Adding to the litany of heartbreak, the outbreak that we would soon call the Second Lebanon War erupted more than a week before the accompanying photo was taken in my friend\’s backyard in the biblical landscape of the Western Galilee village of Clil.
When you have spent time away from what feels like a Jewish home, Los Angeles becomes the new Israel. Los Angeles is a gateway to the prospect of positive Jewish American identity. There is a fearlessness to the Hebrew on the walls, the Jewish labor movement mural on the building. There is a fearlessness to having a kosher Subway sandwich shop.
\”It\’s become cool to be Jewish,\” says comedian Eric Schwartz, a.k.a. Smooth E., before he quotes one of his own songs, \”Jewish is trendy, Jewish is fun, it took 2,000 years, but it finally caught on!\”
David and I looked at each other. Did everyone know each other already? This was about to become a junior-high nightmare. Friends were sitting with friends, and no one was sitting with us. At least we weren\’t naked.
Even though I can readily explain the concept of the World to Come (\”Did you hear the one about the rabbi in heaven posted next to the blonde in the bikini?\”), eschatology isn\’t my really my strong point, and I\’m not sure it\’s the point of Judaism.
Labor Day weekend, I went on a pilgrimage, with my girlfriend, Sue Ellen, to a vast, very dry, very dusty and, as it was the end of the summer, sizzling hot lake bed on the outskirts of Black Rock, Nev., approximately two hours northeast of Reno, to hang with some friends and meet new friends at the annual Burning Man festival.The festival is a celebration of counterculture, music, art, theater, theatrics and individual self-expression, where anything and everything goes, except commerce, which is not allowed.
The Jews of Shanghai, fleeing Nazi persecution, thousands of Jews journeyed halfway around the world to the sanctuary offered by Shanghai\’s unique status as a free trade city.
Beth Shalom has become the spiritual home of a growing group of Hispanics who have recently converted, or are in the process of doing so.
An exhibit commemorating the American and Canadian volunteers who had fought in Israel\’s War of Independence in 1947-1949 and manned the \”illegal\” Aliyah Bet ships carrying refugees to the Jewish state.
According to statistics compiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), during 2004 alone, 540 Israelis were deported or about to be deported. If that many Israelis were caught, it stands to reason that there are many thousands more — in Los Angeles as well as the rest of the United States — who have not yet been located by authorities.
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