Looking to really make your Passover meaningful? To truly exploring the modern-day concept of freedom? Then invite an American soldier to your home for the seder. That\’s what the Conservative movement on the West Coast is trying to arrange in a program called Seders for Troops, connecting synagogues located close to bases with local base chaplains.
Roseanne Barr says she has two secret ambitions. One is to celebrate the bat mitzvah she never had as a youngster growing up in Salt Lake City. The other is to become prime minister of Israel, a sort of Golda Meir II.
Last November, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), while campaigning to ban the U.S. government from using torture, told the \”Today\” show: \”The Israeli Supreme Court outlawed torture, outlawed cruel and inhumane treatment. And I have talked to Israeli officials, and they say they do very fine without it.\”
Suppose your child were kidnapped. She is buried alive with a limited air supply. Police arrest one of the kidnappers. Indeed, he was on a store videotape luring the child and then abducting her. Witnesses saw him put the child in a car. His handwriting is on the ransom note. He admits he knows where she is but remains stubbornly unresponsive.
In 1470, five corpses were found in the charnel of a church in Endingen on the Rhine. Eight years earlier, a Jewish man named Elias had sheltered a family of five beggars in his home during the Passover/Easter season. Assuming that Endingen\’s Jews had murdered the family in order to use their blood for ritual purposes, the governor ordered that Elias and his brothers, Eberlin and Mercklin, be arrested and interrogated.
The funniest part of your recent Purim issue was the article on Rabbi Aron Tendler\’s departure from Shaarey Zedek Congregation (\”Tendler Resigns Under Cloud,\” March 10). In lieu of any substance, it was filled with rumors and speculation — a hilarious send-up of real journalism!
Hollywood Fight Club\’s current production \”A Lively … and Deathly Evening With Woody Allen\” brings to the stage three written works by the Neurotic One. Woody Allen\’s \”God,\” \”Death Knocks\” and \”Mr. Big\” all deal with existential dilemmas as only Allen can.
Jewish school spirit can be found in abundance on the USC campus this weekend. The Jewish Student Film Festival has coordinated a weekend of Jewish activities, which culminates in today\’s film fest. Friday evening, attend Shabbat services at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion followed by Shabbat dinner at USC Hillel; Saturday, attend \”Jewzika: A Night of Jewish Musicians\” featuring Dov Kogen and the Hidden, SoCalled and the Moshav Band.
Members of Temple Beth Am\’s Library Minyan voted on March 15 to allow a gay couple to receive a special blessing on Shabbat in anticipation of the couple\’s commitment ceremony, marking the first time the Westside Conservative congregation has officially addressed how to handle a gay lifecycle event.
Reclaimed Art to Be Shown at LACMA
A Razed Jewish Building\’s Postmortem
L.A. Federation Names New Board Chair
When Rabbi Hagai Batzri remarried, on Feb. 5 in Los Angeles, his first wife, Luna Batzri, still hadn\’t received a get from him, a Jewish divorce.
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