Israel in the Valley
So 40,000 people can\’t be wrong, right? That\’s how many people are expected to attend next week\’s 53rd Annual Israel Independence Day Festival.
So 40,000 people can\’t be wrong, right? That\’s how many people are expected to attend next week\’s 53rd Annual Israel Independence Day Festival.
Following a series of events in my life that served as a wake-up call, I returned to Judaism after nearly six decades of estrangement.
Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian legislator and spokeswoman, a few weeks ago publicized an open letter from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon informing all Palestinians, \”You are my target; you will be made to suffer, and you shall pay for the original crime of being a Palestinian.\”
It\’s a busy Friday night in Encino and Avner Sharoni, owner of Tempo restaurant, is running behind — otherwise known as operating on Israeli time.
Some birthdays are better than others, and number 53 is especially tough for Israel.
Last week\’s Yom HaShoah observances in Los Angeles demonstrated that as new generations of Jews mark the day with no personal memories of the Holocaust, themes and practices evolve to ensure that 6 million Jews are not forgotten.
Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman\’s art-filled home on a quiet, verdant Brentwood street is a world away from the gritty industrial world in which he lived as a child during the Depression and again as a young man on the cusp of World War II. But it\’s his experiences in that world of assembly-line workers that led him to the rabbinate and to his 52 years in Los Angeles.
It is a bright, sunny day at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services. In her office, medical director Dr. Susan Schmidt-Lackner is sitting on the floor with one of her young patients — not an easy feat for a tall woman in a long skirt, but the doctor is more interested in the little boy than in her own comfort. The child\’s mother, seated nearby, recounts her concerns, such as how her son can\’t tolerate the texture of most foods and is subsisting on a diet of McDonald\’s Happy Meals.
Alvin Schrage knows what it means to shlep. Every weekday he gathers his three children into his Plymouth Voyager and makes the commute from their Agoura home to Emek Hebrew Academy in Sherman Oaks.