15 and Counting
Rob Eshman
August 8, 2002
Washington\’s official response to the killings of five Americans at Hebrew University can be summed up largely in a word: words.
Category
August 8, 2002
The Lost Yiddish World
Tom Tugend
August 8, 2002
It is not easy to evoke a lost era through television footage, but \”Yiddish World\” largely overcomes the difficulty.
Silence Speaks Volumes
Tom Tugend
August 8, 2002
On the Web page of Marcel Marceau, whose appellation as \”the world\’s greatest mime\” is so universal that it seems part of his name, his biography begins in 1946, when he enrolled in a theater arts school in Paris.
MTV’s Yadda Yadda sisterhood
Lisa Keys
August 8, 2002
Omigod, it\’s, like, the story of the summer. It all started in April, during the spring quarter at UC Davis. The scene is a rush event for the fledgling Jewish sorority Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi. A heretofore unknown presence on campus, the 4-year-old, 35-member sorority had adopted a policy of nonexclusivity, inviting the few interested girls each quarter to join the mostly Jewish organization.
Like Grandmother,Like Granddaughter
Gaby Wenig
August 8, 2002
\”I really didn\’t want to do it\” said Chiara Greene, 16, of her bat mitzvah. \”When I was 12, it really did not seem that important to me. I was not religion oriented, and I didn\’t want to do something that I didn\’t completely understand.\”
Those were not words that Chiara\’s father, Richard Greene, wanted to hear. \”I kept telling her you are Jewish, you are my daughter, and I want you to have this experience,\” he said.
Slam Dunk Bat Mitzvah
Julie Gruenbaum Fax
August 8, 2002
A couple of months before her bat mitzvah last year, Atara Rush, a seventh-grader at Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, attended the Israel Solidarity Rally in front of The Jewish Federation headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard. Someone handed her a poster to hold up. It was from the Israel Emergency Solidarity Fund (IESF), and on it were the faces of more than 100 Israelis killed in the current intifada. She spent the entire rally memorizing those faces.
Passing The Bar… Again
Michael Aushenker
August 8, 2002
Some things are just better the second time around. For some, it\’s marriage. For others, it\’s childbirth or career. For Mel Guthman, a member of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades, this was the case with his bar mitzvah — and well worth the 70-year wait.
The ‘Contemporary’ Bar Mitzvah
Jane Ulman
August 8, 2002
No, Jeremy, you cannot wear \’liberty spikes\’ to your bar mitzvah party,\” I say, referring to the hair-style that transforms my son\’s head into the Statue of Liberty\’s crown.
\”Mom, you don\’t understand,\” he says. \”Even when I\’m 50, I\’ll be spiking my hair.\”
‘Martyr for Peace’
Donald H. Harrison
August 8, 2002
Flags of the United States and Israel draped the simple pine coffin of Marla Bennett, the 24-year-old student laid to rest on Monday, at a service that emphasized Jewish solidarity in the face of terrorism.
A Different Kind of Youth Program
Sharon Schatz Rosenthal
August 8, 2002
For many teens, having a bar or bat mitzvah is both a beginning and an ending. According to Jewish tradition, the ceremony signifies a child\’s transition into manhood or womanhood. For some teens, it also marks the end of a structured Jewish education. Some kids dread Hebrew school and deem this coming-of-age ceremony their educational swan song. On the other hand, some parents see the bar or bat mitzvah as a means to an end, leaving teens to discover where Judaism fits into their lives on their own.
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