Think kosher food, and you think blintzes, kishke, brisket, tsimmes, matzo balls, corned beef on rye.\n\nYou don\’t immediately think of fajitas, smoked-salmon quiche, turkey burgers with onion rings, rosemary-grilled breast of chicken with braised leeks and forest mushrooms, or flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.
Following an intensive, three-year fund-raising campaign, augmented by government aid, BBI has moved from \”rubble to renewal\” and from \”dream to reality,\” according to the invitation to the Sept. 14 event.
I confess. I have some prejudices. Example: I want my children to marry Jews. Beyond that, I am comfortable with other people. I try to avoid racial humor, even when there is a good punch line. I\’m a clinical psychologist and a professor, and I serve a multicultural population. Prejudice is not my thing.
Among the Southland\’s some 1,500 Yemenite Jews, \”a conservative estimate is that every third or fourth family has a connection,\” says Eli Attar, 46, the president of Solomon\’s Children, a Yemenite activist group.
When my kids were still preschoolers,young enough to be influenced by my every word, I used to have this spiel about marrying out of Judaism. It went something like this:\”It\’s an insult to the 6 million who died only because they were Jewish.\” I figured that you can\’t start early enough on the road to the chuppah. Now, both of my children are chuppah material. And I am spiel-less.
Blythe Danner, David Lascher and Kevin Zegers star in \”A Call to Remember.\”In \”A Call to Remember,\” which airs on Aug. 30 on STARZ! and Aug. 31 on the encore cable channel, we meet David and Paula Tobias (Joe Mantegna and Blythe Danner), survivors who lost their first spouses and children in the Holocaust. They are, nevertheless, attempting the semblance of a normal life in suburbia, raising two boys who want only to assimilate, to become Americans. The younger ditches bar mitzvah practice for Little League; the older brother yearns to move out of his parents\’ home and partake of the 1960s counterculture. Then comes the telephone call that will change their lives forever. Paula learns that one of her lost sons is, in fact, alive and living in Poland. The aftermath nearly tears the family apart.\n
\nIn Rabbi Michael Katz\’s office at Cal State Northridge Hillel hanga \”Star Trek\” poster and a picture of Binyamin Netanyahu. There\’salso a futon — not your basic college-issue office furniture.
Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin will once again be joined by JonVoight (left) and Jan Murray (right), at Chabad\’s annual telethon. As sure as the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, the dancing rabbis are returning to TV stations nationwide for the annual Chabad telethon. Nothing in modern culture quite compares, or quite illustrates just how topsy-turvy modern culture can be: Here are Orthodox rabbis in traditional 17th-century Polish noble garb dancing with Hollywood stars in Armani suits, espousing lines of ancient Torah via the most advanced satellite technology, giving a centuries-old pitch for charity, and taking payment via credit card.What a wonderful world….\n\nThis year\’s telethon will take place on Sunday, Sept. 7, from 5p.m. to midnight, on UPN Channel 13. Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, theWest Coast director of Chabad and founder of the telethon 17 yearsago, will lead the marathon endeavor, and comedian Freddie Roman willhost. Among the stars slated to show up — and eventually dance withthe rabbis — are James Caan, Mayim Bialik, Tony Curtis, Sid Caesar,Fyvush Finkel, Estelle Getty, Jan Murray, Tony Danza, Judd Nelson,Jon Voight, Regis Philbin, Edward James Olmos, Shelley Winters, theLimelighters, the Tokens and Ed Ames. Producer Jerry Weintraub ischairman of the event.
To some of us who were in college in the early 1960s, the nameTom Lehrer comes, in our pantheon, just below the Almighty andsomewhere above the Beatles.
Ronald Weiner sits on a bench in a serene Beverly Hills park on a perfect, sunny day, filled with rage and frustration. He\’s shaking, his fingers tremble, and his voice cracks with every other sentence. The source of his anger is the city in which he sits. For the past year, Beverly Hills has thwarted Weiner\’s efforts to build a large senior-housing project on property he owns.\n
