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Jewish Journal

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November 28, 2002

A Taxing Double Dip

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

It took Herb and Barbara Greenberg 10 years to realize their dream of making aliyah so they could live near their children and grandchildren.

But when a long-debated tax reform goes into effect in Israel on Jan. 1, they may have to consider leaving.

Many immigrants like the Greenbergs, former teachers who retired to Israel, came with the understanding that they would not have to pay Israeli taxes on income from their overseas assets. Like all American immigrants, the Greenbergs already pay U.S. taxes on that money.

That understanding will be reversed by the new tax law.

The revised tax law makes radical changes in the way immigrants’ overseas assets are treated, including passive income, pensions and income earned abroad.

"We’re living on a fixed income," Herb Greenberg said. "We’re not talking about stock investments or passive income from real estate investments. We’re not talking about big money."

The government’s beleaguered tax reform was first recommended in the autumn of 1999 by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It proposed lowering income tax rates while instituting a 25 percent tax on all profits made in the capital market.

For American immigrants — many of whom are retired and living on fixed incomes — it would involve paying taxes both here and abroad.

According to the Tax Reform Action Committee (TRAC), an ad-hoc group of concerned immigrants, the tax implications will vary for immigrants from different countries.

For a retired American couple with $36,000 overseas dividend income, who pay $3,124 in income taxes in the United States, the new law would force them to pay an additional $9,476 in Israel.

Besides the financial hardship, what angers many immigrants is the apparent contradiction between the reforms and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s repeated calls for a million new immigrants in the next decade.

Sharon has named immigration as one of his government’s top priorities and has emphasized the need to encourage immigration from the West.

"We believe that the prime minister is sincere in his desire to encourage more olim [immigrants], particularly from Western countries," said Marvin Silverman, national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel. "However, unless this tax legislation is amended, we are not only going to witness a dramatic drop in Western aliyah but, worse yet, the division of families that came to be reunited in Israel."

Dan Biron, executive director of the Israel Aliyah Center for North America, said he doesn’t think the tax changes will deter North American immigrants.

"They’re going on aliyah for ideological reasons," Biron said. "They’re willing to contribute to the strength of the State of Israel."

In fact, the government recently decided to up the immigration benefits offered to North American immigrants to match those offered to olim from distressed areas. The increased benefits will kick in Dec. 1, a month before the tax changes.

The roughly $8,000 starter package given to a family of four in its first year in Israel first was made available to immigrants from the former Soviet Union. It later was offered to immigrants from Ethiopia, and then to those from Argentina and France.

North American immigrants were believed to need less help, but the government changed its mind earlier this year.

In addition to the $8,000, immigrants receive free one-way tickets to Israel, rent subsidies or cheaper mortgage rates for five years, customs rights on imported goods for three years and free health insurance and Hebrew study for six months.

Some might say that the increased benefits — intended to give North Americans an incentive to make aliyah — and the tax changes are working at cross-purposes. Not Biron, however.

"Compared to the benefit of what the State of Israel is providing to new immigrants," the tax changes are negligible, he said. "It’s almost next to nothing."

But the tax legislation certainly would affect the Greenbergs, who live in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ra’anana, near their daughter’s family.

"We give financial help to the kids," said Greenberg, who has two married children and nine grandchildren in Israel. "A lot of young families come to us to help convince their parents to come here. And a lot of future olim from Western countries will have to factor in whether to come if their parents can’t come."

TRAC calls the legislation a "breach of contract" of government promises to olim who came to Israel with the understanding that they would not have to pay tax in Israel on the income from their overseas assets.

The group is seeking amendments to the new tax law, making the effective date for taxation of passive income either 10 years from the date of immigration or 10 years from the effective date of the law, whichever offers immigrants more time.

The committee also is seeking to broaden the definition of pensions to exempt all types of retirement income that retired immigrants receive from overseas.

The tax reform passed as a law in early 2002, meaning that the only way to change it is through amendments in the Knesset. The problem is, the Knesset will be out of session until after the Jan. 28 elections, and the new law is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1.

If the amendments aren’t passed this week before the Knesset recesses, the process will have to begin from scratch when a new Knesset convenes later this winter.

Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, who heads the immigrant party Yisrael Ba’Aliyah, recently tried unsuccesfully to add the two TRAC changes to a list of more than 30 amendments offered by Finance Minister Silvan Shalom.

Shalom "thought it would open a Pandora’s box" and encourage other interest groups to propose their own changes to the law, said Eli Kazhdan, executive director of Yisrael Ba’Aliyah.

The Finance Ministry said it had no comment on the matter.

Yitzhak Heimowitz, an attorney and co-chair of the TRAC executive committee who has followed the issue since it was introduced in 1999, wasn’t surprised that Shalom took a "hard-nosed attitude" to the proposed amendments.

"Their attitude is not to concede anything until the very end, and then they concede very little," he said. "The only way they can be overcome is politically."

That is what happened two years ago, when the tax reform was almost passed. Then-Finance Minister Avraham Shochat agreed to delay Israeli taxes on new immigrants’ overseas assets for 10 years, and five years for veteran immigrants.

When Barak’s government collapsed, however, the tax bill was left in limbo.

The National Religious Party, Israel Our Home and the secular Shinui Party have joined Yisrael Ba’Aliyah in the tax reform battle. Kazhdan is hoping that Benjamin Netanyahu, the interim foreign minister who is running against Sharon in the Likud Party primaries, will come on board.

"Yisrael Ba’Aliyah are fighting like the devil, but they’re not strong enough," Heimowitz said. "The only one who’s strong enough is Arik Sharon, but he doesn’t seem to care."

Sharon has "been off the radar screen" on the issue, Kazhdan agreed.

The Jewish Agency for Israel Board of Governors unanimously passed a resolution last week calling on Sharon to abolish the "anti-aliyah" taxes. The agency has "a moral responsibility" to ensure that the immigrants it brings to Israel have a successful absorption, Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor said.

The TRAC team hoped the board of governors’ support would make Sharon "tell Silvan to straighten it out," Heimowitz commented.

"It could still happen if he thinks he’s about to lose" the immigrants’ votes in the Likud primaries, Heimowitz said.

While Sharon hasn’t made any statements on the tax law, Netanyahu told TRAC that if elected prime minister, he is committed to "immediately abolishing legislation that imposes tax in Israel on foreign source income of olim."

Kazhdan said the changes would hurt both those who have immigrated to Israel and those considering aliyah.

"If five people make aliyah and 500 make yeridah" — that is, leave Israel — "then we’ve lost," he said. "It’s not just about finances; it’s the message, it’s totally the wrong message. Not everyone coming from America comes with a million dollars."

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Man as Creator

Leave a Comment / Community /

A woman who had taken fertility treatments became pregnant only to learn that she was carrying four embryos. Her doctors suggested multifetal pregnancy reduction, a process to eliminate some of the embryos so that the remaining ones would have a better chance of normal development. What does Jewish medical ethics advise her to do?

The above incident was one of the hypothetical scenarios put forth by Valley Beth Shalom’s Rabbi Ed Feinstein, who along with Dr. Judith Partnow Hyman, VBS congregant and psychotherapist, convened a panel of experts — a rabbi, a perinatologist and a medical ethicist — to discuss conception issues for the first of three Medical Ethics Beit Dein programs, "A Time To Be Born: The Creation of a New Life," examining modern medical issues from a Jewish perspective. (The second program, "Healing the Body, Soothing the Soul, The New Role of the Physician," took place on Nov. 21.)

Human beings are now called upon to make choices once considered "decisions that only God has the wisdom to make," Feinstein said. The series addresses the moral conflicts people face today as a result of advanced fertility technology.

Jews often face dilemmas surrounding conception because they generally marry and start families later in life, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a University of Judaism professor and panel member who serves as vice chair of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. This makes them more likely to need such procedures as fertility treatment or in vitro fertilization in order to conceive.

The instance of multiple fetuses has grown dramatically with increased use of reproductive technology. The more fetuses present in the womb, the less likely each is to survive, said panel member Dr. David Braun, regional director of perinatal care for Southern California Kaiser Permanente. Those that make it to birth are prone to experience serious long-term health problems. In addition, having multiple fetuses increases the mother’s chances of experiencing life-threatening complications. "Because of that, we tend to recommend seriously considering reduction of the pregnancy to fewer babies," Braun said.

If the parents’ goal of undergoing these procedures was to have a healthy baby, "very quickly one reaches the question: How can they not do multifetal pregnancy reduction?" said the panel’s third member, Dr. Neil Wenger, chair of the UCLA Medical Ethics Committee and a professor of medicine. At the same time, Wenger said, couples and their doctors should clarify their goals and values ahead of time, discussing the likelihood of multiple pregnancy and how it would be handled prior to facing the situation.

"In Jewish tradition, God owns our bodies," Dorff said. "We have them on loan for the duration of our lives and we have a responsibility to take care of [them]." This means we are forbidden from mutilating our bodies, and at the same time we are obligated to take action to save our own lives, even if it means sacrificing a part of our body.

Thus in the case of the multiple pregnancies, Dorff said, "It seems to me from a Jewish perspective [the mother] would have the requirement to reduce the number of fetuses in her womb in order to save her own life and health as well as the [remaining] fetuses. There are stages in coming into life and … in leaving life. Your halachic status depends upon what stage you’re in in that process." Our tradition, he said, does not recognize the fetuses as full-fledged human beings.

In vitro fertilization presents its own set of ethical challenges. Dorff pointed out that potentially there can be up to five individuals involved in the conception — the couple wanting the child, an egg donor, a sperm donor and a woman to carry the fetus to birth. (To which Feinstein commented, "Practically a minyan.")

More problematic is the issue of screening the embryos for gender, disease or — if it ever became possible — personality traits. Dorff said that because the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" is only fulfilled once a couple has both a boy and a girl, there may be religious grounds for allowing gender selection.

Wenger suggested looking at the broader picture. "There is something called a communal ethic, where each individual or couple has a responsibility to the rest of its social network." Selecting by gender could harm the community by ultimately swaying the population in one direction or another.

As for selecting for traits such as athletic ability or musical talent, Wenger said we have a responsibility "not to use science in such a way that our whim gets satisfied [at the expense of] society as a whole."

"Jewish tradition respects the power of human intellect and human imagination and human judgement," Feinstein said. "We’ve always been a pro-science community because we respect the power of human beings to make the right judgments."

The final program "A Time to Live, A Time To Die, Accepting the End of Life," will take place Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m at VBS, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino. For more information, call (818) 530-4093.

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Jews Say Bonjour to Club Lampadaire

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In between the prayers at the Pinto Shul in the Pico-Robertson area, people who only speak English might feel a little lost.

Not because congregants there don’t speak English — they do, except they are likely to break off into French every so often, leaving behind the hapless English speakers. Likewise, if you are expecting cholent or kugel or any of the other regular foods that you find at an English-speaking shul, you have gone to the wrong place. "Kiddush" at the Pinto Shul has a North African flair. Instead of cholent, they serve salmon cooked in red sauce with garbanzo beans, rice sticky with prunes and apricots and boutargue, a special Tunisian delicacy of dried waxed fish (which to the uninitiated palate tastes like shriveled goldfish).

The Pinto Shul is one of several congregations in Los Angeles that serves the French-speaking Jewish community. Unlike other ethnic Jewish communities in Los Angeles, such as the Persian community, the French-speaking community does not have a cohesive origin. French speaking Jews in Los Angeles are predominantly Sephardic, but they emigrated from a variety of places — Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and France. Eager to escape the perceived and real hostility toward Jews in their countries of origin, and in some cases attracted by the greater personal freedoms that America offered, French-speaking Jews have been coming to Los Angeles for several decades now. They view Los Angeles as a good weather alternative to Montreal, where the French community is the largest outside Israel and France. In Los Angeles, despite their disparate origins, French-speaking Jews tend to stick together, united by the language and a shared cultural affinity.

In 1997, there were approximately 2,500 Jews of North African or French origin in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Jewish Population Survey. Today, some estimate that the number has grown to 5,000.

Up until now, this community’s organized communal life has been relegated to the synagogue. Shuls like the Pinto Shul; Congregation Em Habanim and Adat Yeshurun in the Valley; the Baba Sale Shul in the Fairfax district; and the West Coast Torah Center in Beverly Hills have predominantly French-speaking congregations.

This Chanukah, however, marks the emergence of Club Lampadaire (The Lamp Club), a new French community group in Los Angeles, which aims to unite the French Jewish community with social, spiritual and cultural events.

"I think a lot of Jews living in France see California as an antidote to the stuffiness and formality of French society, and the pleasant weather reminds us of our childhood on the Mediterranean, and it appeals to our sense of nostalgia," said David Suissa, one of the founders of Club Lampadaire, who was born in Morocco. "But at the same time, the way the city is so spread out it does not encourage the fathering of the community which would otherwise happen naturally. So we have to compensate for that by creating this organization to make it easier for us to get together on a regular basis."

Club Lampadaire currently has a membership of 600 families, and has already raised $25,000 for its events from French Jews. Suissa said that Club Lampadaire was inspired by a conference given to French-speaking Jews in Los Angeles by Yechiya Benchetrit, one of the leading rabbis in France. "During this talk he brought up the word lampadaire, lamp, and suggested that Jews are like lamps and our mission in life is to light up the world," Suissa said. "So we decided to start an association which would bring together all the different synagogues and create a family of French Jews in Los Angeles. Our slogan is Alluman Le Foi et La Joir — light up faith and joy — and our first event will be to light up the first night of Chanukah. We want to seek out all the French Jews in Los Angeles, affiliated or nonaffiliated, and tell them that they have a home."

"I have a lot of American friends, but because of the wittiness of the French language, I feel more at ease on a cultural level with Jews who are French speaking," said Lolita Engleson, a psychologist, who was born in Lebanon but moved here from France while trying to market a documentary film she made about the Jews in Lebanon.

In Los Angeles, many French-speaking Jews find it difficult to get working visas or green cards, so they attempt to network in the community to find employment and sponsors that will allow them to do so. "They love it here," said Rafael Gabay, a French Moroccan who is president of the Baba Sale Shul. "If they can live here free without having a problem with a green card, then this place is a paradise."

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Competing With That Other Holiday

Leave a Comment / Holidays /

"Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights," croons Adam Sandler in that humorous holiday tune, "The Chanukah Song." Sandler speaks for many American Jews in feeling a certain pressure and longing for Chanukah to live up to the glitz and excitement associated with Christmas. In keeping up, many Jews feel it is necessary to give and receive a large assortment of holiday gifts.

In our commercialized culture, communicating the true meaning of Chanukah, acknowledging the hoopla surrounding Christmas and preserving a child’s interest in our own holiday can be a challenge for parents. With these goals in mind, three local rabbis shed some light on the Festival of Lights.

While most Jews know that Chanukah is a celebration of the victory of the Maccabees and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple, many are unaware (or have forgotten) the deeper meaning of this time of the year. Rabbi Elie Stern, outreach director of Westwood Kehilla, explained that Chanukah is a celebration of the Jews’ ability to continue their traditions and not give in to the majority culture.

Stern feels that the influences of our culture have overshadowed this history. "What’s happening in the Western world is a very superficial comparison with Christmas," said the Orthodox rabbi. "Rather than resisting assimilation and highlighting the uniqueness of Judaism, we end up aping the worst of secular culture and bringing it into Chanukah."

To combat this tendency, Stern suggests instilling Jewish pride in children every day of the year, rather than simply reminding them at holiday time. In addition, he feels Jews should stop trying to compete with Christmas. "We’re going in the wrong direction if we feel we have to keep up with the Joneses, but with Chanukah wrapping paper," he said. "It’s a shallow ‘me, too-ism.’ We have our own values, and one is not to be ostentatious and recognize that we’re serving God. It’s God’s miracle, not a one-upmanship."

With these values in mind, Rabbi Sheryl Nosan of Temple Beth Torah, a Reform congregation in Granada Hills, feels that one way to instill these ideas is to monitor family gift-giving traditions. If children expect presents on every single evening of Chanukah, parents can adjust their customs to include donating money to a charity. "Based on the traditional notion of giving gelt, we can build the idea of giving tzedakah at Chanukah time," Nosan said. To keep things light and fun, parents can make a game of choosing the charity. Perhaps each family member can choose a different charity and the family can have a dreidel tournament to determine where the money will go.

Nosan also suggests incorporating different activities into the eight nights to take the focus off of receiving gifts. One night can be "latke night" where the family spends time making potato pancakes together. Another night might include inviting friends over to light the candles in order to share our traditions with others. Parents can find special projects to do with their kids or do something special just for the sake of being together — be it hiking, going to a museum, seeing a play or anything else you can do as a family.

Similarly, Rabbi Tracee Rosen of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino suggests creating actual theme nights throughout Chanukah, including gift night, song night, dreidel night and invite-a-guest night. Rosen suggests parents emphasize that the holiday is a celebration of both giving and receiving. One way to accomplish this is to alternate in the types of activities the family will engage in so that kids will take note of both ends of the spectrum "For example, maybe on the first night, the kids get presents," she said. "Then on the second night you might take used toys to a shelter or toy drive so kids can get a sense of the cyclically of [the holiday traditions]."

Rosen also recommends the book, "A Different Light: The Chanukah Book of Celebration" by Noam Zion and Barbara Spectre (Pitspopany Press, 2000), which details innovative gift ideas for Chanukah. Suggestions include designating nights for homemade gifts, edible gifts, low-cost grab-bag gifts and homemade "coupons," where the giver promises to give his time or services (i.e. baby-sitting, cooking dinner, playing a game, etc.) to another. Whether it is gifts, extravagant decorations, carols taking over the radio airwaves or Santa Claus in the department store, the rabbis agree that Chanukah is not a counterpart to Christmas.

"Christmas will always be brighter and gaudier," Stern said. "We have to remember the value of Judaism and the purity of the small little light that endured all the darkness. That is the message of Chanukah."

Competing With That Other Holiday Read More »

Christmas Takes

Leave a Comment / Holidays /

As a young Jewish student in the ’60s, Robin Siegal believed that Chanukah was basically ignored in the public schools she attended, which included Hamilton High School. "It was like there was this big birthday party for Jesus, and I wasn’t invited," remembered the Beverlywood resident, now the mother of three.

With two of her children now attending Hamilton and her third at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), Siegal is relieved to see acknowledgment of diversity within the Los Angeles public school system.

While religion is not a part of public school curriculum the way it is in a parochial schools, these days most schools acknowledge the various winter holidays like Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and Ramadan. Often, holiday traditions are incorporated into lesson plans. But does Chanukah get equal billing?

"I don’t believe we favor either Chanukah or Christmas," said Jennifer Noblett, principal of Hawthorne School in the Beverly Hills Unified School District. "We try to celebrate everyone’s diversity, customs and traditions, because sometimes family traditions aren’t really related to religious affiliation."

At Paul Revere Charter Middle School in Brentwood, there are no Christmas trees or menorahs adorning the walls at holiday time. "We just don’t do those things," said principal Teresa Riddle. She said some of the administrative offices may have winter displays, but nothing that blatantly promotes any holiday.

Like many other Los Angeles schools, Revere students will perform in a winter musical with Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa music. The Christmas tunes, Riddle said, will consist mostly of "nonsectarian songs about winter and snowmen."

Publicist Carol Eisner, whose three children are among students at LACES and Hamilton, has also noticed changes in cultural acceptance since her school days.

"There’s so much more openness about being Jewish in a nonsectarian environment," said Eisner, who lives in the Pico-Robertson area. "Before, it was like you’re a Jew singing Christmas songs, and that’s how it’s going to be."

"Now the word ‘holiday’ is pervasive," she said. "It’s a general word that includes everybody."

Instead of calling the late-December extended vacation a "Christmas break," many schools call it "winter break" or "winter recess."

As a public school advocate, Rabbi Marc Dworkin of Leo Baeck Temple and the Progressive Jewish Alliance agreed that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) appears to respect diversity now more than ever. However, he suggested that Jewish parents check with their children and remind them of the significance of their roots.

"The first step is to make sure that your children understand the deeper meaning of the holiday of Chanukah and not just the commercial aspects that compete with Christmas," Dworkin said. "Also, in a system [as large as LAUSD] … you can’t safeguard against every comment or every incident."

Siegal, a social worker, believes that educating her children about Chanukah also means expressing the realities of American society. "Our culture is not balanced and [as Jews], we’re definitely the minority," she said.

Siegal does not expect public schools to give Chanukah "equal time." In addition, she believes that the predominately gentile public school community should not be responsible for teaching her children about Judaism. Her solution is to supplement her children’s education by sending them to Pressman Academy of Temple Beth Am.

Still, Susan Kogan, the assistant principal at Third Street Elementary School in Hancock Park, said her school believes it is important to teach the children about holidays from a cultural, rather than religious perspective. "Several of our non-Jewish teachers actually make potato pancakes for the kids on Chanukah," she said.

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A Holiday Hits the Big Time

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Holidays /

At Universal Studios, all the usual characters — Spider-Man and the Rugrats — were out in force on Sunday, Nov. 24. But they weren’t just there for photo ops with children. Instead, they were lighting menorahs, spinning dreidels and eating the world’s biggest latke at the Chanukah celebration in Universal City.

Joining them were Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn, Justin Burfield of "Malcolm in the Middle," the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shawn Green and Remedy of the Wu-Tang Clan, who performed "Chanukah Rap."

"We were looking for a way to bring Hollywood magic and star power to Chanukah," said Brian Pope, Universal vice president of marketing services, who said he hopes that the event will become an annual one.

"We thought that Chanukah was one of the best Jewish holidays that lent itself to the fun family entertainment, and so we worked with a consultant and spoke with a number of rabbis from a variety of groups to create this event," he said.

Pope noted that Universal Studios is the first major theme park to put on a Chanukah event.

That Chanukah has gotten its own event at Universal Studios shows how far it has come: The little-known Jewish holiday — which once had to fight for display space next to Santa — is now a major event on its own, even when it comes a month before Christmas.

From movies to malls, from sitcoms to shopping, Chanukah has gone mainstream; and while some see it as a sign of the resurgence of Jewish identity and the acceptance of Jews in American society, others wonder if the holiday’s success has come at the expense of its spirituality.

This Chanukah, if you head down to your local multiplex you can see Adam Sandler belching his way through "Eight Crazy Nights," an animated Chanukah comedy (see story, page 37). If you turn on the radio, you might hear Sandler singing, "Put on your yarmulke/It’s time for Chanukah," or Tom Lehrer crooning about "spending Chanukah in Santa Monica."

On television, Chabad’s "Chanukah, the Miniseries," will be broadcast on KCAL-TV each night at menorah-lighting time (between 4:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.). Two Chanukah shows will be presented on KCET-TV: a special Chanukah episode of "Alef…Bet…Blastoff," followed by "A Taste of Chanukah." They will be shown on Dec. 1 starting at 8:30 a.m.

You might also see Chanukah pop up on some sitcoms. Last season on "Friends," for example, an episode had Ross trying to teach his son, Ben, about Chanukah. "Saturday Night Live" featured a character, Chanukah Harry, who dressed in a blue-and-white Santa Claus suit and had a black beard instead of a white one.

For children, Disney has a Chanukah book out, "Winnie the Pooh and the Hanukkah Dreidel," and there is "A Rugrats Chanukah" video.

There are other reminders of Chanukah. Every Ralphs supermarket will display a large menorah, courtesy of Chabad, and most banks will put a small plastic menorah in their windows. Chabad is also sponsoring a number of public menorah ceremonies, such as the lighting of a 35-foot menorah in Beverly Hills Gardens, the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda.

For shoppers there is an abundance of Chanukah items. Hallmark offers 119 different Chanukah cards. Online flower sellers, such as proflowers.com or 1800-Flowers.com, offer Chanukah bouquets for $39.99 and gift baskets, complete with dreidel cookies, for $69.99.

Godiva sells a $23 Chanukah Ballotin box of chocolates. Kmart has a 20-piece Hanukkah Lights dinnerware set for $19.99 and Avon sells a $14.99 Festival of Lights Bear that lights an accompanying menorah when its paw is pressed.

For those who have the urge to splurge for Chanukah, Neiman Marcus has a $4,000 Steuben crystal menorah with silver-plated candle cups.

The proliferation of Chanukah products has led retailers to focus less on the fact that the holidays are solely about Christmas. "I have noticed over time that it has gone from being the Christmas season to holiday season," said Tom Holiday, president of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a division of the National Retail Federation, which represents 100 trade organizations. "In retail, there is always a conscious effort to be aware of the dates of Jewish holidays, but I see a more ecumenical approach in general."

All of this has taken Chanukah out of the Talmud and into the mainstream. Jews started celebrating Chanukah 2,000 years ago, when a small band of Jewish fighters led by Judah Maccabee emerged victorious in their battle with the Hellenists, who, led by King Antiochus, wanted to sway the Jews away from God and turn them into idol-worshipping hedonists.

After the battle, the Jews found their Temple desecrated, and only one vial of pure olive oil remained, enough to light the menorah — a daily ritual in the Temple — for one day. A miracle occurred when the oil lasted eight days, which provided enough time for new oil to be pressed.

Since then, every year beginning on the 25th of the Hebrew month of Kislev, Jews have been commemorating the occasion by making a blessing and lighting a menorah for eight nights and by eating foods that are cooked in oil, such as latkes.

Today,while many people don’t know the details of the correct way to light the menorah (halacha dictates that the candles/oil must be the same height and lit from right to left, using a shamash servant candle, and that the lights must burn for at least half an hour), thanks to the the ubiquity of its symbols, Chanukah is a significant holiday on the Jewish calendar, and one that Jews can easily identify with.

The fact that Chanukah usually occurs around Christmastime — although this year it coincides with Thanksgiving — means that Jews don’t have to co-opt another religion’s holiday as an excuse to give each other gifts (although traditionally gelt — money — is given on Chanukah), and they don’t have to feel left out during the holiday season.

Chanukah is not the only Jewish holiday or practice that has over time accreted aspects of the larger culture.

"Jewish tradition has generally been responsive to the various cultures that Jews live; that adds up to the idea of minhag [custom] that varies from locale to locale," said UCLA professor David N. Myers, who teaches Jewish history. "[Jewish] language, culinary habits, dress norms all change according to the different environments [in which] they find themselves."

"In the modern period," Myers said, "the forces of acculturation are very powerful, and one of the reasons Chanukah has been so malleable is because it is not a major festival, and therefore the ritual stakes not as high when you modify its meaning or significance."

Rabbi Alan Flom of Burbank’s Temple Emmanuel said, "Most rabbis think that Chanukah is a very minor holiday, but in our culture we have had to make it a bigger holiday to compete in the marketplace. If we didn’t, I think that Christmas would be so overwhelming, it would be even more difficult to keep our people Jewish in this kind of an environment."

However, many see the mainstreaming of Chanukah not as a de facto response to Christmas but as a positive resurgence of Jewish identity.

"Chanukah has become front and center in Jewish life, and it’s a way for a lot of people to discover a bridge to their heritage," said Rabbi David Eliezrie of Chabad of Orange County. "The subjective message in the mainstreaming of Chanukah is that its OK to be Jewish, and I think that’s good."

Others think that having Chanukah symbols everywhere actually does have a religious significance, and not just a Jewish feel-good one. "The Talmud says that one of the key ways to observe Chanukah is through pirsumei nissah, publicizing the miracle," said Rabbi Chaim Cunin, public relations director for Chabad-Lubavitch on the West Coast. "That means lighting the menorah, spreading the beautiful message of Chanukah. And thank God, you can open your newspaper now and find that everyone is helping to publicize this beautiful miracle."

However, others believe that Chanukah has become a kind of Jewish Christmas — a holiday whose religious significance has been almost overshadowed by its commercial possibilities and universal appeal.

"The commercialization of Chanukah is particularly tragic," said Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Project Next Step of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "Commercializing Chanukah is a contradiction of its very essence. If you take Jesus out of Christmas, you have a holiday where people are nice to each other, feel upbeat. Although it’s missing the point, it is not a violation of what Christmas is.

"Commercializing Chanukah is the opposite of the point. Chanukah is not a liberation story — [under Antiochus] the Jews could have lived in their country as free people without any other problem, other than being asked to renounce their faith. The story of Chanukah is not one of being asked to throw off the yoke of a foreign oppressor, but it is the issue of the spiritual prevailing over the might of the decidedly unspiritual."

"Chanukah is the story of the spark of Judaism striving to be united with its God and its Torah and its mitzvot," Alderstein added. "It is not a substitute for the gift-giving of prevailing culture. Chanukah is about the resistance of Jews to the prevailing culture of modernity and aesthetic beauty."

Claudia Wolf, an educator and program director for the Shalom Nature Center in Malibu holds a similar view. "It is bad that Jews feel like they have to compensate by becoming almost like Christians," she said. "One student at my program told me that she was going home for Thanksgiving/Chanukah, and her mother told her that she was not going to get any gifts until Christmas, because that is really the gift-giving season."

Rabbi Shlomo Holland, the director of development at Los Angeles Kollel, agreed. "When we portray Chanukah in a superficial, shallow and trivial way, in a sense we are ingraining in ourselves a new version of Chanukah that was never meant to be, and we celebrate a holiday that is not the essence of that holiday," Holland explained.

"When we commercialize it, we don’t portray that, we just portray a cute holiday where we light the menorah," he continued. "Which, in the eyes of the world, is not too different than a cute holiday where you light up a tree-and you give presents here, and you give presents there, and rather than looking for the obvious difference, one is looking for the similarities and the sameness."

Holland said that the essence of Chanukah is the message of the light of Torah. "That light could break through what appeared to be the wisdom of the Greek Hellenists, but was truly the darkness of illusion," he said. "The only thing that shines so powerful a light, that shows you what is real, and what isn’t real, is the light of the Torah. If anything, that is really the essence of Chanukah."

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The Arafat Factor

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According to a poll released last week by Americans for Peace Now (APN) and the Arab American Institute (AAI), U.S. Jews continue to support an active Mideast peace process and a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, despite two years of horrific terrorism and the bitter disappointment of a peace process turned sour.

The poll showed that a majority of Arab-Americans hold similar views, leading to suggestions by the two groups that U.S. attitudes about peace can be "exported" to a region that has known nothing but war.

But it’s what the poll didn’t ask that represents the wild card for pro-peace process groups: what about Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who still seems to think suicide bombers and rampaging gunmen are legitimate instruments of negotiation?

That dichotomy — strong ongoing support for the idea of a negotiated settlement resulting in Palestinian statehood but overwhelming distrust of the current Palestinian leadership — also defines the problem facing Amram Mitzna, the Labor Party’s candidate for prime minister in the Jan. 28 Israeli election.

Amazingly, terror-battered Israelis still tell pollsters they want a negotiated settlement. However, Mitzna will have a hard time explaining how to reach a settlement while a treacherous Arafat still calls the shots in Ramallah.

Last week’s numbers, compiled by pollster John Zogby, were striking, if incomplete. Of the U.S. Jews polled, 85 percent agreed that "Palestinians have a right to live in a secure and independent state of their own"; 95 percent of the Arab Americans said Israelis have the same right.

Add some details and the margins shrink, although the numbers still show a surprisingly durable belief in political negotiations.

A slim majority of Jews — 52 percent — said they would support "a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that included the establishment of an independent, secure Palestinian state alongside an independent, secure Israeli state; the evacuation of most settlements from the West Bank and Gaza; the establishment of a border roughly along the June 4, 1967, border; a Palestinian right of return only to a new Palestinian state, and establishing Jerusalem as the shared capital of both countries."

Thirty percent of the Jews opposed that proposition; 18 percent said they were "not sure." The poll also found 41 percent of the Jews blamed "mostly the Palestinians" for the breakdown in peace negotiations, but even more — 42 percent — blamed "both sides."

The poll revealed something else: An overwhelming proportion of U.S. Jews are pessimistic about Middle East peace — about 75 percent — and that pessimism points right back to the missing presence in the survey — Arafat.

Zogby, AAI’s president, said the pollsters wanted to avoid questions that would provoke hot-button responses. Presumably that also explains why Ariel Sharon, a reviled symbol to many Palestinians and their supporters, was omitted from survey questions.

However, Arafat’s negative impact on Jewish public opinion cannot be overestimated. Many of the same U.S. Jews, who strongly support the idea of resumed negotiations and even back creation of a Palestinian state, no longer have any hope that Arafat is willing or able to cut a deal that would guarantee Israel’s security.

APN hopes that its poll will help pro-peace groups gain traction with a Jewish public soured by the collapse of the Oslo process and the new, deadlier surge of Palestinian terrorism. However, the Arafat factor could be a major impediment. Peace groups that are perceived as advocating a return to Oslo-style negotiations with Arafat will not rally centrist U.S. Jews to their cause, despite strong underlying support for the idea of resumed negotiations.

The same dynamic will probably hold in the Israeli election. There is continuing support among voters for a return to negotiations and even for Palestinian statehood. However, throw Arafat into the mix and that support plummets. If Mitzna is seen as seeking a renewed embrace of Arafat, Israeli voters are likely to reject him in overwhelming numbers. And he won’t do any better if he moves to the right and offers voters a "Likud-light" platform.

To a considerable degree, Mitzna’s candidacy is hostage to Arafat; so is a struggling peace movement in this country that has strongly condemned the wave of Palestinian terror, but which has been unable to jettison its attachment to the embattled Palestinian leader as a legitimate peace partner.

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Peace ‘Map’ Fears

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Israel backers are raising numerous concerns about the latest version of the U.S. "road map" for Middle East peace.

Analysts and Jewish leaders say the latest version, currently being hammered out in Washington, diverges from President Bush’s June 24 speech, in which he called for new Palestinian leaders and said a Palestinian state could be created only after significant institutional reforms. They also say Israel has not been consulted enough in the preparation of the document.

Also of concern is the fact that the State Department, which is considered to be softer on the Palestinians, is working on the plan, rather than the White House, whose views on the conflict are considered closer to Israel’s.

"The concern is that some of the key players credited with crafting Bush’s speech are now focused on Iraq," said one official with a Jewish organization. "Some of the other folks in the State Department have moved to fill the vacuum."

Israel has complained that it learned about the revised road map only from news reports. Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky raised some of Israel’s concerns during a visit to Washington last week.

Conceived in conjunction with America’s "quartet" partners — the United Nations, European Union and Russia — the road map has been under revision for more than a month, addressing concerns raised by all sides.

It is expected to be released when quartet leaders meet in Washington on Dec. 20. Israeli officials want the release postponed until after Israeli elections on Jan. 28.

The road map calls for a three-stage approach leading to an interim Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip next year, and the creation of a permanent state by the end of 2005.

In the first stage, the plan demands the appointment of a new Palestinian Authority Cabinet and the creation of a prime minister’s post. It also demands that Israel improve humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and dismantle any settlement outposts created under the Sharon government.

Later, it would require the Palestinians to write a constitution. It also calls for a monitoring system led by the quartet to ensure that the two sides meet their commitments. In addition, the road map calls on Israel to withdraw troops from all areas occupied since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 and to freeze all settlement activity.

The second phase, which would run through the end of 2003, begins with Palestinian elections in January and an international conference to form a provisional Palestinian state. The third phase, due in 2004 and 2005, calls for a second conference and negotiations toward a final peace agreement.

The new version does not address some of the fundamental concerns that Israel raised last month. Specifically, Israel is concerned that the road map does not repeat Bush’s demand for a change in Palestinian leadership and does not set standards that the Palestinians must meet before the sides progress from stage to stage.

Israel wants the steps to be performance-based, not dictated by a timeline that runs regardless of how well the Palestinians honor their commitments, as was the case under the Oslo peace accords.

"We’ve had very negative experiences with timelines in the past," an Israeli official said.

Israel is also not happy that quartet members — three of whom it considers biased toward the Palestinians — will serve as monitors, playing a role that until now has been filled by the United States.

The new version speaks of moving through the process with the "consensus" opinion of the quartet — essentially giving the United States veto power — but Israeli officials argue that isn’t enough. They want any monitoring to be left solely to the United States.

Several analysts say that, unlike Bush’s June 24 speech, the road map essentially allows Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to remain in power. Bush also said that no Palestinian state could be created until the Palestinian leaders "engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure."

Israel has complained that the security steps the plan demands of the Palestinians are too vague.

"The road map is not faithful to Bush’s June 24 speech, which makes crystal clear that removal of Yasser Arafat is a prerequisite of any American diplomatic initiative," said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Also of concern is the lack of consequences for Palestinian noncompliance.

If the road map is released next month, it will come during national elections in Israel, where Haifa’s dovish mayor, Amram Mitzna, will lead the Labor Party. The Likud leadership was to be decided in a Nov. 28 primary, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a heavy favorite to defeat his challenger, Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli officials have been asking for the release to be postponed until after the Jan. 28 national elections. Sharansky made the request in Washington last week, but so far the United States has resisted.

"We haven’t made any decisions in terms of announcements or anything," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said last week.

Releasing the road map during the election campaign would be seen as a gift for Mitzna, who has said he will meet with any Palestinian leader, including Arafat. Sharon has refused to meet with Arafat because of Arafat’s ties to terror groups.

However, Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Monday that postponing the release would be as much an act of interference in Israeli politics as releasing it. He also suggested that Sharon would not be hampered by the road map.

"He needs to show the Israeli electorate not only that he can fight terrorism, but that he has a way out of the process," Indyk said at a forum at the Brookings Institution, where he is a senior fellow. "He needs to support it."

Indyk also said that based on the fate of other peace plans presented over the past two years, Sharon knows there is little chance the road map will be implemented. Therefore, Indyk said, he has little to lose by supporting the plan.

Makovsky speculated that the United States may be insisting on releasing the document quickly to strengthen U.S. attempts to woo Arab support for a potential attack on Iraq.

"Introducing the document at such a sensitive juncture, very little can be accomplished," he said. "It makes me wonder if Arab states are seeking to insist upon the quartet’s passage of the road map as a prerequisite for their acquiescence to the American actions in Iraq."

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Cape Town Clash

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

A controversial conversion has reignited a dispute over Orthodox Jewish standards between South Africa’s Orthodox establishment and one of the largest Orthodox congregations in the Southern Hemisphere.

Attempts to paper over the cracks between the beit din, or the Jewish law court, the Union of Orthodox Synagogues and Cape Town’s Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation had been made in August. At that time, Sea Point members, who had been considering pulling out of the union to set up their own rabbinical court, decided instead to give the parties six months to work things out.

However, the issue has erupted again as the result of an article in the latest issue of Noseweek, a South African publication known for investigative journalism. The article focuses on the validity of the conversion that Karin Berman underwent before her marriage to construction magnate Saul Berman, a prominent Sea Point member.

Karin Berman was married to the late Christiaan Barnard, who performed the world’s first heart transplant in 1967.

Members of the beit din reportedly told Karin Berman that they do not recognize her conversion or marriage and said the child she is expecting will not be recognized as Jewish. The credentials of the Paris rabbi who converted Berman were withdrawn 20 years ago, when he was discredited for having certified conversions for a fee, Noseweek reported.

However, Sea Point’s U.S.-born rabbi, Elihu Jacob Steinhorn, insisted that the conversion was valid. Noseweek reported further that the rabbi who married the Bermans in Rome said that he had accepted everything as kosher, based on an introduction from Steinhorn. Steinhorn denied the rabbi’s statement.

The conversion squabble, however, masks deeper issues that have been dividing the South African Orthodox world for some time. Steinhorn told Noseweek that the conversion was "the least of the issues" involved in the dispute.

The heart of the dispute centers on whether Sea Point must observe the standards of halacha demanded by the country’s chief rabbinate in Johannesburg, or whether it can adopt looser standards.

"The fact of the matter is that in the Orthodox world today outside of South Africa, which is very provincial, very closed and very British, there’s a whole world called modern Orthodoxy," Steinhorn said.

"We in Sea Point are its only representative in South Africa," he continued. Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris "can say what he likes, but he does not represent modern Orthodoxy."

Steinhorn disputed claims that the fervently Orthodox community was growing stronger in South Africa, dismissing them as "public relations." The fervently Orthodox, he said, are "disenfranchising most of Judaism."

The Noseweek article mentioned that Harris objected to an invitation that Sea Point extended to Tzili Reisenberger, an Israeli-born theologian at the University of Cape Town, to address the congregation.

"We see nothing wrong with inviting a professor who teaches Bible at the university to come and give a shiur [lesson]. That’s part of modern Orthodoxy," Steinhorn said.

A statement attributed to Harris in Noseweek, charging that Reisenberger officiated at same-sex marriages, was "baldly untrue," said Clive Rabinowitz, Sea Point vice president. Harris later apologized to Reisenberger and retracted the accusation, admitting that his statement had been incorrect and defamatory.

But Harris described as "patent nonsense" the notion that the beit din was being "unnecessarily harsh" and using the controversial conversion to "coerce" Sea Point into stricter observance. At issue, he said, is the fact that "there’s a lot of cheating going on here," with Sea Point congregants defining for themselves what modern and centrist Orthodoxy are.

"Modern or centrist Orthodoxy is observant," Harris said. "The only differences between it and ultra-Orthodoxy lie in attitudes to non-Jewish people and attitudes to general scholarship. They are not differences about the observance of Torah, and this is where both Steinhorn" and a prominent congregant, Judge Dennis Davis, "have got it wrong."

In that sense, Harris continued, Sea Point "is cheating by putting their own definition on modern Orthodoxy."

Harris described as nonsense the article’s assertion that Sea Point was "the last outpost of ‘liberal Orthodoxy,’" resisting "the flood of ‘fundamentalist pietude’ washing south from Johannesburg."

"They are defining Orthodoxy in their own way, and no one else in the Orthodox world will accept it," Harris said.

Rabinowitz, who proposed the resolution to disaffiliate from the union in August, said the public spat was "extremely unfortunate."

Negotiations between Sea Point and the union are "limping along," said Rabinowitz, who predicted that the talks "may yet lead to a resolution of the problems."

Steinhorn said he was not optimistic that things would be resolved between the beit din, the union and Sea Point. "We want unity," Steinhorn stressed, "but I don’t think they can live with modern Orthodoxy," he said.

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Glitz for Gelt

Leave a Comment / Community /

Julie Hermelin wanted nothing more than to throw a great Chanukah party that would rival her friends’ Christmas bashes.

She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

At that long-ago soiree, 60 friends crowded into Hermelin’s home. They spun dreidels, feasted on latkes and imbibed vodka until the wee hours of the morning. The following year, in 1997, 100 friends showed up. In 1998, 300 folks dropped by, including a group of naked, drunken revelers who soaked in her hot tub until 3 a.m.

Although she couldn’t have known it at the time, Hermelin, a 35-year-old television director and former musical video director, had planted the seeds for Vodka Latka, which has since become one of the hippest parties this side of Hollywood for Jews in the entertainment industry. The annual bash has helped its sponsor, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, attract hundreds of new young supporters and, in the process, partly shed its image as a stodgy, distant bureaucracy.

Back in 1998, though, the only thing Hermelin knew was that she wanted to get out of the business of throwing big, homegrown holiday bashes, especially after partygoers trashed her Los Feliz home at her last one.

But Hermelin’s Chanukah party soiree created buzz and raised more than $1,000 for Mazon, The Jewish Response to Hunger, a nonprofit group. Her ability to fuse fun with tzedekah caught the eye of her cousins Matthew and Aaron Weinberg, co-chairs of The Federation’s entertainment steering committee.

Why not, they asked, join forces with The Federation to put on an event that would both tap her talent as a world-class party planner and further Jewish causes?

Why not? she thought.

Vodka Latka was born.

“I find a lot of joy in my Jewishness and wanted to be able to share that with other people,” said Hermelin, now one of four co-chairs for the annual celebration. “I wanted to crack that image that somehow being involved in a Jewish organization was nerdy or queer; that it was something for your parents or grandparents but not for you.”

On Dec. 4, an estimated crowd of up to 1,500 of Tinseltown’s young and beautiful is expected to spend more than $200 apiece to down vodka, caviar-topped latkes and other munchables at The Federation’s fourth annual Vodka Latka at the Hollywood Palladium.

The crowd will be entertained by the band Pink Martini, watch a fashion show put on by Sharon Segal of Fred Segal in Santa Monica and dance, dance, dance. Participants will also have the chance to hang with the likes of such celebrities as Jonathan Silverman, Christina Applegate and Josh Malina (see story page 39), who will saunter across the red carpet as they arrive at the Palladium.

The event, which has come a long way since The Federation’s first Vodka Latka back in 1999 attracted just 200 people, now garners lots of media attention. Vanity Fair is expected to cover the shindig. People magazine, E! and the Hollywood Reporter, among others, have received invitations, said Tracey Kardash, director of The Federation’s Entertainment Division.

Vodka Latka is more than a party worthy of the paparazzi. This year’s event is expected to raise up to $30,000 for nonprofit groups that service at-risk children, Kardash said. That’s in addition to the thousands of dollars that will go directly into The Federation’s coffers.

The glitzy gathering also helps to “engage the young Jewish population here,” in the words of Federation President John Fishel. Indeed, Vodka Latka has given many young Jews their first exposure to Jewish philanthropy and spurred them to get involved.

A majority of Vodka Latka’s 20 committee members, for instance, only joined The Federation after last year’s event. And Israeli actress Mili Avital, who attended the 2001 party, has gone on to become a Vodka Latka co-chair. Avital, who has appeared in the Jim Jarmusch western, “Dead Man,” and the NBC miniseries. “Uprising,” has helped recruit other stars for this year’s party, said Scott Einbinder, also a co-chair.

Jonathan Silverman, who starred in “Weekend at Bernie’s” and NBC’s “The Single Guy” and will appear in the upcoming Showtime movie, “Deacons for Defense,” said his Federation involvement has increased significantly since he appeared at last year’s event. The 36-year-old actor, son of Rabbi Hillel Silverman, said he has asked “all my pals” to participate at this year’s Vodka Latka.

“I’m dragging Evan and Jaron, who are not only great entertainers but great Jews; I’m dragging Bob Saget,” he said. “Last year’s event was wonderful, and I can only hope this year’s will surpass it.”

Vodka Latka’s ascending star comes at a time when The Federation is rethinking its efforts to raise money and awareness among young Jews.

The organization significantly scaled back its outreach to Jews 25 to 45 when it recently suspended the decade-old ACCESS program, which taught donors about Jewish nonprofit agencies. Featuring Shabbat dinners, weekend retreats and wine-tasting events, ACCESS enjoyed a high degree of popularity but failed to generate enough charitable giving, said Carol Levy, The Federation’s vice president of Community Divisions.

Last year, the program brought in $240,000 in donations, about $10,000 less than The Federation spent on ACCESS.

“We’ve stepped back and taken that past eight months to relook, revise and redefine what The Federation can do for young people,” she said. “There are lots and lots and lots of young people who are moving up in their careers, joining synagogues and have discretionary funds. We want to find them.”

But The Federation has not abandoned young Jews.

The group reaches them through youth committees in the Legal, Entertainment and Real Estate divisions. The Young Leadership Cabinet brings together a group of donors contributing a minimum of $3,600 to deepen their connection to Jewish charities and the community. L.A. Couples, another program, educates married professionals on The Federation’s role and aims to tighten bonds among philanthropic Jews.

Looking forward, The Federation hopes to replace ACCESS with a new, highly targeted program by the beginning of the year. A search is currently underway to find a full-time staff member with experience in youth fundraising, Levy said.

The Federation’s goal is to raise $1 million from young lawyers, doctors and other professionals in the next three years and increase the average gift fivefold to $1,000 per person, she said.

Perhaps some vodka and latkes will infuse them with the spirit of giving.

Doors for “Vodka Latka” at the Hollywood Palladium, 6215
Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, open on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m; the program begins at 8:30
p.m. Tickets are $100 (through Dec. 1) and $125 (at the door), plus a minimum
pledge of $118 per person to the United Jewish Fund annual campaign. All guests
are asked to bring an unwrapped toy for a child 1-17 years old. For tickets,
call (323) 761-8316 or visit www.jewishla.org/html/vodkalatka.htm

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