Ford Theatre Foundation
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August 17, 2006
Circuit
Getting in Their Licks
Carvel Ice Cream in the Ralphs center on Pico Boulevard was the scene of an Israeli fundraiser last month. In conjunction with Beth Jacob Youth, the Ice Cream You Scream for Israel event raised more than $900 to help Israeli soldiers and children.
There was also a project station where children wrote letters to soldiers and Israeli children, showing their love and support. Carvel Ice Cream is RCC kosher and adheres strictly to kosher dietary laws.
Center of Everything
The home of Evelyn and Bill Bernstein was filled with supporters when the American Friends of Rabin Medical Center held an informative event on current stem cell research. Guests watched a video highlighting the hospital, its research and new advances.
Dr. Jeff Bronstein professor of neurology and director of movement disorders at the UCLA School of Medicine, and Dr. Dan Oppenheim, CEO of the Rabin Medical Center, Israel’s premier medical complex, answered questions and gave updates.Those wishing to donate to the Rabin Medical Center should call (212) 279-2522. For information, call Gail Bershon at (310) 717-9729.
A Splash of Charitable Fun
The fifth annual Summer Splash fundraiser benefiting Bright Future Scholarships for promising Fulfillment Fund students took place on Sunday, Aug. 6 at the Beverly Hills home of Alfred Mann. Cuba Gooding Jr. attended as the honorary chair of the event. He was joined by Dr. Gary Gitnick, Fulfillment Fund founder; Andrea Cockrum, Fulfillment Fund CEO; actress Liza Snyder, who led a live auction; actress Constance Zimmer; singer Michelle Branch; actor Sean Patrick Thomas; and many others in a pool party that featured live music, henna tattoo artists, massages and a host of delicious offerings from local restaurants.
The event honored this year’s three Bright Future scholarship winners, Cindy Hernandez, Andy Gomez and Jacob Gutierrez. For more information, visit www.fulfillment.org.
The Hands of Angels
The stars were out when Project Angel Food held its annual fundraiser Angel Awards on Aug. 5 night. Honoree Nathan Lane, who has helped raised copious amounts of money for AIDS-related charities, broke up the crowd when he said he was in town to circumcise Mel Gibson. Superstars Doris Roberts, who was honored in 2005, and Victor Garber joined in the fun to fete Disney for its support and present Lane with his Angel award. Guests roamed about the silent auction and mingled at the well-attended event that raised more than $200,000 for Project Angel Food to feed the hungry. Project Angel Food founder Marianne Williamson touched the crowd with her stirring comments on Project Angel Food’s beginnings.
The Way It Is
Nearly 300 members of the Eretz-SIAMAK Cultural Center in Tarzana gathered on Aug. 5 during Saturday services to hear Israel air force Brig. Gen. Relik Shafir speak about Israel’s air offensive against Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.
Shafir, who was also one of the eight pilots that attacked Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in 1981, said Israel’s air force could not take out all of Hezbollah rockets with air strikes and ground troops would eventually have to be sent in to eliminate the threat of attacks on northern Israel.
“Some people ask why we don’t wipe out southern Lebanon, it’s because we are Jews and care about civilian lives in both Lebanon and Israel,” Shafir told the crowd.
Following his speech, the Persian Jewish members of Eretz-SIAMAK individually pledged thousands of dollars in donations to help the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel, as well as other hospitals in northern Israel aiding Israeli victims of terror.
— Karmel Melamed, Contributing Writer
Jewish, Muslim Filmmakers Team Up on Documentary
With all of the negative images about Jewish-Muslim clashes in the world, it is nice to see a documentary, directed and produced by a Jew and a Muslim, about a Muslim son taking over his father’s slaughterhouse business in Queens, N.Y.
“A Son’s Sacrifice,” which will be screened for one week at ArcLight Cinemas as part of DocuWeek’s 10th annual International Documentary Showcase, follows the transition of a young Muslim American as he moves from an enervating job in advertising to a more spiritually enriching experience running his father’s Old World business.
Though short even by documentary standards at 28 minutes, the film delves deeply into what 24-year-old director Yoni Brook, an NYU film school graduate, calls “primal rituals,” and what his 22-year-old producer, Musa Syeed, refers to as a “story that embodies modernity vs. tradition.”
The idea for the film may have begun years ago when Brook, as a student at a Jewish day school in Washington, D.C., visited a kosher slaughterhouse in rural Pennsylvania.
“It turned a lot of people off,” he said, chuckling. “Eighty percent of us became vegetarians.”
Even if Brook, who is not a vegetarian, admitted that the 80 percent figure is “hyperbolic,” the experience of watching animals being slaughtered is not for the squeamish. In “A Son’s Sacrifice,” the camera shows us more than a little bloodshed, although that may be mild compared to other shots in the film, including one of a goat being incinerated and another being dragged away to its death.
But the filmmakers, who received financing from several foundations, including the Harvard Pluralism Project and the Independent Television Service, a nonprofit affiliated with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, do not pass judgment on this old-fashioned profession, which, according to Brook, is experiencing a “renaissance.” He said there are now 80 or so ethnic slaughterhouses in the five boroughs of New York, including the halal poultry store depicted in the movie.
The film, which will air next year on PBS, grew out of Brook’s senior thesis at NYU. Marco Williams, his professor and the film’s executive producer, teamed him up with Syeed, and they began leafing through the Yellow Pages, searching for slaughterhouses on the weekends. Syeed said that it took time to “build trust,” because some Muslim Americans are a bit wary of the camera and “feel that they are marginalized” by American media.
The protagonist, Imran, a sweet, burly man, who is now 28, goes through a kind of identity crisis in the course of the film. Lacking a full beard, he is questioned as to his Muslim bona fides by a few men who drive a van with a sticker reading, “Islam is the solution.”
This question galls him, given how much he values being a Muslim. That is not to say that Imran is not a full-fledged American.
Where John Updike, for all his literary adroitness, renders his Muslim protagonist in “Terrorist” as a cliché, Brook and Syeed show the complexities of their young hero. Imran does not utter the kind of formal, yet standard-issue, Islam-for-dummies language of Ahmad in “Terrorist,” lines like, “In a few minutes, I am going to see the face of God. My heart overflows with the expectation.”
Instead, Imran speaks like an educated, yet streetwise, New Yorker, who collects “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” figurines in his low-ceilinged bedroom, wears baseball caps and uses spreadsheet software in his cubbyhole office.
The tension in the film comes from whether Imran will successfully prepare the small business for Qurbani, the holiday during which Muslims commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, not Isaac. Will Imran earn the trust of his father’s customers, and will he be ready to slaughter an animal? These are the questions that preoccupy him and his father.
Though we never hear anyone address Imran by his name, the filmmakers humanize him, presenting him as one whose experience is “transcendent of being Muslim or being Jewish,” Brook said. “It’s a universal story. I almost thought I was talking to my own father,” he added, referring to the “religious and immigrant tensions” that he, too, has faced as a first-generation American with an Israeli father.
To emphasize the universality of the story, the filmmakers show a shot of the Empire State Building looming across the river from the slaughterhouse, a subtle reminder that New Yorkers of all faiths suffered during 9/11, but they, like this particular iconic skyscraper, remain standing.
“A Son’s Sacrifice” will be screened Friday-Thursday at Theater 9, ArcLight Cinemas, 6360 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.
For information, call (213) 534-3600 Ext. 7438 or go to Jewish, Muslim Filmmakers Team Up on Documentary Read More »
Gunter Grass Admits to SS Past
Gunter Grass Admits to SS Past
Nobel Prize-winning author Gunter Grass’ admission that he was an SS member has drawn both rage and defenses of the writer.
While some say the revelation devalues his life’s work, others are showing more understanding for the pressures faced by the teenager who later would write such modern German classics as “The Tin Drum.”
Grass, 78, whose autobiography is due out this fall, told the Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung in an interview published last Friday that he was drafted into the Waffen SS in the final months of World War II.
The Waffen SS was the elite fighting force of the SS, the Nazi Party’s quasi-military unit, and was declared part of a criminal organization at the Nuremberg Trials. Grass was interned briefly in a POW camp in Bavaria after the war.
Literary critic Helmuth Karasek told the radio program BDR that Grass should have revealed the truth sooner, and suggested that the Nobel Prize committee might not have honored someone “whom they knew had been a member of the Waffen SS and had long denied it.” Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.
Grass biographer Michael Juergs said he was “personally disappointed,” and has called into question the validity of Grass’ life work. But German writer Erich Loest told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that Grass’ admission should be “accepted without condemnation. He was very young and there was no one to influence him in the opposite direction,” he said.
Grass told the Frankfurt paper he was drafted as a 17-year-old following a stint in a support unit for the German air force, and was brought to serve in a Waffen SS tank division in Dresden. In the forthcoming autobiography, “While Skinning an Onion,” he writes that the past had “oppressed him. My suppression of this through the years was among the reasons why I have written this book. It had to come out, finally.”
Grass said he originally had volunteered to serve in a Nazi submarine unit, which was “just as crazy.”
Until now, his biography has shown that Grass was drafted in the support unit for the air force in 1944, then served as a soldier. In the new book, he writes about how he was 15 when he tried to volunteer with the submarine corps and was rejected because of his age. He was called up in 1944, as were all boys born in 1927.
He was assigned to the Waffen SS, which “in the final year of the war took draftees, not only volunteers,” he said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
Grass said he never had tried to hide the fact that as a youth he was vulnerable to Nazi propaganda. He also told the Frankfurt paper that he never actually served in the Waffen SS division to which he had been assigned. He ended up behind the Russian front on reconnaissance patrols, witnessing what he described as gruesome scenes and surviving by pure chance. During his brief internment as a POW, Grass says he met the similarly interned Joseph Ratzinger, who now is Pope Benedict XVI.
Israelis Arrested for Allegedly Running U.S. Hooker Ring
Two Israelis are under arrest for allegedly running a sophisticated, multi-million-dollar prostitution ring in four Western states, employing up to 240 women.
Boaz Benmoshe, 44, and Ofer Moses Lupovitz, 43, the alleged leaders of the ring headquartered in Palm Springs, are now in a local jail, Sheriff Bob Doyle of Riverside County announced Monday.
Also arrested were two Russian nationals, Moti M. Vintrov, 33, and Eliran Vintrov, 28, together with their spouses.
According to authorities, the two Israelis ran the sex ring under the cover of Elite Entertainment, an adult escort business, which dispatched prostitutes to clients in California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon.
The Press-Enterprise news service in Riverside described the ring’s Palm Springs headquarters as a glass-walled office in a quiet open-air business complex, which also included the district office of U.S. Republican Rep. Mary Bono.Elite Entertainment allegedly operated 80 phone lines, over which clients ordered sexual services through their credit cards. Rates varied from $200 to $2,000, “depending on what you’re getting done,” Doyle said.
Local authorities and U.S. Secret Service agents arrested the suspects after a two and a half year investigation and seized $5 million in assets and more than a dozen computers.
The suspects used their income to fraudulently obtain loans to buy luxury homes in the Palm Springs area, authorities alleged.
An arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 21.
— Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor
AIPAC Judge Won’t Broaden Case
The judge in the classified information case against two former pro-Israel lobbyists rejected a prosecution attempt to broaden the indictment. Prosecutors had sought to redefine as classified a document described as unclassified in the original indictment.
Judge T.S. Ellis III rejected the request last Friday, saying it would unconstitutionally alter the indictment.
Keith Weissman, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s former Iran analyst, asked Larry Franklin, a Pentagon Iran analyst who since has pleaded guilty, for the document in June 2003.
It’s the only document that Weissman or his former boss, Steve Rosen, actively solicited, according to their August 2005 indictment.
In pre-trial rulings, Ellis has made clear that at trial he will expect a higher bar of evidence to prove that defendants knew they were hearing classified information in conversations, as opposed to receiving documentation.
Holocaust Cartoon Exhibit Opens in Iran
Iran opened a competition for the cartoons in reaction to last year’s controversy over the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper about the Islamic prophet Muhammad. One of more than 200 cartoons displayed shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the Holocaust in one hand and giving a Nazi-style salute in the other, The Associated Press reported.
Scandal Over General’s Stocks
Israel’s military chief drew fire following revelations that he sold an investment portfolio when the Lebanon war erupted. Within hours of a Hezbollah border raid July 12 in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two abducted, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz sold off some $25,000 worth of stocks, Ma’ariv reported Tuesday. Halutz confirmed the sale, which came shortly before markets tumbled at the prospect of major unrest in the Middle East, but said he did not know at the time that there would be a war. Ma’ariv’s revelations further stoked Israeli ire at the military’s handling of the offensive against Hezbollah, which ended this week in a cease-fire. Lawmakers from across Israel’s political spectrum called for Halutz’s resignation, and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz was asked to investigate whether the stock sale constituted a criminal breach of trust.
Jewish Greeks Advocate for Israel
Jewish fraternities and sororities are launching an Israel advocacy push on college campuses this fall. Alpha Epsilon Pi and Alpha Epsilon Phi, the two largest Jewish Greek organizations, brought 90 students to Louisville, Ky., from Sunday through Tuesday to learn about building support for Israel.
Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Gunter Grass Admits to SS Past Read More »
Thirty Years of Carlebach Rock
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s musical legacy has taken many forms, from the
dozens of minyanim whose worship uses his music to the excellent recordings
made by his daughter, Neshama. But the most enduring and unexpected
offspring from Carlebach’s folkie neo-Chasidism is the number of jam bands
performing his music. If that seems incongruous, you only need to hear the
Moshav Band to realize how natural it really is.
Moshav Band, which was founded as a direct result of Carlebach’s influence,
just released its first English only album — “Misplaced.”
Reb Shlomo and a group of his followers had created a musical moshav in
Israel in 1977 in the hills between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, a community
called Moshav Meor Modi’im. Yehuda (vocals), Dovid (guitar), Meir (guitar,
mandolin) and Yosef Solomon (bass), the sons of one of the original members
of that community, are the core of the group, joined by drummer David
Swirsky. Like Inasense and Soulfarm, two other Carlebach-spawned jam bands,
they melded his musical influence with that of the rock groups they heard as
kids — most obviously, The Dead, Dylan, Neil Young — in a splendid blend
of sacred and secular.
The Moshav Band has long been one of the most popular of Jewish-oriented
rock groups, but sometime at the end of the millennium that distinction
ceased to satisfy the group. Perhaps the band had always intended to try
hurdling the wall that generally separates openly Jewish music from rest of
the entertainment world; for Christians that wall has been more of a
semipermeable membrane, as any country-music fan will tell you. Whatever
their motivation, in 2000 the band members relocated to Los Angeles to
launch their assault on rest of the pop/rock world.
“Higher and Higher: The Best of the Moshav Band,” which the Jewish Music
Group released earlier this year, is a canny attempt to straddle the gap
between the moshav and the mosh pit. The set has more English-language songs
than its previous recordings, and it is long on anthemic rockers like
“Waiting for the Calling” that would not be out of place on an album by U2
or Pearl Jam, two bands to which it bears more than a slight resemblance.
But even the straighthead rockers and love songs can be easily read as calls
to God, rather than your usual pop invocations of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’
roll. In truth, the bands it most resembles are ones that are firmly
grounded in the soil of a homeland and its political struggles, bands like
The Levellers or The Pogues (if you sobered them up).
In that respect, the Moshav Band’s heart and soul are still linked tightly
to the hills outside Jerusalem and, fittingly, to the musical and spiritual
legacy of Rabbi Carlebach.
George Robinson is the film and music critic for Jewish Week. His book, “Essential Torah,” will be published by Shocken Books in fall 2006.
Thirty Years of Carlebach Rock Read More »
War Takes Environmental Toll
As the people of northern Israel finally return to their homes, they’re going back to more than empty streets, freshly dug gravesites and a beefed-up military presence.
They’re also coming home to a radically altered physical landscape.
Devastated by fires sparked by Katyusha rockets, northern Israel has seen its forests obliterated, its grazing lands laid waste and its wildlife annihilated over the past four weeks.
The country may never look the same, experts say.
“We have very serious damage,” said Moshon Gabay, spokesman for the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority. “In previous wars we did not suffer damage like this. Every Katyusha that falls starts a fire.”
The green hills of the Galilee have turned orange and black, smoldering with the remains of forest fires. The sky, usually bright blue this time of year, is shrouded in thick gray smoke. The large animals and many birds that live in the area have taken flight, and countless numbers of smaller and slower animals have been killed in raging fires that have turned verdant hills to ash.
So far, officials say, more than 7,000 acres of undeveloped land have been destroyed, including about 2,500 acres of woodlands encompassing roughly 700,000 trees. Some of those trees were as old as the State of Israel.
“It’s an ecological catastrophe. Animals are dying. Trees are getting burned,” said Orit Hadad, an official with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Israel, where it is known as Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael. “Even if every tree is replanted, to bring these forests back to the state they were in will take 50 to 60 years.”
That means that most of the survivors of this war will not live to see the landscape return to its prewar state.
Among the hardest-hit areas have been the Naftali forest range near Kiryat Shmona, where more than three-quarters of the forest was obliterated, and the Birya Forest in the Western Galilee, near Safed, where more than 600 acres have burned.
Less is known about how the animals that live in this largely rural area have fared. Firefighters have found the remains of many slow-moving animals, such as snakes and turtles, in burned areas. Larger animals that managed to escape likely will suffer from loss of food sources and a sharp reduction in available grazing lands, experts said.
“We’re very aware of this problem of disruption of the food chain, even if there is not much we can do,” said Michael Weinberger, a JNF forest supervisor in the Central Galilee and Golan Heights.
Tourists who return to this area after the war may be startled to find Israel’s most popular hiking spots, where waterfalls pour over lush ridges, virtually unrecognizable.
On Aug. 8, the fires from Katyushas reached Mount Meron, already scorched, and nearby Nahal Amud, a strikingly beautiful canyon that runs from the Upper Galilee to the Kinneret Lake and is replete with waterfalls, blooming plant life and animals ranging from gazelles to wild boars.
There is little that Israel’s Nature Protection Authority, which maintains the area, can do for these lands at risk. Even after the war ends the authority will not replant, since the areas are protected reserves or natural areas where the rule of thumb is to let nature take its course.
Even if officials tried, there would be no way to restore the variety of plant life, wildlife and woodlands native to the area.
“It all depends on the rain that will fall,” Gabay said. “We let these areas repopulate naturally.”
The JNF says it will try to replant as many trees as possible after the fighting is over. Each acre will cost an estimated $5,500 for the first two years to resoil, replant and treat, officials said.
For now, the focus is on putting out the fires.
Because most firefighters in northern Israel are busy trying to extinguish blazes sparked by the Katyusha rockets in urban areas where human lives are at stake, the fight against forest fires has been conducted mostly from the air.
Israel’s Interior Ministry has run out of money to pay for the planes, so the JNF is picking up the tab with an emergency fund, for which it has raised nearly $4 million. The money has gone and is going to send kids to summer camps away from rocket attacks, build security roads on the Gaza border and purchase firefighting equipment, including fire trucks, helmets, vests, goggles and a fire retardant the planes are using to douse the fires.
“We are all working 12- to 16-hour days — crews on fire trucks and on the ground,” said Paul Ginsburg, JNF’s head forester for Israel’s northern region. “Forests that have taken 50 years to grow, that saw two generations of foresters, are burning. Everything we do is under the threat of Katyusha attacks. The work is stressful and heartbreaking.”
Many more environmental threats loom, experts say. In Haifa, petrochemical plants and refineries vulnerable to Katyusha rockets pose a serious danger to area residents. If such a site is hit in the future, it could send toxic chemicals that would contaminate the entire city.
“The concern is very problematic from an ecological point of view,” said Ronit Fischer, director of the Haifa branch of the Society for the Preservation of Nature in Israel. “If something falls there, it will be a very complicated disaster.”
The damage to Israel’s environment has not been limited to the North.
In the area around the Gaza Strip, along Israel’s southern coast, more than 15,000 trees have been destroyed as a result of Palestinian Kassam rocket attacks, according to the JNF. Additionally, the Israeli army has had to alter the natural landscape in many places to accommodate new military bases, lookouts or patrol roads.
The heaviest damage from the war was where Hezbollah missile crews were aiming their rockets: the Galilee, a mountainous area covered by fir and pine trees, abundant grazing lands and bountiful wildlife. Some Katyushas fell in the Golan Heights, but the damage there is small by comparison, and experts say the burned grasslands there should be able to recover by next year.
Shalom Blayer, CEO of the Golan Heights Winery, said the vineyards of northern Israel have been spared so far, although some vineyards abutting the Lebanon border have been declared no-go zones by the military.
Underscoring the vulnerable state of agriculture-based businesses in northern Israel, he said, “This is what I know for now; I can’t tell you what will be five minutes from now.”
War Takes Environmental Toll Read More »
After School Is Prime Game Time for Kids of All Needs
Kathryn Gaskin’s blonde braid bounces against her sweatshirt as she rounds second base under the afternoon sun. The 12-year-old’s obvious enthusiasm is not for her own athletic pursuits but for those of Angeline, a teen with Down syndrome, whom Gaskin coaches in an after-school program called Prime Time Games.
When the batter hits a grounder, Gaskin gently prompts a beaming Angeline to run. The excited youngster, clad in pink sweats and a T-shirt, jogs down the softball field and plants herself firmly on third base. She looks back at Gaskin, who claps and whoops. The two share a smile.
“I wanted to be a coach because I like sports,” said Gaskin of her involvement with the Prime Time Games program.
The Pacific Palisades resident initially took on the responsibly to fulfill an outreach requirement for her bat mitzvah last spring. The experience has satisfied more than a ceremonial obligation.
“I feel good because I’m helping other people,” Gaskin said.
Gaskin is among a group of preteens and teenagers who serve as peer sports coaches for Prime Time Games, a program of the Los Angeles-based Team Prime Time. Most of the coaches are at-risk children from low-income areas of the city, taking part in Team Prime Time’s intervention programs that combine academics, athletics and leadership training. Prime Time Games was created a year ago to include students with special needs. While the athletes clearly get a chance to shine in group sports, the young coaches thrive, as well.
“The coaches are truly responsible — with the knowledge that adults are there to support them — for the total experience of another child, and they are treated with respect and acknowledged for what they accomplish,” said executive director Peter Straus. “We have yet to figure out who benefits more, coach or athlete.”
While the majority of Prime Time Games coaches are at-risk kids from the Daniel Webster Middle School in West Los Angeles, a Title I school where the weekly after-school program is held, a small percentage are Jewish children fulfilling the community service portion of their bar and bat mitzvah requirements. The respectful interaction between the athletes and coaches is also reflected in the interaction between the Webster students and their Jewish co-coaches.
Straus, a veteran teacher and sports coach at various L.A. schools, also runs a summer camp called Prime Time Sports Camp. He noticed the void in after-school programs for at-risk kids at the middle school level and in 2001 created Team Prime Time to do something about it.
“The emphasis is not on the outcome of the games,” said Straus, adding that no one keeps score. “It’s the interaction of the kids. They bring out the best in each other.”
Prime Time Games began attracting the pre-bar mitzvah crowd as Jewish kids filtered through Straus’ summer camp. Other coaches discovered the program because of their siblings’ participation.
Adam Sperber-Compean, who will become a bar mitzvah in September, learned about the program when his autistic brother became involved. “I’m here for him, and he listens to me,” said Adam, on coaching his younger sibling.
Some of the coaches know one another from Straus’ summer camp and others attend the same school. Straus attempts to pair together coaches with these commonalities. When that’s not possible, Straus is optimistic.
“With the focus being on sports and the kids you’re helping, it breaks down barriers pretty quickly,” he said.
When the program resumes in October, coaches and athletes will meet one afternoon a week at Webster School. The coaches will attend a training program, where they will learn about working with special-needs children.
Mady Goldberg’s daughter, Elena, an 8-year-old with motor and processing issues, has blossomed in the program.
“She loves it,” said Goldberg, a Pacific Palisades resident. “She’s had the opportunity to play team sports, and in any typical scenario, that would be difficult for her.”
Goldberg said that practicing her skills in a supportive environment has helped Elena progress physically. In addition, she developed a close bond with her two coaches. As a result, Elena’s self-esteem has soared.
Jonah Gadinsky, 12, who has volunteered since December, vows to continue coaching after his bar mitzvah in November. “I definitely see how lucky I am do to be able to do the things that others can’t do,” said Jonah, a Westwood resident who is starting seventh grade.
After working almost exclusively with Bobby, a budding basketball player, Jonah is hooked.
“I feel really good for kids when they make a basket, just seeing their faces light up,” said the young coach.
Prime Time Games will resume in October.
After School Is Prime Game Time for Kids of All Needs Read More »
Siblings of Fallen Israeli Soldiers Take a Camp Break
Ester was hoarding her snacks.
Each day after canteen at Camp Ramah, Ester, a 12-year-old Ethiopian Israeli, would take her potato chips and chocolate bars and squirrel them away in her suitcase back in her bunk.
She was saving the free treats for her seven younger brothers at home, because she was worried that they weren’t being cared for. Since her older brother was killed two years ago while serving in the Israeli army, her parents haven’t been the same.
Living with the trauma and sorrow of losing a brother or sister in the Israel Defense Forces has scarred all of the 30 12- and 13-year-olds who spent 10 days at Camp Ramah in Ojai earlier this month.
The Legacy/Moreshet program, sponsored by Friends of the IDF (FIDF), gave kids who lost a sibling or parent in combat a bar or bat mitzvah present that allowed them to have an American-style summer blast — if not to forget, then at least to enjoy a respite from the sadness that follows them at home.
But despite the fact that Ester (FIDF prohibits the kids’ last names from being used) and her friends were having a great time, one morning Ester cried to her counselor that she needed to go home to take care of her family.
“I told her, ‘your family wants you to be here. You are entitled to enjoy life,'” said Rachel Binyamin, the overseas coordinator for FIDF in Israel, who accompanied the kids on the journey.
Binyamin packed up a box of goodies for Ester to take home to her brothers, and told her, “This is for your brothers. What you get, you eat — it’s for you to enjoy.”
For most of the trip, enjoyment wasn’t hard to come by. The kids raved about the packed days at Ramah and special trips to Universal Studios, the California Science Center and the Santa Monica Pier.
Those trips, along with spruced up gift bags, got added into the program after sponsorships kept pouring in even after the $3,600 per kid price tag had been raised.
Marci Spitzer, chair of the Southern California region of FIDF and a camp mom at Ramah, said there is enough money left over to seed a program for next year or to contribute in other ways to FIDF’s widows and orphans programs.
One donor wrote a check for $18,000. The Men’s Club of the Jewish Federation of Palm Springs donated more than $60,000, and promised more if FIDF needed it.
Ramah camper Ethan Wolens sponsored a child as his bar mitzvah project.
“I have a blast here at camp, and it’s like a home away from home for me. I wanted the Israelis to have camp as a home away from home also,” Ethan said, standing outside the chadar ochel (dining room) before lunch one day.
Behind him, the Israelis and Americans had their arms slung around each other as they belted out a cheer the Israeli kids had taught them. The Israelis were going home in a couple days, and they posed for photos with their new American friends.
“When we got here, the Americans were so welcoming and so warm. They really embraced us and it made it so much easier to become a part of things,” said Miri, whose brother was killed last year.
On the day the Legacy group arrived, Ramah’s Israeli staffers welcomed them with songs and signs, and the entire camp stood to sing them “Hatikvah” after their first lunch.
The Israelis joined up with a unit their age to swim, sing, weave lanyards, learn hip-hop, play basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball and football, and to go to daily prayer services — a first for about two-thirds of the Israeli group.
But their schedule differed somewhat from the Americans’: the Israeli kids didn’t get any down time, because too much time to think wasn’t what these kids were here for.
The Israelis didn’t talk with the Americans about why they’re here — about the huge holes torn into their lives. Instead, they talked about regular teen stuff.
“I don’t want to bring it up, because I don’t want to make them sad,” said Hanna Port, an American camper who practiced her Hebrew and became good friends with the Israelis. “They’re sad enough that they have to leave soon, and we’ve become such good friends.”
But among themselves, the Israeli kids — who met each other through this trip — have talked about their losses, and, along with counselors trained to deal with their trauma, the kids offer each other an important network of support.
Sitting in the sun on a colorfully painted bench outside the art room, Naama, whose brother was killed just last December, began to cry when the subject was brought up. Naama’s head immediately fell on Miri’s shoulder, and Shir grabbed her hand, stroking it as she talked about what this trip has done for them.
“In the beginning, we weren’t really bonded,” said Shir, who lost a brother.
“Naama and I didn’t even speak to each other, we didn’t really understand each other. But now, we’re like sisters. We really support each other.”
The counselors have been doing a lot of hugging and hand-holding throughout the trip, but the trip is not meant to act as group therapy.
“Even though they all came here for this reason, we don’t want to make them talk about it if they don’t want to. We’re not here to instigate dialogues and discussions,” said Ori, one of six counselors, all of them active duty soldiers (IDF regulation prohibits them from giving their last names). “We are just here for them to have a great time and to enjoy life, even though it is clear that they can’t forget and it is always on their hearts and minds.”
Ariel, also a counselor, has a strong connection to Avraham, a Legacy camper, whose brother was Ariel’s commander. Another of Avraham’s brothers also died while serving in the army.
“I told Avraham that if his brother were alive, he would have done everything he could have to give him a trip like this,” Ariel said.
The soldiers, who got a few weeks off from duty in Gaza and the north, feel that this mission — to comfort the families of their fallen comrades — is as important as anything they will return to after this trip.
It has also given a renewed sense of mission to the 25 Israeli staffers, also mostly army-aged, who spend their summer bringing a little bit of Israel to California — a difficult task as Katyushas fall at home.
“They are struggling with being here and representing their country, knowing what their brothers and sisters are doing back in Israel,” said Zachary Lasker, assistant director at Ramah. “For them to feel they are again connected, and that they have their eyes on these kids, has been very powerful.”
Despite the situation in Israel, the kids have not been getting detailed updates, because each loss hits too close to home.
“At home we read the papers and it’s so hard to read, ‘this one was killed and that one was killed,’ and you see their faces in the pictures and you know this person was a friend or a brother,” Miri said. “I just hope things start getting better now.”
For information on Friends of the IDF, go to www.israelsoldiers.org.
Siblings of Fallen Israeli Soldiers Take a Camp Break Read More »
Obituaries
PHYLLIS AGRON died July 26 at 81. She is survived by her son, Michael (Peggy); daughter, Sherry; grandchildren, Stephanie and Benjamin; and brother, Meyer (Mildred) Hersch. Mount Sinai
HARRIETT ASTOR died June 30 at 75. She is survived by her daughters, Helen (David) Hartman and Bev Astor; son, Jay (Judy); five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Sholom Chapels
BETTY LORRAINE BENSON died July 25 at 69. She is survived by her husband, Robert; daughter, Cynthia; sons, David (Verinique) and Steven; and brother, William Taub. Malinow and Silverman
SIMON BREAN died July 23 at 94. He is survived by his daughter, Ellen (John) Dieterich; and by two brothers and two sisters. Mount Sinai
EILEEN HOPE CLINE died July 18 at 83. She is survived by her daughter, Patsy Diamond; sons, David, Barry, Allan and Lawrence; 12 grand children; and two great-grandchildren.
SHELDON DOLIVEK died July 27 at 67. He is survived by his wife, Beverly; sons, Brian (fiancee’ Rosie Barba) and David; and grandson, Joshua. Mount Sinai
GILBERT ELLIS died July 24 at 77. He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; son, Scott; daughters, Laura and Kimberly; grandson, James, brother, Steve; niece, Bethany; and cousin, Ethel Berger. Hillside
JOSEPH ELLIS died July 25 at 84. He is survived by his wife, Elaine; son, Ira (Sondra); four grandchildren; and sisters, Tamar (Emil) Weiss, and Miriam Geller. Mount Sinai
MARGARET ELIZABETH FLESH died July 25 at 83. She is survived by her daughter, Judy (Gerald) Rosenberg; son, Robert Thomas (Judy); and six grandchildren. Hillside
JUDY EVANS died July 4 at 66. She is survived by her son, Eric Feigin. Sholom Chapels
MARTY FARRELL died July 18 at 78. He is survived by his wife, Joyce; and cousin, Barbara Lavenstein. Malinow and Silverman
MARVIN FINEBERG died July 18 at 87. He is survived by his wife; Laura; daughters, Lynn Greenwld, Joyce (Lewis) Levy and Sandy; and four grandchildren. Mount Sinai
RABBI BELA FISCHER died July 25 at 93. He is survived by his son, Michael. Malinow and Silverman
SHIRLEY FRADKIN died July 22 at 85. She is survived by her husband, Arthur; daughter, Judith; son, Gary (Reggie); and four grandchildren. Mount Sinai
SY FUHRMAN died July 26 at 84. He is survived by his wife, Lucille; and son, Richard Misrach. Malinow and Silverman
MARLENE GARFEN died July 20 at 93. She is survived by her daughters, Rochelle (Dr. Leonard) Popowitz, Barbara (Ronald) Bernard, and Norma Pressman. Malinow and Silverman
BARBARA GOLDMAN died July 25 at 71. She is survived by her son, Jay (Mindi); grandsons, Davis and Bennett; and sister-in-law, Babe Rubel. Hillside
KATHRYN ANN GOLDRING-FROMBERG died July 19 at 46. She is survived by her husband, Howard; children, Scott, Daniel and Dena; parents, Irwin and Clarann Goldring; sisters, Gwynn (Karl Kandler) and Jill (Marc Haugen) Goldring; brother, Lee (Beth) Goldring; grandmother, Leona Goldring; nieces; and nephews. Mount Sinai
FLEURETTE HALPERN died July 22 at 87. She is survived by her sister, Phyllis (Jerold) Siperstein. Hillside
SALLY HELD died July 19 at 76. She is survived by her husband, Irwin; daughters, Linda (Dr. Michael) Shabot and Ellen (Gregory) Gordon; son, Phillip; and four grandchildren. Hillside
JONATHAN ANDREW HIGGINS died July 24 at 22. He is survived by his parents, Daniel and Karen; and brother, Devin. Groman
REBECCA HOROWITZ died July 27 at 87. She is survived by her daughter, Ethel Clark; son, Ronald (Marlene); and brothers, Harry (Jeanette) and Lewis (Lil) Wilk. Malinow and Silverman
FRANCES KAGAN died July 23 at 76. She is survived by her husband, Albert; and daughter, Lisa. Groman
M. RAYMOND KASCH died July 21 at 77. He is survived by his wife, Ilene; sons, Anthony (Deborah) and Brian (Kathleen); daughter, Andrea (Jay) Rhode; and six grandchildren. Mount Sinai
CHARLES KENIS died July 21 at 95. He is survived by his son, Steve (Linda); daughter, Andrea (Sheldon); six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Hillside
RENEE KESTENBAUM died July 27 at 72. She is survived by her sister, Denise Merkin. Malinow and Silverman
DR. NOUROLLAH KOHANZADEH died July 18 at 95. He is survived by his wife, Ashraf; sons, Jacques (Shohreh) and Manoucher; daughters, Shahla (Farid) and Soheila (Mansour); and 12 grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
BERNICE KREGER died July 26 at 94. She is survived by daughters, Lois Steinberg and Linda (Hilton) Silverman; son, Melvin (Rena); seven grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; and nine great-great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
BERTHA KUDLER died July 21 at 95. She is survived by her sons, Joel and Robert (Phyllis); daughter, Doris (Julius) Engoren; eight grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman
ROBERT KUNST died July 19 at 82. He is survived by his wife, Rose; daughter, Marleen McKenzie; son, Barry; three grandchildren; one great-granddaughter; and sister, Lillian (Al) Rudolph. Mount Sinai
RICHARD LEBOWITZ died July 24 at 56. He is survived by his mother, Celia; and brothers, Bruce and Martin. Groman
DR. ROBERT LEONARD died July 22 at 86. He is survived by his sons, Rick (Robin) and Gary (Ann); daughters, Susan (Carl) Wulfestieg and Joan (Eric); sister-in-law, Julia; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Chevra Kadisha
BARBARA LIEBER died July 24 at 78. She is survived by her sons, Eric (Gitte), Marc (Annette), David and Andrew (Barbara); and eight grandchildren. Mount Sinai
MYRA LINCOW died July 18 at 62. She is survived by her daughters, Debbie, Melissa, Rebecca and Pamela. Sholom Chapels
DR. SYDELLE MILLS died July 25 at 78. She is survived by her sons, Stephen, David and Mitch. Malinow and Silverman
LILLIAN OSTROFF died July 25 at 89. She is survived by her husband, Bill; daughter, Barbara (Harvey); son-in-law Jon Pall; and three grandchildren. Hillside
ANNE PEARLMAN died July 18 at 85. She is survived by her son, Dr. Howard; daughter, Valerie (Ray) Myer; grandchildren, Allyson Marie Myer and Michael; and brother-in-law, Richard (Susan). Mount Sinai
HELEN PEREL died July 20 at 86. She is survived by her son, Israel (Beth); daughter, Freda (David Slater); and two grandchildren. Mount Sinai
JOSEPH RASKIN died July 6 at 98. He is survived by his daughters, Barbara Levie and Sandra Spatrick. Sholom Chapels
LILLIAN REINER died July 26 at 81. She is survived by her husband, Sam; son, Roger (Denise); daughters, Sandy (Memo) Leon and Sue (Jack) Stallcup; nine grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Sholom Chapels
MIRIAM REINHARDT died July 26 at 79. She is survived by her daughter, Rebecca; and son, Benjamin. Sholom Chapels
CLAIRE REINITZ died July 25 at 95. She is survived by her daughters, Diana (Berel) Weiner and Felice (Richard) Cutler; five grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild. Mount Sinai
ABRAHAM RESNICK died July 25 at 98. He is survived by his daughters, Marilyn Harris and Rosalind (Seth) Haber; five grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
BERNICE ROSMARIN died July 20 at 76. She is survived by her husband, Stephen; daughters, Judy Newlun and Suzie Smith; and brother, Paul Nochenson. Malinow and Silverman
GARY STEVEN RUDOLF died July 18 at 52. He is survived by his brother, Robert (Nilli); and parents, Albert and Lillian. Chevra Kadisha
CELIA SALTIEL died July 18 at 84. She is survived by her son, Albert; and daughters, Anita Danon and Mona Saltiel. Sholom Chapels
ROSE SCHATZ died July 18 at 91. She is survived by her daughters, Maxine (Keith MacRae) Benston and Marlene (Charles) Smyth; eight grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
ROSE SCHIFFER died July 18 at 85. She is survived by her son, Martin (Leah); daughter Eileen (Lew) Goldberg; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; brother, Larry Stevens; and sisters, Ann Balter and Shirley Nemiroff. Malinow and Silverman
SOL SELIK died July 22 at 87. He is survived by his son, Bruce; daughter, Sheila; and brother, Lou (Clara). Mount Sinai
VERA SHAER died July 25 at 86. She is survived by her stepdaughter, Patricia Ryzow, and niece, Nora Bieber. Mount Sinai
JULIUS SHERR died July 19 at 95. He is survived by his wife, Shirley; son, Dr. Joel (Laurie); daughters, Susan R. (Michael) Dasaro and Debbie Ostrow; six grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and brother, Isadore (Harriet). Mount Sinai
MORRIS SIDMAN died July 20 at 95. He is survived by his daughters, Barbara Hammel and Meryl Barr; and two grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman
HORTENSE SILVER died July 21 at 85. She is survived by her sons, Lee (Gail), Howard and Alan; and six grandchildren. Hillside
HELENE CHANA SCHOCHET died July 21 at 98. She is survived by her son, Leo (Diane); grandchildren, Stephen and Michael (Wendy) ; and great-grandchildren Jordan and Ryanne. Hillside
BEATRICE SOMMER died July 25 at 86. She is survived by her sons, Sheldon, Paul and Jeff; daughters-in-law; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Hillside
LORE SOMMER died July 22 at 82. She is survived by her husband, Richard; daughters, Randy Goldstein and Susan Anderson; and three grandchildren. Groman
FANNIE SPILK died July 21 at 86. She is survived by her daughter, Harriet Madsen; and sons, Paul and Leonard Spilk. Hillside
SYLVIA TRESTER STONE died July 14 at 84. She is survived by her sons, Irwin and Gilbert (Sharon) Trester; daughter, Debra (Irwin) Chodash; and four grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
HOWARD TASLITZ died July 23 at 76. He is survived by his wife, Arlene; daughter, Ellen (David) Friedman; sons; Michael (Liora Asa) and Eric (Ruthie Jones); and seven grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman
NADINE TESTA died July 27 at 76. She is survived by her husband, Gabriel; sons, Robert (Joan) and Harry (Gayle); daughters, Simone Marshall and Pam (Barry) Josephson; nine grandchildren; and sister, Dorothy Ratner. Hillside
MILTON WEINBERG died July 13 at 65. He is survived by his son, Jack (Lisa). Sholom Chapels
EVE JEAN WOLFE died July 11 at 94. She is survived by her son, Charles; daughter, Karen; brother, Fred Lipsman; sister, Sarah Agata; and one grandson. Chevra Kadisha
DAVID YONA died July 10 at 49. He is survived by his aunt, Kathleen Koren. Sholom Chapels
The Journal publishes obituary notices free. Please send an e-mail in the above format with the name, age and survivors of the deceased toobits@jewishjournal.comPlease note: Longer notices will be edited. Thank you for your understanding.