Anyone who\’s ever watched the annual Chabad Telethon, to be aired live this Sunday from 5 p.m. to midnight on UPN Channel 13, knows that it\’s the single most graphic demonstration of this Chassidic group\’s ability to rope in big-name Hollywood celebrities.
In a basement aerobics studio in the Westside Jewish Community Center, four girls dance before a wall of mirrors, perfecting the nuances of their twirls and chassés.
Two of them, playing sisters on a train to Auschwitz, sing in Yiddish \”Aufin Pripertchik\” (\”Upon the Hearth\”). Two others dance behind them, representing their souls.
Across the street, in a classroom of Shalhevet High School, in a rehearsal just as intense if a little less somber, Robin Saxe Garbose directs another group of girls as they work to maximize the comedic effects of their accents and movements as 80-year-old women.
\”Judges and officers shall you appoint in all of your cities.\”
This divine commandment to establish a judicial system serves as the basis of all Western law; a fair system affording protection to each of its citizens and guests.
Though this is a communal responsibility, it is stated in the singular, lecha. Why? Why is God talking to each of us as individuals? What message lies in this portion dealing with judges for us, the non-judge community?
Society needs to feel there is an operative judicial system. Community, as we know it, can only run when there is a feeling of justice.
I want to tell you about the \”No Mas Date,\” but first I have to tell you about legendary Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran.
Perhaps you\’ve heard of Duran, widely considered one of the 10 best boxers of the 20th century. His nickname was \”Manos de Piedra,\” Spanish for \”Hands of Stone.\” Those brick fists took him from the streets of Panama to the world lightweight championship. He won his first 28 professional fights, 23 by knockout.
What does this have to do with dating? I\’m getting to that.
Eliot \”E.J.\” Safirstein, an award-winning playwright, died July 31 at the age of 39.\n\nA childhood survivor of cancer, Safirstein wrote the 1988 John Cauble Award-winning short play \”Waterworks,\” which was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His first television script, a \”Family Law\” episode titled \”Generations,\” was broadcast on Dec. 11, 2000.\n\n
The World Brief, news, media, info, updates from around the world.
Letters to the Editor, Point of View in response to Articles.\n
Even for a journalist who tries to keep an open mind, it\’s hard to watch the world media equate the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis as a level playing field, tit for tat. They bomb, we retaliate; a war between equals, or worse, a war between unequals with Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as the victims.
As someone who has believed in the peace process for longer than the seven years I lived in Israel, it was hard to watch it crumble like a house of cards, and it\’s even harder to believe that it might really be over.
The Riemer family is something of a rarity in the Jewish world of post-Communist Central Europe.
Not only are Daniel Riemer and his wife Magda both Jewish, but both of their 20-something daughters, Zuzana and Sandra, have found Jewish men to marry.
This is no easy feat in a part of the world where intermarriage is the norm and where tiny, far-flung Jewish communities still suffer the effects of the Holocaust and Communist-era repression.
The rituals are familiar by now. The sudden bulletins; the footage of chaos and shock and devastation; the anxious wait for the casualty list; the statements of condemnation; the statements of justification; the insane competition over who gets the \”credit;\” the haunting search for the tiniest bits of remains; the funerals; and the reprisal. And here, the community rallies, new missions are announced, once again we\’re told that \”now more than ever\” our solidarity is needed, we hunker down. And then the wait begins again, for though the other shoe has dropped, there is another, and another. This conflict is no two-legged monster, it is a damned centipede and we are nowhere near its end. Not for nothing is this called \”terrorism.\”
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