Andy Lipkis is founder and president of TreePeople, a nonprofit agency that has pioneered efforts at urban reforestation and creating a \”sustainable city.\” Documentarian Harry Wiland sat with Lipkis to talk about the impact of the Southern California wildfires and our possible responses to them.
Letters to the Editor, Point of View in response to Articles.
Jono Wagmeister\’s bar mitzvah adventure started at a friend\’s bat mitzvah in Atlanta last April, and took him on a virtual journey across the world and through centuries of Jewish history.
It was in Atlanta that Jono first heard about the 1,564 scrolls the Nazis collected and catalogued for a future exhibit on the extinct race. In 1964 the decaying scrolls were transported to Westminster Synagogue in London, where they were repaired, catalogued and made available on loan to synagogues around the world through the Czech Memorial Scrolls Centre.
you thought Hebrew school was just for bar and bat mitzvah students, think again. This fall, tens of thousands of Jews around the United States and Canada are learning to read and write Hebrew through Read Hebrew America/Canada. The campaign, which is made possible by the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP), a New York-based organization that provides Jewish educational opportunities, is now offering its annual free Hebrew crash course in Los Angeles and other cities across the country during the month of November.
\”Hebrew is the language of the Jewish people, yet in America we don\’t know if more than 20 or 25 percent of Jews can read it,\” said Rabbi Yitzchak Rosenbaum, NJOP\’s program director.
Fred Kort, Holocaust survivor, philanthropist and founder/CEO of Imperial Toy Corporation, died on Sept. 6. He was 80.\n
Care for an authentic Cuban mojito at the L\’chaim bar? How about Israeli salad, matzah ball soup and cheese blintzes?
They\’re all now on the menu at the Hotel Raquel, Cuba\’s first boutique hotel catering specifically to adventurous Jewish tourists.
There\’s a Hawaiian legend about a pregnant woman who developed a craving for the eyeballs of royalty. Advisers to the king took this to mean that the woman\’s child would one day grow up to defeat the king and rule all the islands. The king decreed that the baby be killed as soon as it was born. So the woman had her newborn boy spirited away and hidden from the king.\n\nThe boy became King Kamehameha, who indeed conquered the islands of Hawaii.\n\nI read this Moses-like story one night, sitting on the balcony of our room at the Maui Prince Hotel.
Early this past summer, Mel Gibson invited me to see \”The Passion,\” his film on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. The invitation was significant in that I was the first practicing Jew and active member of the American Jewish community to be invited.
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