor, devised by Leslye Adelman, is stylish, it is also functional.
Armin Szatmary takes his membership in the “People of the Book” very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that once per week, for 15 years, the 73-year-old retired salesman has set aside time to help illiterate kids in Los Angeles’ public schools learn to read.
For the past seven years, Leon Shkrab, 67, has volunteered every week at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, conducting intake interviews in Russian with Holocaust survivors who are applying for Holocaust reparations through the representation of lawyers at the pro bono law firm.
Wendy Colman Levin spoke with quiet intensity about the people who have touched her during her four-and-a-half years as an advocate on behalf of the homeless, among them the young woman who was thrown out of her childhood home when she told her stepfather that her stepbrothers were raping her, and the middle-aged man who spiraled into street life after his wife died of cancer.
Maybe the problem with Washington isn’t that there’s too little comity – there’s too much.
Pinpointing what makes people so passionate about Israel is no easy thing, perhaps because there are so many options.
Last month, for our seventh-annual mensch list, we again invited all of you to submit your nominations of extraordinary volunteers, and again the outpouring of suggestions of amazing people was overwhelming.
Often, when someone is coping with an extraordinary loss, the feelings can be all-encompassing. When Paulinda Schimmel Babbini’s daughter, Robin, died of ovarian cancer at the age of 20, instead of letting the tragic death immobilize her, Babbini made it her mission that no one else should go through what she had.
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