The subject of Monday afternoon\’s Democratic caucus meeting was crucial: On the eve of President Bush\’s release of his economic stimulus package, how could House Democrats make the public case that their package was better?
After graduating from UCLA nearly four decades ago with a degree in psychology, Gerald Zaslaw thought about becoming a parole officer. But after briefly working alongside one, he had a change of plans. Rather than police children, Zaslaw decided he wanted to help them.
Bob S. insists that his mother back in Virginia made the best chicken soup ever, but he\’s willing to admit the homemade version delivered to his Van Nuys apartment is a close second.
The delivery is part of the mission of Project Chicken Soup, an all-volunteer group that cooks, packages and personally delivers kosher meals twice a month to patients living with HIV and AIDS. It might be a chicken breast or a casserole, along with the soup, salad, fruit, dessert or even a protein drink.
The city of Los Angeles has been hit with claims of more than $58 million, stemming from the deadly shooting rampage last July 4 at Los Angeles International Airport\’s El Al check-in counter.\n\nKilled in the attack were two Israeli Americans, Yaacov (Jacob) Aminov, a 46-year-old owner of a jewelry distribution company, and Victoria (Vicky) Hen, 25, who had worked as an El Al ticket agent for less than two months.\n\nThey died in a hail of bullets fired by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian immigrant, who opened fire on passengers waiting in line. He was killed within seconds by an El Al security guard.\n\nClaims by the Aminov family and companions total more than $38 million, while the parents of Hen are asking for $20 million.
The Los Angeles Superior Court confirmed on Wednesday a controversial beit din (Jewish court of law) arbitration award that ruled that properties controlled by the Living Judaism Center (LJC) should be taken over by Chabad of California.
Ilan Ramon walks the pathways of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, slowed by the weight of the thick book under his arm. It\’s the bible of the \”magnificent seven\” — the group of astronauts scheduled to blast off in the space shuttle Columbia Jan. 16 from the Kennedy Space Center. Among these elite seven, for the first time, will be an Israeli astronaut.
Ramon, 48, a colonel in the Israeli Air Force (IAF), counts among his experience more than 4,000 hours in fighter jets. Following a decision by President Bill Clinton in 1995, the United States and Israel signed an agreement stipulating that an Israeli astronaut would fly on a U.S. space shuttle as a payload specialist, supervising an Israeli scientific experiment.
The Israeli Post Office issued a stamp in December featuring the country\’s first astronaut, who is scheduled to fly on NASA\’s space shuttle in mid-January.
\”Every time you are the first, it\’s meaningful,\” said Col. Ilan Ramon. Israel will join an elite club of 30 nations that have sent at least one citizen into orbit aboard a U.S. shuttle or a Russian Soyuz capsule. The countries include Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Syria, Costa Rica, South Africa, Poland, Afghanistan and Cuba.
These are sad days for the Jewish community in Venezuela as many begin to question whether this country, once so hospitable to Jewish life, can still be called home.
As the country faces nearly its sixth week of a devastating strike calling for early elections or the resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venzuela\’s economy, already set to shrink by 6 percent this year, has been hurled into utter chaos. Poverty levels are estimated at 80 percent — a tragedy for one of the wealthiest and most stable countries in Latin America.
It has taken roughly three decades for L.A.\’s community of Russian-speaking Jews to steadily, if incrementally, gain a foothold in Jewish American and mainstream American life.\n\n\”In the Russian Jewish community, you didn\’t have, until the early \’90s, any organization,\” said Miriam Prum Hess, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles\’ vice president for Planning and Allocations. \”Now that this community has made it as one of our wonderful success stories.\”\n\nOne sign that Los Angeles\’ immigrant-heavy Russian Jewish community has \”made it\” as a rising philanthropic force in the larger Jewish community is this month\’s Russian Dinner Gala, co-sponsored by The Federation and the American Russian Medical and Dental Association — headed by Dr. Ludmila Bess and Alex Gershman. The Jewish entities will join forces to host the first large-scale community-wide effort ever staged by this city\’s Russian-speaking Jewish community.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.