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Jewish Journal

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November 16, 2006

B’nai Mitzvah: Ten ways to slash the cost of a big party

Leave a Comment / Bar & Bat Mitzvahs /

Do you have to spend a king’s ransom to have a fabulous bar or bat mitzvah for your child? Absolutely not, but remember that not all money-saving tips are created equal. This one — which I’ve read in several places — wins my top prize as the silliest: Have your party on a Monday and you’ll get a slightly better price from the caterer.

That’s true. In fact you’ll save a fortune, because no one will be able to come! How expensive could it be to feed six people?

In an effort to be Coco Chanel, I have coined an expression: If you have taste, you don’t need a lot of money, and if you don’t have taste, money isn’t going to help. Good taste and style are timeless and transcend matters of price. The simplest table decoration — if rendered with sincerity and a bit of aesthetic charm — is as authentic an expression of chic as the most expensive Paris couture.

The biggest unavoidable costs of a large party are food and music. We’re not even going to discuss music because the role of the music leader — as the person who runs your party — is so important that I wouldn’t recommend economizing there.

The following, though, are some great ideas that will save you money — even if you have more than six people:

1. Host a Joint Party

If your child has close friends who share the same social circle, organize the parents to throw one big party for all the bar/bat mitzvah kids. Then you can afford the best DJ, the best everything. On your child’s actual bar/bat mitzvah day, have a modest party that includes your child’s closest friends.

2. Pick a Hall That Doesn’t Have an ‘Approved Caterer’

Many synagogues require you to choose from a list of approved caterers if you want to use their hall for an event. If your budget is modest and the list doesn’t include a vendor who will work within it, you’ll be forced to spend more if you want to use that room. Some communities don’t have a lot of options, but think creatively and look around — you just need a big room somewhere. If you really want to have your party in your own synagogue and there’s no budget-friendly option in caterers, organize like-minded congregants to talk to the administrators about adding a caterer who will enthusiastically work with modest budgets. Or perhaps even change the policy to let you bring in your own food.

3. Organize Your Own Food

The least expensive caterer I know in my area charges a minimum of about $35 a person for a sit-down meal. Imagine how much great take-out food you could buy each person for that. Order trays from all the local restaurants: sushi, Chinese dumplings, gourmet pizza. Hire some college kids and/or local moms to take care of heating and serving the food.

4. Keep It Simple and, Perhaps, Exotic

Keep the menu simple. Have meatless dishes — you may save a little and you’ll please all the vegetarians and people who observe religious restrictions. Have a different (less expensive but still quality) menu for the kids. Serve inexpensive and unusual ethnic foods. It will be a culinary adventure and no one will be able to determine if the food is cheap or not.

5. Let Them Eat Cake

Shop for a cake at your neighborhood bakery, not the local “bakers to the stars.” They may have very nice designs but no budget to advertise them. If you’re buying a cake, tell the caterer you don’t want dessert — it’s often served before the cake and the cake then goes uneaten. Best idea of all: buy pretty individual cakes and use them as the centerpieces — the culinary equivalent of “multitasking.”

6. Buy Co-Op China

Every parent planning a bar or bat mitzvah knows several other parents who are doing the same, so this is easily arranged. If you’re planning to cater your own party, you’ll need china, utensils and glassware. These are usually supplied by the caterer and can be costly to rent. Far better: get a group of parents together to buy one big set of china from a restaurant supplier and take turns using it. Buy extra –there will be breakage along the way.

7. Buy Your Own Liquor

There are many options in how you handle drinks at your party. You can have a simple wine, juice and soda bar or an expanded version where you have the setups and alcohol for the six to 10 most popular mixed drinks. You do not need to offer a full-service bar to be considered a good host. Hire your own server. See if the wine vendor delivers, if he includes the use of wineglasses and if he will allow you to return unopened bottles for a refund.

8. Make Decorations and Party Favors Yourself

Get your friends to help you — you’ll have so much fun! Don’t worry that they won’t then be surprised by the décor when they come to the party. The thrill of an opening night is never diminished for the actors just because they’ve rehearsed it a zillion times.

9. Having Flowers? Arrange Them Yourself

If you have a good eye, buy flowers in bulk and make the arrangements yourself. If you don’t have a good eye, get potted flowering plants or get large bunches of one beautiful flower and place them in simple pots. Make simple topiaries by bunching one kind of long-stemmed flower together and tying raffia around the “trunk” of stalks to keep them upright. Jam the bottoms into wet floral foam in a pot and cover foam with moss.

10. Make Entertainers Do Double-Duty

If you’re hiring entertainment in addition to the music, get someone who will create a giveaway, thereby eliminating the need for a separate party favor. At this writing, some of the hot entertainment/giveaway-producing ideas are the classic photo-booth buttons and photo strips, magnets and magazine covers; or a tape of the guest singing karaoke or doing “Dance Heads.”

Gail Greenberg is the author of “MitzvahChic, How to Host a Meaningful, Fun, Drop-Dead Gorgeous Bar or Bat Mitzvah.” For more great ideas, free planning e-mails and other fabulous services for b’nai mitzvah families, visit wjaffewrite@aol.com.

B’nai Mitzvah: It’s OK! Go ahead and cry Read More »

B’nai Mitzvah: War, politics, bonds enliven a basement rite-of-passage

Leave a Comment / Bar & Bat Mitzvahs /

This is a report on a bar mitzvah, although you may not recognize it as such.

Among the elements common to today’s celebrations, it did not include: a bird molded from
chopped chicken liver, a “theme” (no Darth Vader masks or Titanic imagery) or a waterfall of liquid chocolate for dipping. There was no bar, no five-course meal and no klezmer band.

It did include gifts from the sisterhood and the men’s club, a modest post-bar mitzvah luncheon, handfuls of hard candies, a number of relatives, a few special guests, some interesting political overtones and a very nervous bar mitzvah boy. I know he was nervous, because the only thing I remember about the event was my certainty that I would forget all of the Hebrew I had memorized in the preceding months.

And it all took place in the basement of a Conservative synagogue, for which there were no funds to construct the rest of the building.

The year, 1940, was a very difficult one for Jews. Hitler conquered France and other Western European countries, Mussolini entered the war and this country was divided into those who favored aiding the Allies and those who said that Europe’s wars were none of our business.

Forest Hills, Queens, where my parents had bought a home the previous year, had not yet become Tel Aviv West, and its Jews were a small and unloved minority. Jews were not admitted to membership in the Forest Hills Lawn Tennis Association, home of championship tennis matches, nor could they purchase homes in much of the surrounding neighborhood.

My parents were secular Jews whose involvement in the Jewish community deepened as Germany spread out across much of Europe. My father was a businessman and my mother an attorney (family legend claims that she was the first woman in America to be a labor lawyer), and that led to the political overtones at the ceremony.

At various times, she represented the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (David Dubinsky, president) and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (Sidney Hillman, president). Both men attended the bar mitzvah of their attorney’s oldest son and carefully sat on opposite sides of the room, glowering at each other throughout the morning.

Judging by their politics, Dubinsky probably sat on the right, Hillman on the left. After the synagogue president announced the coming events (one practice that hasn’t changed over the years) they both departed, taking care to exit by different doors.

My father, born and reared in Poland, once told me of his bar mitzvah. It involved reading from the Torah, a d’var Torah and a small celebratory luncheon afterward. It was, in his estimation, no big deal, and in practical terms, all it meant was that he was now eligible to be counted in the minyan, an honor he declined throughout all the years that I knew him.

I came away from my moment of glory with some economic gains. In 1940, if your family supported the Allies, it was almost a certainty that instead of cash, you were given U.S. Defense Bonds (later War Bonds), bought for $18.75, redeemable in 10 years for $25.

By 1950, I was a resident of Jerusalem and had forgotten all about my treasure trove. Twenty years later, when she moved into an apartment in Manhattan, my mother discovered them in a trunk. By then, I was living in Los Angeles with a wife and three children, all of whom required food and clothing on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the $500 the bonds were now worth bore no relation to their value 20 years previous, so I kept my day job and gave up all hope of early retirement.

The synagogue, I should add, survived my bar mitzvah and many others. Today, in a different location and no longer confined to a basement, the Forest Hills Jewish Center is one of New York’s bastions of Conservative Jewry and, for all I know, is probably hosting bar and bat mitzvahs for which $500 would not pay the bar bills.

In a few years, I will reach the age when it is customary to have a second bar mitzvah. I only hope that we will not be living then in a time when War Bonds will again become fashionable gifts.


Yehuda Lev is a former associate editor of The Jewish Journal.

B’nai Mitzvah: War, politics, bonds enliven a basement rite-of-passage Read More »

Musical docs, singing penguins, Barbra

Leave a Comment / Picks and Clicks /

Saturday the 18th

M.D.s show off their right-brain skills in a concert of classical music this evening. Established in 1953, Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra is substantially comprised of physicians, dentists and allied health professional men and women in medicine and other healing arts. They perform pieces by Rossini and Dvorak, and proceeds from this performance will be shared with Operation Smile, a nonprofit organization of doctors that works to repair facial deformities in children around the world.

2:30 p.m. $18. Temple Judea, 5429 Lindley Ave., Tarzana. (818) 758-3800.

‘ TARGET=’_blank’>www.staplescenter.com. ‘ TARGET=’_blank’>www.sisteractthemusical.com.

Thursday the 23rd

Musical docs, singing penguins, Barbra Read More »

B’nai Mitzvah: Exactly how kosher was Christy’s bat mitzvah?

Leave a Comment / Bar & Bat Mitzvahs /

Christy’s bat mitzvah was a monumental event for her entire family. The synagogue was full, featuring out-of-towners from New York, San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C. It was the first time that many of them had been in a synagogue.

While Christy was nervous that she would make a mistake in front of so many people whose expectations must have been so high, her mother’s family was also apprehensive about the uncharted waters in which they found themselves — a foreign environment of Torah, tallitot (prayer shawls) and Hebrew prayers.

For Christy, this day had been envisaged for many years. When her parents were married, they made a mutual decision to raise their children in the Jewish faith. Both parents agreed that Judaism would add the security of values and the warmth of rituals to their family home.

I spend countless hours preparing for these days with students and their parents. We spend most of our time in discussion of Jewish holidays, ethics, traditions and, of course, the prayers and readings of the Shabbat service. Whether the student is of a single faith or interfaith family, my goal in bar and bat mitzvah preparation is to share an experience of Jewish life that is rooted in meaning and relevance and not simply a robotic adherence to ritual.

For many families, the bar or bat mitzvah exists as a singular Jewish experience in an otherwise secular American life. Often parents choose to have their children’s spiritual passports stamped with the experience of a bar or bat mitzvah out of respect for a previous generation. For others, the impetus comes of realizing that mitzvah ceremonies have the capacity to enrich their children’s lives — that religion’s purpose is to elevate the act of living.

What better gift can they give their children?

Traditional Judaism holds that we inherit our religious identity from our mothers. While Conservative and Orthodox rabbis hold that a child born of a non-Jewish mother must convert in order to fully participate in Jewish life (not the case in all eras of our history), others, like myself, base the identification on the individual rather than the issue in the abstract. (Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis accept a child as Jewish if either the father or mother is Jewish, as long as the child is brought up as a Jew, and Secular Humanistic Jews accept anyone as Jewish who chooses to identify as such.)

While I fully respect the more Conservative point of view, I choose to honor a child who is willing to spend a year of intensive study (the same requirement exists for Reform conversions) and who has the intention of living as a Jew. The responsibility of providing that child with a comprehensive Jewish curriculum becomes that of the educator. To my mind, the experience of the learning process preceding the mitzvah celebration and the ceremony itself can awaken a teen’s passion for his or her Jewish identity. It can also provide a non-Jewish parent with insight into his or her child’s religious values and a greater investment in the Jewish experience. The doing can certainly create the feeling.

Commandment and Context

In a religion of commanded law, discretion can seem unnecessary. In fact, Jewish tradition demands that we marry our hearts to our minds and not simply obey in blind faith. Every commandment requires examination and the consideration of context. Every person’s circumstances must be viewed in relation to ancient law and present conditions. A beautiful illustration is found in a Jewish tale.

A wealthy woman approaches the village rabbi and asks if the slightly imperfect chicken in her arms is kosher for her Shabbat table. The rabbi examines the bird and replies that according to halacha, or Jewish law, the bird is blemished and is therefore unsuitable for her family’s consumption. A poor woman approaches the rabbi with the very same chicken and asks if it is kosher. The rabbi examines the chicken, and looking into the woman’s eyes, he replies, “Yes.”

Christy’s bat mitzvah was a blessing. As the Torah passed from arm to arm — one generation to the next, until it arrived in Christy’s arms — I invited her mother to join the sacred chain. She deserved our honor for her decision to make this ancient doctrine her daughter’s inheritance.

As I watched dad and mom pass the Torah into Christy’s arms, I saw commitment, sacrifice, love and enormous pride in both of their eyes and in their tears. I realized that kvelling (feeling proud) is not just a Jewish word, but a wholly universal experience.

Reprinted courtesy www.JewishLA.org or by calling 1-866-968-7333. — Marc Ballon, Senior Writer

Ben-Gurion Letter Goes to Auction Block

A handwritten letter from Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, will be auctioned on Nov. 18 through Goldberg Coin in Beverly Hills. The letter features the secular prime minister’s view on the essence of being a Jew. The auction house is projecting that bidding could go as high as $50,000.

Beverly Hill, Goldberg Coin’s director of manuscripts and collectibles, said that while the consigner’s identity is being kept confidential, the letter was purchased from the New York auction house, Christie’s. According to a Christie’s representative, the letter sold for more than $7,000 on June 17, 2003.

Written in English on Sept. 7, 1963, shortly after Ben-Gurion’s retirement, the letter is a response to questions posed by Heidi Allen, a young American woman in Maine. In the course of the letter, Ben-Gurion states that the essence of the Jewish faith is characterized by the prophet Jeremiah:

Briefs: Dershowitz debates; Ben-Gurion for sale; Federation campaign nets $20 million for Israel Read More »

Group hopes Gaucher becomes household name

Leave a Comment / Community /

When Michael Margolis was 4, his doctor took his parents aside and told them he had a rare disorder called Type I Gaucher Disease. The disease, which strikes Ashkenazi Jews seven times more often than the general population, is a genetic disorder that robs patients of an enzyme that prevents a buildup of fatty tissues in the body. Victims develop a swollen spleen and liver, anemia-related chronic fatigue and debilitating bone pain.

In severe cases, the patient’s spleen sometimes swells so much that patient looks pregnant. Because the condition was considered incurable and untreatable until the early 1990s, Margolis and his family were told that all they could do was ignore it and hope for the best.

Doing so became harder as time went on. In their early 20s, Type I Gaucher (pronounced “go-shay”) patients typically start to go through “bone crises,” in which a buildup of fatty tissues blocks blood flow to the bones. The bones then die over a period of weeks in a gangrene-like process, leaving the patient in debilitating pain. Left untreated for a long time, patients develop weak skeletons and often need both hips replaced. They may also need their spleens removed to stop the progressively larger swelling of the organ that characterizes the disease.

All of that was happening to Margolis, who is 58 now and a television producer living in Valley Village. By 1991, when the FDA approved an enzyme replacement therapy for Type I Gaucher Disease he was only in his 40s, but he was looking at a future that included hip replacements, spleen removal and a weakened skeleton.

“If I had gone on without treatment … I’d have been in pretty sad shape right now,” Margolis, said recently. “I hate to see other people go through the same process needlessly.”

Margolis is on a mission to make sure no one does. Inspired by the success of the early-1980s campaign to raise awareness of Tay-Sachs Disease, he formed the Jewish-Associated Disease Action Committee (JADAC) this spring. The organization’s mission: To raise awareness in the Jewish community of Gaucher and other Jewish-associated genetic diseases, and to make them household names.

The committee’s first strike came last spring, when Margolis, whose professional credits include the 1990s reality show, “Crusaders,” used his professional chops as a TV producer to make an informational DVD about Gaucher Disease called, “A Message to Elijah.” Narrated by Elliot Gould, the DVD introduces new Gaucher patients to three Los Angeles-area patients who are living active, full lives with the disease. It has already reached 7,000 people, Margolis said, and JADAC plans to produce such a DVD for every Jewish-associated genetic disease. They list 15 such diseases on their Web site (www.migdalohrusa.org. or contact Executive Vice President Robert Katz, 1560 Broadway, Suite 510, New York, N.Y. 10036,(212) 397-3700 or e-mail robert@migdalohrusa.org.

‘Disco Rabbi’ asks L.A. to help Israel’s poor Read More »

Q&A With Rabbi Michael Graetz

Leave a Comment / Community /

Rabbi Michael Graetz has stepped in to serve as the interim rabbi for Temple Ramat Zion in Northridge, less than a year after the death of Rabbi Steve Tucker. Graetz comes from Israel, where, among other achievements, he co-founded the Masorti (Conservative) movement and served as rabbi of Magen Avraham Congregation in Omer, near Beer Sheva, for more than 30 years. He also founded the educational institute, Mercaz Shiluv in 1998.

Jewish Journal: You left the desert of southern Israel for the desert of Southern California. What prompted this relocation?

Rabbi Michael Graetz: They’re similar, except it’s hotter here.
I retired about a year ago from Magen Avraham and found I was missing the job. Plus my wife, Naomi, who teaches at Ben-Gurion University, had a sabbatical, so I was looking for an interim position. This fit us perfectly.
Naomi is here teaching, giving lectures and writing. Her field is Judaism and feminism. She wrote a major work on Jewish attitudes to wife-beating several years ago and has recently published a mystery novel called “The Rabbi’s Wife Plays at Murder.”

JJ: What attracted you to Temple Ramat Zion?

MG: The people are very friendly. I think it’s a congregation that has a great potential because the human element is very positive, and the people were welcoming to me.

JJ: Do you have a vision of what you hope to accomplish within this year?

MG: The interim rabbi’s mandate is to help a congregation achieve its goals. One is to hire a permanent rabbi and one is to further what they see as their mission as a congregation. I can personally contribute from my own scholarship and my own knowledge about Israel.

JJ: What do you particularly want to stress about Israel?

MG: I want to try to convey an understanding of Israeli society and culture. One way is through film. We’re going to have a film series, with discussions. We’re also going to try to have a series of classes about Israeli history and society that will hopefully culminate in a congregational trip to Israel. We’ll also expose the children to Israeli culture.

JJ: One of Rabbi Tucker’s hallmarks was an emphasis on education. Will you continue this?

MG: Absolutely. Basically, that’s what I do. I push education. We’re going to have a varied and intriguing series of mini courses. We’re also trying to have one class conducted only in Hebrew, for people who want to go deeply into commentaries on the Torah.

JJ: Why did you make aliyah?

MG: We wanted to do it in a great way sometime. After I was ordained in 1967 and because of the historical events of the Six-Day War, it seemed like that was the time to try. We went for two years … and we stayed. We never really made aliyah. We’re still thinking about it.

JJ: You didn’t go with the notion of being a Masorti rabbi there?

MG: There was no real Conservative movement there at the time, only a couple of congregations. I thought, it’s a Jewish country — all the things I try to teach are obvious to everybody. It took me a while to realize that what they needed most was Jewish education.

JJ: Were you successful in convincing them they needed it?

MG: I don’t know if it was me, per se. But I do think I was successful in the Negev. But also what I think has happened in the last 10 or 15 years is a new development. It’s not the people who founded the state but their great-grandchildren who are saying, what is this Jewish stuff all about? They’re reclaiming their roots.

JJ: Will you be returning to Israel after your year here?

MG: That’s the plan. After July 31.

JJ: You’re been retired since September 2005. What have you been doing?

MG: I’m still involved in Mercaz Shiluv. And I’m writing — one book is a commentary on the Torah and one is a commentary on the Book of Proverbs. I’m also working on a book of personal theology.

JJ: What do you like best about being a congregational rabbi? What did you miss most this past year?

MG: I think the main thing is being involved with people in their lives in a direct way and helping people find and define for themselves their Jewish self. It’s quite a calling, and if you like that, it’s hard to be without it.
Even in one year, I’m hoping to help people find that.

JJ: Is this what first attracted you to the rabbinate?

MG: It probably was, but I couldn’t have explained it then.

JJ: Where did you grow up?

MG: I was born in Lincoln, Neb. It was a very small Jewish community but very warm, very strong. I went to Columbia University and then to JTS [Jewish Theological Seminary].

JJ: Do you have children?

MG: I have three grown children and grandchildren. They’re in Israel.

JJ: When was first service you conducted here?

MG: The first service that I conducted as a rabbi was in mid-August, outside. Unfortunately, since this is Los Angeles, there were no stars. I said, “This shows a deep faith in God that we’re still having prayers under the stars even though we can’t see them.”

JJ: When you’re not busy with rabbinic responsibilities, what do you enjoy doing?

MG: We go to the Y[MCA] to exercise. I like to shoot a golf ball occasionally. My wife and I like opera. I have a lot of cousins and one aunt is still living here.

JJ: Anything you’d like to add?

MG: I think the main thing in a congregation is to create an atmosphere of trust so that people feel they’re at home and they feel their needs are important.

Q&A With Rabbi Michael Graetz Read More »

Briefs: Olmert upbeat on U.S. ties; Hamas names new leader; Olmert’s lesbian daughter slams Jerusale

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

Olmert Upbeat on U.S. Ties

Ehud Olmert voiced confidence that Israeli-U.S. relations will remain robust despite the Republicans’ midterm election defeat.

“Support for Israel has traditionally been bipartisan,” the Israeli prime minister told reporters en route to Washington, where he met President Bush on Monday morning.

“I don’t see anything changing in the next two years that can alter overall attitudes toward us,” Olmert said, referring to Bush’s remaining time in office. The Democratic sweep of last week’s congressional elections has raised speculation that Bush, with his Iraq policies increasingly unpopular, could turn his attention to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This could mean reduced U.S. support for unilateral Israeli moves and a greater engagement of somewhat moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority.

Haniyeh Successor Named

Palestinian Authority officials named the likely successor to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in a future Cabinet. Representatives of the governing Hamas and rival Fatah faction said Monday that Mohammad Shbair, former head of the Islamic University in Gaza City, had been tapped to lead a future Cabinet of technocrats. Hamas and Fatah hope that by forming a coalition government devoid of major figures from the Islamic terrorist group they’ll be able to lift a Western aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority. Haniyeh, of Hamas, has voiced willingness to step down under such circumstances. Shbair, who was educated in the United States, is close to Hamas but isn’t an official member. Israeli media reported that his candidacy has received tacit U.S. backing. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has yet to approve Shbair’s nomination.

Olmert’s Daughter Slams Gay Pride Handling

Ehud Olmert’s lesbian daughter came out against Israeli authorities’ handling of last week’s gay pride rally in Jerusalem. Dana Olmert gave a rare media interview Sunday in which she accused police and politicians of being too lenient toward religious protesters who threatened violence against those participating in the event. While not commenting on her father’s refusal to take a strong stand for or against last Friday’s rally, she deplored the fact that a Cabinet member could denounce homosexuals without being challenged.

“I would have been happy had someone within the government responded to Eli Yishai, who called the march an abomination,” Olmert told Israel’s Army Radio. As a compromise deal, what had been planned as a march through Jerusalem was relocated to a Hebrew University stadium on the outskirts of the capital. Dana Olmert said the fact that the event was not canceled outright was a “bitter victory.”

“There was a feeling that we were in a cage,” she said. “There was something sad about the whole thing, the way it was handled.”

Seaman Sentenced for Japanese Deaths

An Israeli court sentenced a seaman to community service for causing the death of seven Japanese fisherman. Pilastro Zdravko, a Montenegrin who worked as a navigator for Israeli shipping company Zim, received six months of community service Sunday in Haifa Magistrate’s Court. He was found guilty of negligence in a 2005 collision off Japan that capsized a fishing boat. Separately, Zim has offered compensation to the victims’ families.

Arabs Want Peace Summit

The Arab League called for a peace summit with Israel and U.N. power brokers. Arab foreign ministers who had gathered for an emergency conference Sunday in Cairo issued a resolution to try to engage Israel, as well as the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, in peace talks on the principle of territorial concessions. The Cairo talks were convened following the recent killing of 18 Palestinian civilians in an Israeli artillery barrage on the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, said he supported the idea of a summit, but it remained unclear if he would attend.

Israeli Arabs Suspected of Gun-Running

Twelve Israeli Arabs are suspected of trafficking arms in the Palestinian Authority. The Shin Bet on Sunday lifted a gag order on arrests of the 12, all of them from northern Israel. Four suspects have been remanded in custody, while the rest where released on bail pending their indictment on lesser charges. According to the Shin Bet, the suspects, who were arrested last month, sold large amounts of small arms and ammunition obtained on the black market to Palestinians. It was not immediately clear how they would plead to the charges.

Border Communities Strike

Israeli communities on the border with Lebanon went on “strike” to demand compensation for damages suffered during the recent war with Hezbollah. Seven frontier farming villages announced Sunday that they were suspending tax and utilities payments until they receive long-delayed government payouts for lost harvests and buildings damaged by Hezbollah attacks in the 34-day conflict. They also threatened to withhold services to Israeli soldiers garrisoned along the border. State representatives said the hold-ups were due to bureaucratic difficulties, but promised to address the bulk of the communities’ complaints by the end of the month.

Study: More Boston Kids Raised Jewish

Most children in interfaith households in Boston are being raised as Jews, a new study found. Almost 60 percent of such children in Boston are being raised Jewishly, far above the national average, according to preliminary findings released Friday from the 2005 Greater Boston Jewish Community Study. The study was commissioned by the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the central planning and fundraising arm of Boston’s Jewish community, and carried out by Brandeis University’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute. The study also found strong growth in the Jewish community, which now stands at 265,500,or nine percent of the total population. That figure includes 57,000 non-Jews living in Jewish households.

Stolen Klimt Sets Record

A Klimt painting stolen by the Nazis and returned to its rightful owner set records at auction. Austria ended an extensive legal battle in January by handing over five works by Gustav Klimt to Maria Altmann, the niece of Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer; one of the paintings was a portrait of Adele. It sold for $87.9 million at a Christie’s auction in New York on Nov. 8, setting a record for a Klimt. It had been expected to sell for $40 million to $60 million.”My Aunt Adele and Uncle Ferdinand enjoyed living with these paintings and sharing them, and we trust that their new owners will build on this tradition of appreciation,” Altmann said.

Three of the other Klimts also sold for much more than anticipated. Another work reclaimed through Nazi restitution, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, sold for $38 million, above its $18 million to $25 million estimate.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Briefs: Olmert upbeat on U.S. ties; Hamas names new leader; Olmert’s lesbian daughter slams Jerusale Read More »