Angelenos in need of emergency care are facing the threat of longer journeys to fewer facilities. Faced with a projected deficit in excess of $700 million in 2005, the L.A. County Department of Health Services has proposed to shut down two of its hospitals, increasing the burden on remaining hospitals countywide.
To obtain the views of the two main gubernatorial candidates on issues of particular interest to the Jewish community, The Jewish Journal submitted identical questions to Republican Bill Simon Jr. and Democratic incumbent Gov. Gray Davis. Following are their unedited responses.
Bruce Cantz grew up in the San Fernando Valley, where he had a good Conservative upbringing and was bar mitzvahed at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.
Now a baal teshuvah (returned to Judaism) who goes by his Hebrew name of Benyamin, Cantz, 54, lives on top of a remote mountain in Santa Cruz, where he runs Four Gates, the country\’s only organic kosher winery and the smallest, kosher winery in California.
As Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) began campaigning for a third term, some pro-Israel activists tried to generate support for his opponent by whispering that the two-term incumbent was insufficiently supportive of Israel. But in almost every respect Wellstone, who died in the crash of his campaign plane in remote northern Minnesota last week en route to a funeral, was more representative of the Jewish political tradition than almost anyone else in political life.
The World Brief, news, media, info, updates from around the world.
Three Iranian Jews imprisoned on charges of spying for Israel have been released, but the last five remain in jail, contrary to earlier reports.
Sources close to the issue said Monday that Iranian authorities had granted the last five an indefinite furlough. On Wednesday, however, those sources confirmed that the reports from Iran were \”disinformation.\”
For a year and a half it was predicted, and this week it finally came: The Labor Party handed the Likud a bill of divorce, ending Israel\’s national unity government.
What the divorce will mean for the country amid the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, the prospect of an American-led war against Iraq and a staggering economy is far from clear.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.