\”Do they all have to be Italian?\”
This is the question the network executive asked the creator of \”Everybody Loves Raymond\” as they were casting Ray Romano\’s family.
Whether you live in Colorado, Georgia or California, one thing is certain about life in America today: The violence that seems to be forever happening somewhere else will eventually strike home. You might have thought the shootings and bombings and beatings were always, thankfully, taking place elsewhere. But what they have really been doing is circling closer.
Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg strides through his district offices at a pace usually reserved for a commuter late to catch and early morning flight to Sacramento — a situation with which the busy politician is all too familiar. Here, within the confines of his home turf, his energy bounces off the walls, only slightly contained by his gracious manner.
Some Catholic and Jewish leaders are denouncing a campaign by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center against elevating wartime Pope Pius XII to sainthood.
\”It is disgraceful that there is not a single woman participating in the peace talks. It is disgraceful that there are not more directors general of ministries and chairpersons of government companies,\” said Yael Dayan. \”All we hear are promises, promises, but I hope something will change.\”
My father Illya Pinhkus Kirtsman was born in 1909 in Odessa, Ukraine, the youngest of 11 children. His older sister and brother immigrated to America in 1912. The whole family planned to follow them. It was their dream for many years. In the 1930s, my father received few letters from his American siblings, and only after W.W.II did he establish communication with them again. By this time, only he and his sister Sonia (the 10th child) were alive. When we received a letter, my father took it to a translator (letters were written in Yiddish) and the whole family would listen to the news from America. We kept the door to our apartment locked. My mother was afraid that people from the KGB might come over, see us reading the letters, and put us in jail.
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