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January 1, 2004

Meant to Be

Rob Eshman January 1, 2004

Earlier this year, two remarkable authors came to town and changed the way I thought about being Jewish.\n\nFrederic Brenner, the French photographer, came to speak about his new book, \”Diaspora: Exiles at Home\” (HarperCollins). The product of 25 years of work, the book contains photographs of Jews living very different kinds of lives in 45 different countries. The images are powerful, as are the accompanying analyses by some of the great thinkers and writers of our time.

Rabbis Fail to Bridge Denominational Gulf

Andrea Adelson January 1, 2004

Nearly a year ago, Jack Wertheimer, provost of the Conservative movement\’s Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and a scholar of demographic trends, put a challenge to a former student.

Jews around the nation are deeply involved in interfaith initiatives, Wertheimer noted. But they avoid involvement with their own religion\’s different movements, letting ideological differences get in the way of conversing with each other over issues dear to each. Do something to mend that divide before the gulf is unbridgeable, he urged Stuart Altshuler, a JTS graduate and rabbi of Mission Viejo\’s Congregation Eilat.

Young Ambassadors in Israel Prepare for Return Home

Andrea Adelson January 1, 2004

There is unanimity on one point only: Two young Irvine women, who are midway through a 10-month subsidized stay in Israel, will return home next June speaking conversational Hebrew.

But little else is certain as both girls\’ parents predict their offspring will return changed by the immersion in voluntary social service, language training and civics lessons.

Vigil Points to Interfaith Inroads

Andrea Adelson January 1, 2004

With Chanukah bracketed by major Christian and Muslim celebrations, last month might have been a propitious time to find common ground between the Abrahamic faiths.

Instead, a pair of incidents occurring within days of each other reveals the breadth of the cultural divide.

Prompted by recent car bombings of two synagogues in Turkey and a mosque in India, local leaders of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths came together for a vigil on Dec. 7 to publicly condemn such acts of violence as \”nothing less than vicious murders.\”

Abel Salgado Keeps the Challah Coming

Gustavo Arellano January 1, 2004

Forty years after he first put on a white apron, Abel Salgado remains an anomaly in the Jewish bakery world, but not for reasons one might expect. Sure, when he joined Local 453 of the Hebrew Master Bakers and Confectioners Union in 1963, the Chihuahua native was maybe the second or third Latino ever to join the union, then 2,000 strong. And even today, Salgado is one of the few non-Jews involved in the Jewish bakery business, a profession that occupies a particularly sacred — not to mention delicious — place in the religion. But, Salgado noted, ethnicity and theology were the least controversial issues when he originally applied to join the union.

Project Re’ut Melds Optimism, Realism

Marc Ballon January 1, 2004

For many observers the \”road map,\” which envisions creating a Palestinian state adjacent to Israel, looks increasingly like a dead end. As does the Geneva accord. With Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists blowing up innocent Israelis in bloody attacks and Israel building a security fence around itself that slices through Palestinian lands, rarely has peace seemed so elusive.

For Gidi Grinstein, though, the current deadlock should be but a detour on the way to a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians. The 33-year-old director of Project Re\’ut, a new Tel Aviv-based think tank that envisions creating a comprehensive approach for Israel to move toward a beneficial two-state solution, said he is cautiously optimistic, although a realist.

Temple Plays Iranian Card to Spur Growth

Andrea Adelson January 1, 2004

The desperate son of a woman diagnosed with cancer sought advice from Rabbi Reuben Malekan before accompanying his mother to Mexico for shark-cartilage treatments. When the cure failed, the son again beseeched Malekan for support in claiming his mother\’s body. Emotionally spent and depressed by the experience, Malekan nevertheless went on that same day to perform a joyous wedding service, which typically includes his full-throated a cappella version of \”Sunrise, Sunset.\”

\”It\’s an art to get out of that sadness,\” said Malekan, a well-known Iranian-born rabbi from Los Angeles, who is a master at refocusing his mental energy to suit the emotional range requisite of daily clergy life.

Up Front

Jewish Journal January 1, 2004

Community Brief, news from around California, los angeles,United States.

Predictions

Rob Eshman January 1, 2004

A decade before 2001, the increased availability of the personal computer and the Internet revolutionized our world, but it hardly whipsawed our sense of well-being. We expect leaps in technology. We predict the world of things, even nature itself, will fall more and more under our mastery. But 2001 was a leap in dread, fear and anxiety, all things we have managed to medicate but not master.\n\nWhat changed in 2001 was the comfort of predictability itself. Now we all walk around with a sense that the other shoe will not only drop at any time, but it might also drop on us.

A Prayer Book of Many Colors

Gaby Wenig January 1, 2004

Lori Justice-Shocket thought that the traditional praying experience was just a bit too black and white. Not the prayers, themselves, per se, but the siddurim (prayer books), with their plain black typeface on white pages and the archaic traditional language, made davening, for her at least, formal, stiff and lacking in the visual and emotional engagement that she thought prayer should have.

So Justice-Shocket, vice president of conceptual development at the Los Angeles-based nail polish company, OPI, decided to take matters into her own presumably well-manicured hands and create a prayer book that could visually and intellectually inspire worshippers.

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