In the first moments after Lori Marx-Rubiner was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, several fears ran through her head. The Jewish community social worker, who was 35 at the time, wondered about her mortality and worried about the prospect of pain and nausea induced by treatment. However, her deepest concern centered on her then 3-year-old son, Zachary.
Struggling with being overweight affects more than 75 percent of all Americans, and is a serious problem for the Jewish population in the United States. But it is not a moral issue.
Hilla Hayo, 16, was not a victim of the Dolphinarium attack in Tel Aviv on June 1, 2001 — but she could have been. The teenager, who, along with four classmates, spent 10 days at New Community Jewish High School in West Hills this October as part of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation\’s Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership, canceled her plans at the last minute the night of the explosion. She and her pal were planning to go to Pacha, the Dolphinarium\’s neighboring club whose patrons were also struck when the bomb was detonated.
\”My best friend got sick and we decided not to go,\” remembered Hayo.
On June 1, 2001, Larisa Azyaski stood with her best friend Irina Nepomnyaschy among a sea of teenagers clamoring to get into the Dolphinarium, a popular Tel Aviv club. Suddenly, the place exploded. A suicide bomber detonated himself, and Azyaski saw only darkness in front of her. She felt like her head was on fire. Disoriented and separated from her friends, she walked past dozens of motionless bodies and managed to escape the chaos
For \”My Flesh and Blood,\” documentary director Jonathan Karsh spent a year in Susan Tom\’s Fairfield California home, documenting her unique family. Tom is the adoptive mother of 11 disabled children whose conditions range from genetic skin disease to missing limbs.
In introducing us to the patriarchal family of Isaac, son of Abraham, this week\’s Torah portion of Toldot begins: "And these are the offspring of Isaac son of Abraham — Abraham begot Isaac." Since Torah is not given to redundancy, this opening passage raises the question:
Aliyah is the oat bran of the Jewish people. We know it\’s good for us. We know we should be having more of it. But truth is, we just find it hard to swallow. And we certainly don\’t like it shoved down our throats.
When I accepted a job to transfer from New York City to Los Angeles, I figured October would be the ideal month to move. Just as bone-chilling winds began sweeping the East Coast, I\’d be basking in year-round sunshine on the other side of the country.
While most of the images of Israel presented to the American public are of military conflict, a recent mission to Israel sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which included City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, City Council President Alex Padilla, Cesar Chavez Foundation President Andres Irlando and myself, revealed something very different. We saw a multiethnic democracy full of citizens, with jaw-dropping stories of survival, demonstrating incredible resilience.
Halfway around the world, we encountered a small nation confronting many of the same challenges we face in Los Angeles and returned convinced that increased contact between Los Angeles and Israel can facilitate the solution of many complex problems at home.
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