Category
November 1, 2001
Ask the Rabbi
It\’s late on Sunday evening at KFI 640 AM\’s &\’9;Koreatown station, and within the confines of an overly bright fluorescent-lit radio booth, a tall man with Phil Donahue-white hair and a scraggly reddish beard worthy of the Norse god Thor sits alone at the mike.\n\nDressed in dependable Chabad wear — white dress shirt, black slacks, yarmulke and tzizit hanging out — Rabbi Chaim Mentz is an unexpected voice, booming out of the radio in a heavy Brooklyn accent.\n\n\”You got questions, I got answers!\” Mentz enthuses in a gravelly voice.\n\n
Spiritual Redevelopment
Cantor Mark Saltzman spent Sunday, Oct. 28 wearing a smile that could solve California\’s energy crisis.
A War of Words
Students, faculty and staff members at CSUN were up in arms last week regarding an exhibit sponsored by the university\’s Muslim Student Association (MSA). The \”Museum of Intolerance\” exhibit, part of planned activities for the campus\’ Islam Awareness Week (Oct. 21-27), showed photographs of Muslims under attack in several nations including what it called Palestine, with prominent pictures of Israeli soldiers and of Palestinian Arabs throwing rocks.
Guardian Angels
Chatting with Leo Spiwak, one gets the impression that there is no spirit stronger than that which binds members of The Guardians, the fundraising arm for Jewish Home for the Aging of Greater Los Angeles.
Are You There, God?
While the pain of the Sept. 11 attacks still churns like the smoke and dust that continue to rise out of Ground Zero, eight weeks has done something to begin our healing process.
Some of the rawness of our national wound is beginning to abate, allowing us to use the clarity and insight of the still-sharp lens of grief to encounter the big questions about God and humanity that the terrorists threw into our faces.
The questions, of course, are hardly new: How can we square the lethal expression of mass evil with our notion of a compassionate God? Were the attacks the hand of God, God\’s withdrawal from humanity, or simply the nature of God\’s universe?
The Day the Music Died
When I moved to Israel in 1992, I was a young religious Zionist believing in the Greater Israel. I was disappointed that the Likud\’s Yizhak Shamir had lost the elections to a man named Yitzhak Rabin.
Fast forward seven years. I am in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, awaiting the 1999 election results. The numbers scroll up, live on a giant screen, 47, 48, 49, 50. By mere slivers of points, Ehud Barak beats Benjamin Netanyahu. Tears of relief stream down my face. Thank God, I think. In the end, peace will triumph. We are in the government after all. Peace still will come.
End the Silence
Only three weeks ago it was possible to speak in optimistic terms about a united front against terrorism. History seemed to be blowing at our back, pushing the forces of civilization onward and upward to victory against the scourge of modern times. Writing in this space in early October, I quoted with admiration the prediction made by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; that the nations of the world would now join together against terrorism much as the nations of the post-Napoleonic period had defeated piracy. For a brief heady moment, it looked like we American Jews could sit back in the warm protection of our nation acting out of grief and righteous revenge.
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