Hundreds of Angelenos crowded the University of Judaism on two separate evenings late last month, as two researchers from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum told a tale as compelling as any Hollywood film.
During the past few months, I have had contact with a friendly pastor, who is sincerely concerned about the future of the Jewish people both here and in Israel.
\”The World Festival of Sacred Music–The Americas,\” a 9-day multicultural program initiated by his holiness the Dalai Lama, kicks off this weekend with a mind-boggling schedule of over eighty concerts and \”musical happenings\” that cover an eclectic range of styles and ethnicities of almost anything that can broadly be called \”sacred\” in places where you might not expect them.
Can music be a catalyst for peace in the Middle East? His Holiness the Dalai Lama thinks so, and he\’s not alone.
From his office in Pico-Robertson, Ephraim Moxson counts Jewish professional athletes. There are five playing in the National Hockey League, a couple in the National Basketball Assn., four in the National Football League. But in Major League Baseball, there will be, by the end of 1999, 11 Jewish ballplayers. \”That\’s more than any decade, even the 1960s,\” says Moxson, co-publisher of the Jewish Sports Review.\nWhich raises two questions: Why so many Jews in the majors? And why should we care?
Some advice for the new year: Don\’t get into trouble in New Jersey. The judges there are really tough.\nHow tough? Well, they\’ve got Barry Fisher rattled, and that isn\’t easy. A Los Angeles human-rights lawyer, Fisher has tussled with some of the toughest of the tough. But those New Jersey judges are something else.\n\nLast week, two federal judges in Newark separately decided to throw two Holocaust-related lawsuits out of court. Kaput. Both cases were class-action lawsuits by Holocaust survivors against German companies that used them as slave laborers. Both judges decided, for different reasons, that the cases couldn\’t be tried in court. This could be trouble.
I read Gary Rosenblatt\’s indictment of Los Angeles\’ rabbinate with some unease. It did not square with my understanding of what had occurred in the aftermath of the shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills. Accounts from our reporter, Julie Gruenbaum Fax, suggested that the community as a whole, the rabbis included, had come forward to lend support, both moral and practical. However, it was his view that the 100,000-plus readers of The Jewish Week of New York took away from the events of that tragic day.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak\’s cozy late-night dinner with Yasser Arafat and some of the Palestinian leaders\’ top aides at a private home near Tel Aviv came as a pleasant surprise to Middle East peace watchers.
This Sunday, from noon to 5 p.m., as Bergamot takes note of its fifth anniversary, at least 20,000 are again expected to turn out for the occasion.
When painful loss occurs in our lives, we want to make some sense of it: Why did she get so sick? Why did I lose my livelihood? Why can\’t we conceive a child? Why did he die? In his new book, \”Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times\” (Riverhead Books, $23.95), David Wolpe, author and rabbi of Sinai Temple in Westwood, begins by asserting that during periods of great pain, we tend to ask the wrong questions. Whether consciously or not, we search in vain for an answer to the plaintive \”why\” in order to gain some measure of control over what has made us so powerless.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.