Neighbors for a Safe Environment (NASE) won a round April 18 in its ongoing battle with an oil company that wants to expand operations at a site in the Pico-Robertson area.
As more than 1,500 people gathered at Adat Ari El in Valley Village to commemorate Yom HaZikaron (Israel\’s Memorial Day) in an April 24 ceremony hosted by the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, neither an empty seat nor a dry eye was to be found.
Honesty, morality and ethical behavior — these are the calling cards of Leviticus, and they are the centerpieces of Jewish behavior and identity. Amongst the mitzvot enumerated in Leviticus 19 (known by some scholars as the \”Holiness Code\”) are respect for parents, charity for the poor, prohibitions against stealing and lying, a reminder to pay an employee\’s wages on time, the moral obligation not to take advantage of the deaf or blind, honesty and fairness in justice, prohibitions against holding grudges or exacting revenge, and the famous mitzvah to \”love your neighbor as yourself.\”
I had to buy a present for my sister recently. Shopping for women, if you don\’t happen to actually be a woman yourself, is a nightmare.
I\’ve noticed that when men go shopping for clothes, there is a sense of purposefulness about it. We\’re going to the store to buy something, some specific thing in response to a specific need. A shirt. I need a shirt. We march in, try something on. If it fits, we buy it and march back out. No squealing, no cooing, no fanfare. We take care of our needs. There is a sense of accomplishment. We live from shirt to shirt.
A month after Passover, the winds have not yet died down from the \”Wolpe Hurricane.\”
Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Westwood caused a stir when he asserted, in earshot of a Los Angeles Times reporter, that the Exodus story can still inspire us even if, as some archaeologists assert, the story of the liberation from Egypt is not true. Rabbi Wolpe\’s remarks ended up on the Times\’ front page during Passover and became grist for sermons and Torah study all over town.
According to a recently released Shaw University study, there are now between 6 and 7 million Muslims living in America. The study\’s figures may be a bit inflated, but few doubt their larger meaning: either Muslims now outnumber Jews in America, or they soon will.
\”I still write a lot from anger,\” playwright Mark Medoff said. \”I\’ve wanted to flagellate the world.\”\n\nMedoff, 61, is the author of the smoldering plays \”When You Comin\’ Back, Red Ryder?\” \”Children of a Lesser God\” and \”Road to a Revolution,\” now at Deaf West Theatre. His intense work often rails against a world he perceives as rife with violence, racism and sexism. Several childhood memories fuel the rage, he revealed during a telephone interview from his New Mexico ranch.
Lunda Hoyle Gill sat in her spare room at a Westwood assisted-living center, the last stop on her remarkable life journey.\n\nThe artist once traveled to the remotest parts of the globe, racing to paint indigenous peoples before they disappeared. But that was before cancer ravaged her gut and Parkinson\’s disease crippled her fingers. Today, at 72, the artist can no longer paint. She can barely walk or hold a spoon.
\”Love and Liberation: When the Jews Tore Down the Ghetto Walls\” by Ralph David Fertig (Writers Club Press, $17.95)
On Jan. 9, 1807, Prince Jerome of Prussia decreed that the fortifications of the ancient city of Breslau could be destroyed. After 540 years of isolation, the Jews of Breslau tore down the ghetto gates. Under Napoleonic law, they were now free to pursue their religion while becoming citizens of the state.
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