fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

September 25, 2008

Faith ‘n’ begorra, Irish film fest has a Jewish accent

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Film /

First we had the Israel Film Festival, then the Jewish one, followed by the Polish and Hungarian presentations, and now, begorra, it’s the first Irish film fest, running from Oct. 2-5.

Not to worry, though, there is, as always, a Jewish angle. In this case, it’s two films, “Shalom Ireland” and “Grandpa … Speak Russian to Me,” set for Saturday evening, Oct. 4.

The more interesting of the two is the documentary, “Shalom Ireland,” which serves the dual function of introducing its Jewish community to the Irish and a bit of Irish history to any interested viewer.

“Shalom Ireland” benefits greatly by two lively narrators, the marvelously colorful Joe Morrison, curator, guide and everything else of the Jewish Museum in Dublin, and Joe Briscoe, son of Robert Briscoe, the first (and only) Jewish lord mayor of the Irish capital.

As Briscoe points out early in the film, Jews tend to take on the characteristics of their host country’s inhabitants. By this rule, German Jews are the most arrogant, British Jews the most pompous, American Jews the most boastful and Irish Jews the friendliest — and heaviest drinkers.

Surely the jolliest of the friendly Irish Jews is Morrison, who opened up the Jewish Museum with a medieval key on a holiday to guide my wife and myself through the museum, with its wildly eclectic artifacts, a few years before his lamented death in 2002.

In the film, Morrison gleefully recounts the legend that one of the lost tribes of Israel settled in ancient Ireland, but according to more reliable research, the first Jews arrived about a thousand years ago.

Following their expulsion from Spain, some Sephardic Jews found refuge in the Emerald Isle, but the largest wave of migrants started in the 1850s, consisting mainly of Lithuanian Jews.

Briscoe takes up more recent history, especially the role of his father and other Jews in the Irish fight to win independence from the hated British. Irish Catholics and Jews were natural allies, explains Briscoe, because they shared a common sense of victimization.

The older Briscoe joined the bloody 1916 Easter Rebellion and became a close friend of future Irish president Eamon de Valera, the two men fighting together in the 1922-24 civil war.

At its height during World War II, Ireland’s Jewish population stood at 5,000 but has now dwindled to 1,200, as younger Jews, especially, leave for economic reasons and to find a larger pool of marriage partners.

In 1988, Dublin’s historic Adelaide Street Synagogue shut down, and while some hope for a Jewish renaissance remains, Morrison is more pessimistic.

“In 50 years,” he predicts, “there will be no more Jews in Ireland.”

“Grandpa … Speak to Me in Russian” chronicles Irish Jewish director Louis Lentin’s long search to discover his own roots by retracing his grandfather’s journey from a Lithuanian shtetl to Dublin.

Grandfather Kalman Lentin’s story parallels that of millions of Eastern European Jews who came to the United States at the beginning of the last century.

Indeed, according to the film, many of the emigrants thought they were headed for New York, only to be dropped off when their ship made port in Ireland.

Festival director and Irish native Lisa McLaughlin-Strassman said she picked the two Jewish-themed films on their merit, though it would be “fantastic” if they also attracted some Jewish Angelenos to the fledgling festival.

“It was quite an eye-opener to watch these pictures, because I know very little about the Irish-Jewish experience,” she observed.

McLaughlin-Strassman said she didn’t know how many Irish and Irish Americans live in the area, though there are concentrations in Santa Monica and Orange County.

In total, the four-day festival will screen six feature films, four documentaries and six shorts. Included are the high-definition, restored version of John Ford’s “Iron Horse,” the rarely seen “The Luck of Ginger Coffey” and the Gaelic-language “Kings.”

The Irish Film Festival will be held Oct. 2-5 at the Clarity Theater, 100 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills. The two Jewish-themed films will be shown Oct. 4, starting at 8:30 p.m. For more information, call (310) 933-1439 or visit www.lairishfilm.com

Faith ‘n’ begorra, Irish film fest has a Jewish accent Read More »

Robert Schimmel: Cancer, through a lens comedic

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment, Theater /

In June 2000, Robert Schimmel — whose ribald routines earned him a spot on Comedy Central’s list of 100 greatest comics — was pondering his mortality after undergoing a cancer biopsy: “Is there a God? What about Jesus . . . I didn’t believe in him on earth so is he gonna be pissed at me now?” the 58-year-old recounts in “Cancer on $5 a Day: How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life.”

In the memoir — which he’ll discuss at the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sept. 28 — Schimmel mixes harrowing stories about his chemotherapy with hilarious anecdotes about his illness and treatment. He riffs about the salesman who tried to sell him a pubic hair toupee (it’s called a “merkin”); lusting after various nurses; having to ask his mother, the Holocaust survivor, to buy rolling papers for his medical marijuana; and imagining his funeral (“I probably should’ve gotten close with some rabbi so I don’t get the generic eulogy,” he said. “I hate those. You know he never knew the dead guy.”)

Even before his diagnosis of Stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Schimmel’s experiences had the makings of an inspirational book. He suffered a heart attack in his 40s and the death of one of his six children (also to cancer) in 1992, but he returned to the stage and, by 2000, had produced an HBO special, best-selling CDs, and a sitcom, “Schimmel,” slated to debut on the Fox network.
While in rehearsals for the pilot, however, the comedian experienced severe chills and night sweats; a biopsy revealed he had an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His response to the doctor was immediate: “Just my luck. I get the one not named after the guy.”

“My instinct was to go for the laugh,” Schimmel said recently, looking fit eight years into his remission. He realized that even though he had just been told he had cancer, he hadn’t been told he was going to die. To prove it, he was going to do the one thing that showed he was very much alive, which was to make people laugh.

His audience consisted of fellow patients in the chemotherapy room at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix — “the toughest room I ever worked,” he said. “But remembering what Norman Cousins said about the healing power of humor … [made] me want to be part of their recovery. I want to help them to feel good, even for a short time…. For in the moment that they laughed, in that one moment, they weren’t sick, and they weren’t afraid.”

Schimmel traces his own survivor’s spirit to his parents, Betty and Otto Schimmel, who survived Mauthausen and Auschwitz, respectively. During the most grueling part of chemo — when he briefly considered suicide — the comic was fortified by Otto Schimmel’s words about how he had traversed a Nazi death march. The prisoner had remembered a Nazi’s admonition: “If you want to live, keep moving.”

Doctors first warned Schimmel that he might be prone to cancer when he was 13, and they performed surgery on an undescended testicle. Nevertheless, Robert proved to be a class clown with a predilection for trouble. When he failed his German final exam in high school, he declared that the teacher was anti-Semitic: “My father went apes— and threatened to sue the district,” the comic said. “He even got a Jewish German teacher to re-administer my final exam, but I got a worse grade from her than I did the original teacher.”

Schimmel went on to work as a stereo salesman in Phoenix, never envisioning a career as a comic, nor even attending a comedy club until he visited his sister in Los Angeles and she signed him up for an open mic night at The Improv — without telling him — 20 years ago, when he was in his early 30s. The club’s owner chanced to pull Schimmel’s name out of a hat and heckled him until he ventured onstage. Schimmel riffed; the audience laughed; and the owner offered him future gigs.

“So I quit my job, put the Phoenix house up for sale and my [then-wife] and I loaded our belongings on a U-Haul to drive to Los Angeles,” he said. “I got off the Hollywood Freeway to show her where I was going to be working — and it turned out the club had burned down the night before.”

Schimmel stayed in Los Angeles, supporting himself as a salesman and working open mic shows until he could support his family as a comedian.

When his 3-year-old son, Derek, was diagnosed with cancer in the 1980s, Schimmel found solace in the Book of Job: “The story talks about whether one can have faith when s— happens, and I always had faith,” he said. “I think the real you comes out when you hit bottom. That’s when you find out who you really are.”

Later, between Schimmel’s own chemotherapy treatments, he incorporated his illness into his nightclub act, complete with a slide show of his deterioration. (“That’s me when they told me what the co-pay was,” he quips about one skeletal-looking picture.) Club owners warned him that audiences wouldn’t appreciate the dark subject matter, but viewers roared with laughter, rewarding him with standing ovations and rushing to hug him after each show.

Later, the slide show incorporated photos of the now-healthy comic; his wife, Melissa; and his children (there is one of the late Derek as well). Schimmel just taped a Showtime special, and he performs numerous standup shows a year but still spends a good deal of time speaking to (and joking with) cancer patients.
“How can I say ‘no’ when people reach out to me? If there is a reason I survived, that’s it.”

For more information about Schimmel’s book and standup dates, visitwww.robertschimmel.com.

West Hollywood Book Fair

On Sept. 28, with the advent of fall, comes the seventh annual West Hollywood Book Fair at West Hollywood Park, across the street from the Pacific Design Center. One of the largest events of its kind in Southern California, this year the fair boasts more than 400 authors at more than 100 events, running the gamut from politics to comics, mystery to memoir. They will include science fiction writer extraordinaire Ray Bradbury (“Fahrenheit 451”); Herbert Gold, whose 28th book, “Still Alive!” proves he is still an elder statesman of the Beat Generation; Rabbi David Wolpe (“Why Faith Matters”); and comedian Robert Schimmel (“Cancer on $5 a Day”). Attendance is expected to exceed 25,000.

Attractions include panel discussions, such as “Chicks and Chumps: How Female Crime Writers Handle Their Men”; “Latinos in Lotusland” (moderated by Daniel Olivas, a Jew by choice who has written for The Journal); and “The Second Novel Nightmare” (Janet Fitch, for example, will describe the struggle to write “Paint It Black” — set in 1980 punk rock Los Angeles — after her debut novel, “White Oleander,” became an Oprah pick and a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer).
The West Hollywood Book Fair runs 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28 in West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., with free parking available across the street at the Pacific Design Center (enter from San Vicente). A free shuttle also will be available from Plummer Park, located at 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. For more information, visit www.westhollywoodbookfair.org.

— N.P.

Robert Schimmel: Cancer, through a lens comedic Read More »

The Nimoys: A father and son, with space between them

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment, Hollywood Jew /

When Adam Nimoy was growing up, he felt alienated from his famous father.

Leonard Nimoy’s work as the Vulcan Mr. Spock on “Star Trek” and his numerous other film and TV projects on both sides of the camera provided a comfortable West Coast lifestyle for his baby boom family.

But the younger Nimoy said the time-consuming work also deprived him of the steady presence of his father, and when they did share time together, he quickly learned that he had to share his dad with the rest of America.

Given the loyal and obsessive reputation of “Trekkies,” Adam could be forgiven for looking at them as his father’s other family.

“There were times I thought he gave more time and attention to his fan base,” said Adam Nimoy, who has written about that experience and of his adult life in a self-proclaimed “anti-memoir,” titled “My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life: An Anti-Memoir” (Pocket).

He’ll discuss the book Sunday, Sept. 28 at the West Hollywood Book Fair in West Hollywood Park as part of a panel on overcoming addiction. Both Nimoys have openly discussed their struggles with alcohol and, in Adam’s case, marijuana, which he began smoking as a teenager and used regularly through adulthood before entering a recovery program almost five years ago.

The ambiguity of the book’s title stems from the fact that Adam Nimoy would be seen by many as blessed in having a successful, famous father and an entrée into Hollywood life that later opened doors for his own directing career.

But the younger Nimoy describes a father who, like the stoic but dependable starship officer he portrayed, was often distant, putting the greater good of sustaining his family ahead of seemingly extraneous bonding and warmth.

“There’s a lot of Spock in Leonard, no doubt about that,” Adam Nimoy, 52, said in a recent interview in New York.

Leonard Nimoy grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in a Russian Jewish immigrant family in Boston, the son of a barber and a homemaker for whom Hollywood and its trappings seemed as distant as another planet.

“He’s not unlike a lot of Depression-era people, obsessed with generating income,” Adam Nimoy said. “I have friends who have dads cut from the exact same cloth.”

The difference: “If I have a conflict with him, I have to go back out on the street and deal with a public that adores him.”

The book is not, however, the tell-all memoir about “Life With Spock” that publishers and agents wanted him to write.

ALTTEXTRather, it’s a glimpse of how Adam Nimoy grew up with a famous name, inherited his father’s alcohol problem, met lots of interesting and famous people, and dabbled in law before becoming a successful TV director and starting a family, only to see his life come crashing down.

Leonard doesn’t escape some lumps, but neither does he absorb the brunt of the blasts. Adam takes responsibility for many of the failings of his life, including the end of his directing career because of on-set volatility he attributes mainly to his addictions. The deterioration of his marriage is harder to track from the details in the book, but the younger Nimoy makes clear that his wife and two teenagers urged him to reconcile, and that he persisted with the separation and divorce. The dust settled with both sides on good terms.

“I told her we’ll always be family,” he said. “We’ll always have a close relationship.”

Father and son share many traits and experiences, having both gone through divorces (Leonard divorced Sandra Zober in 1987 and is now married to actress Susan Bay) and worked as directors.

“We’re both similar in the sense of our ambition and desire to work and accomplish things,” Nimoy said.

One trait they don’t share is a desire to be in the spotlight, something Adam soured on during the inevitable media intrusions into his family life as a child.

“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t go into acting,” he said. “The idea of celebrity for its own sake was not something that appeals to me.”

Adam’s life these days includes 12-step meetings, dates and teaching directing at the Los Angeles campus of the New York Film Academy. Father and son have gone over their differences, and Adam took his father’s acceptance of the book, read before publication, as a gesture of atonement of sorts. Adam’s daughter, Maddy, is attending Bard College in New York and his younger son, Jonah, is finishing high school in Los Angeles.

Both Leonard and Adam Nimoy and their families are affiliated Jews active in the community. Adam became a bar mitzvah at Adat Shalom in West Los Angeles, where his mother’s parents, Archie and Ann Zober, were founding members. His children went to Hebrew school and celebrated their b’nai mitzvah at Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Irmas Campus.

In the memoir, the younger Nimoy writes of the importance he felt of not only providing his children with bar and bat mitzvahs but making those occasions meaningful as well. He implored them to not only learn their Torah portions but to delve into their contemporary meanings.

“I come from Orthodox grandparents on both sides,” he said. “That’s a major factor in my life. I find it attractive, and it speaks to me, as well as my dad, so it’s a big part of my experience and something I want my kids to appreciate.”

Nimoy said spirituality and belief in God helped him in his recovery. “You have to believe in a power greater than yourself. A lot of addicts have trouble with the concept of God, because they think they’re the center of the universe. I’m a believer.”

Nimoy said he is working on another nonfiction book, which he declined to discuss, and he is continuing to teach. He’s contemplating a return to directing — “it’s fun being behind the camera” — but he’s happy with things the way they are.

“My dad fulfilled the immigrant’s dream of making it big for himself in America and becoming extremely successful,” Adam Nimoy said. “My journey was different. I’ll never come close to touching the kind of fame and fortune he’s created for himself. On the other hand, I feel very happy with my life, which is much smaller than his.”

Adam Nimoy will sign copies of “My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life” Sunday, Sept. 28 at the West Hollywood Book Fair, West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. The Book Fair runs 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

The Nimoys: A father and son, with space between them Read More »

Producer Arnon Milchan’s goal: Broker Mideast peace

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Film, Hollywood Jew /

Arnon Milchan, ex-Israeli soldier, soccer star, shadowy arms consultant, international business entrepreneur and big-time Hollywood producer, does not lack confidence.

His next ambition, for instance, is to make peace between Arabs and Jews and take care of the Iranian situation.

In a wide-ranging interview, Milchan (pronounced with a soft “ch” as in “China”) reminisced about his past, discussed the movie industries in Israel and the United States and spoke of his plans for a Jewish-Arab university in northern Israel.

The occasion for the rare interview was last week’s gala dinner and show at Paramount Studios, hosted by the Consulate General of Israel and the Los Angeles-based Citizens’ Empowerment Center in Israel, with Milchan as the guest of honor.

“I usually hate these events. I don’t even go to my own premieres, but this is for a good cause, Israel’s youth movement,” Milchan said. “I’m not personally involved in any way; it’s almost like a surprise party.”

Milchan provided his own surprise for the occasion, when, after accepting the Legacy of Citizens Lifetime Achievement Award, he called tennis champ Serena Williams to the stage and shared the award with her.

Milchan was born in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv, 63 years ago as an 11th-generation sabra on both sides of the family.

“On one family side we go back to [the great medieval Bible commentator] Rashi, on the other side almost to King David,” he said. When he met Yasser Arafat, the late PLO leader, Milchan told him, “I’m more Palestinian than you are.”

During their meeting, Milchan also discovered another side of the old terrorist.

“Arafat told me that he had seen my movie, ‘Pretty Woman,’ at least 20 times,” Milchan said. “A bodyguard took me to Arafat’s bedroom, and there was a cassette of the movie.”

In the early 1960s, Milchan was a star center forward for Tel Aviv Maccabi and the national soccer team.

“I had the choice of becoming a professional soccer player or going to the university,” he recalled. “I made a mistake and went to school.”

He has four children, ranging in age from 5 to 40 and five grandchildren “as of yesterday.”

At age 20, Milchan inherited a debt-laden fertilizer company from his father and turned it into one of Israel’s largest agro-chemical concerns. Today, with worldwide business investments and profitable movies, he confirms Fortune magazine’s estimate of his worth at $3.1 billion.

Milchan served in the Israeli army during the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After getting his feet wet in the Israeli and British movie industries, he was ready to take on Hollywood.

Now the founder and head of New Regency Productions, Milchan is credited as the producer of approximately 120 feature films. Among his best known titles are “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Brazil,” “Pretty Woman,” “JFK,” “Free Willy,” “L.A. Confidential” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

Although he is involved in many facets of Israeli life, Milchan takes no part in the country’s film industry or, for that matter, in making Hollywood movies on Jewish or Israeli themes.

“I have a high regard for Israeli movies, but you’ve got to specialize,” he said. “You can’t make a ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith,’ which opened in 3,000 American theaters, and then a Hebrew-language film with English subtitles that plays in a few art houses.”

Milchan doesn’t do documentaries or films on Holocaust themes, he said, “although if somebody brought me a great script, like ‘Schindler’s List,’ I might make it. But I’d rather give money to someone else who can do a better job than I could.”

He does give money to Israeli causes, such as $1 million to the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, for which he also served as chairman.

Milchan said he put up $100 million for a pet project to establish a doctorate-granting university in the Galilee, with a top faculty (“I wished that teachers were the highest paid people in Israel”) to attract Jewish, Muslim and Christian students.

The project has been stalled for two years, which Milchan blames on “government changes, academic opposition and bureaucracy,” but if it doesn’t take off, he plans to initiate a major hydraulic energy scheme instead.

Milchan is not involved in the L.A. Jewish community “because I only live here, in Malibu, three months each year,” he said. The rest of the time he spends in Israel, where he has houses in Herzliyah and Bet Yanai, near Caesarea, or in his London residence.

In the mid-1980s, Milchan’s name frequently popped up as an “arms merchant” in a criminal case involving the illegal shipment to Israel of 800 krytrons, small electronic devices that can be used for triggering nuclear weapons. Milchan was never charged in the case, but he acknowledges that one of his companies served as a front in the transaction, “with the full knowledge of the Israeli and American governments.”

Milchan follows Israeli politics closely and is fond of dropping the names of his high-level friends, particularly Shimon Peres (“his first letter he wrote as president went to me”), but also Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud Party leader Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu.

ALTTEXTHe recalled that in 1965, he put up $3,000 to help David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and Peres form the short-lived Rafi Party.

As always, he said, he likes to operate behind the scenes and asserted that he helped then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon persuade Peres to join the new Kadima Party. Currently, Milchan said, “I’m trying to make peace among the left, right and center.”

He is more circumspect about playing any role in American politics. “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you, except in private, but I know the players,” he said.

Toward the end of the interview, Milchan mentioned a just-published 25-page cover story on him in Cigar Aficionado magazine written by its publisher, Marvin R. Shanken. Milchan, who said he no longer smokes stogies, offered to hand-deliver the magazine to the interviewer’s home, via his chauffeur. He emphasized that he had vetted the article before publication and that every word was true.

Milchan closes out the Cigar interview with some introspective thoughts.

“I really, really believe that I have the skills, the courage, the conviction and the know-how to make a difference in the peace process in the Middle East,” he said.

“I think I can get in a room, no different than I got into a room with Arafat,” Milchan said. “I can get in the room and work out a deal…. I can get with the Iranian guy. I think if I really want something, it is to work with the next administration in Israel and the United States, whoever is the president here, whoever is the prime minister in Israel, and get myself hired to be the go-between, between Arabs and Jews.

“I will deliver this one,” he added. “The point I’m making here, I’m the most qualified person I’ve ever met to make peace. It will be my best movie, and I can do it. That’s my big dream.”

Producer Arnon Milchan’s goal: Broker Mideast peace Read More »

Teshuvah and weight loss

Leave a Comment / Torah /

Let me begin with an important disclaimer: it is wrong to equate physical fitness with spiritual fitness. (I personally was at the peak of my spiritual strength during my last pregnancy when I gained 70 pounds and had muscle atrophy from bed rest.) I attribute no virtue to slenderness and no vice to heaviness. But the process of losing weight — in which I have been engaged for some time (perhaps a few Jews can relate) — has instructive parallels to teshuvah (returning to God and our best selves).

Years ago, I heard a medical show on the radio that stuck with me. A caller needed and wanted to lose weight, but felt thwarted because of thyroid disease, poorly controlled diabetes, high blood pressure and bad knees. What advice could the doctor offer?

The doctor replied starkly: “There is a basic biological fact: if one moves more and eats less, one will lose weight. You are no exception.”

Wow! Initially, I felt that the answer was harsh, even uncompassionate. But the caller seemed to appreciate it. As I mulled it over, I found the reply comforting. Simple, predictable laws are at work, and I am no exception (Deuteronomy 29:18-20).

This truth of the physical realm applies to the meta-physical, as well. It is not always easy to live by the Torah and uphold its principles, but we often magnify our confusion and the difficulty of the task (partly as an excuse to bow out of it). As our Torah portion, Nitzavim, states: “This commandment which I command you today is not too baffling for you, nor is it far off…. The thing is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).

The laws and stages of repentance — far more than the $36-billion diet industry! — offer helpful guidance and nuances. But the essence of teshuvah is simple, if not easy. Just as the doctor prescribed, “move more, eat less,” a rabbi might say, “love more, sin less.” Truly, “the rest is commentary. Go and learn” (Shabbat 31a). The purpose and path of teshuvah are close to us and known to us. You already know how to repent and forgive. It is “in your mouth and in your heart.” You know just where to begin, with whom you need to talk, and what qualities and habits you must cultivate. Even if you are in denial, however, the principles of teshuvah, like the rules governing weight loss and like the covenant itself, apply universally — for women and men, for political leaders and wood cutters, “for those who are standing here today [aware and awakened] and for those who are not present here today” (Deuteronomy 29:10, 29:14).

The following are basic principles that will, I hope, prove useful for teshvuah — and perhaps for weight management, too.

Take Responsibility

With rare exceptions, your level of physical or spiritual fitness today is based on what you did in the past. Nitzavim puts it this way: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Outside influences notwithstanding, we have chosen.

Understanding and insight can be essential precursors to change, but they do not in and of themselves cause transformation. If you want a different result, you will have to make new choices.

Love and Care for Your Body

Rabbi A.I. Kook taught that the first stage of teshuvah is physical self-care. How can you accept rebuke, examine your motivations, or ask for forgiveness in a state of exhaustion or, worse, physical abuse? We need to make peace with our bodies and be kind to them, in order to effectively carry out the work it takes — physically and spiritually — to maintain our fitness.

Give Some Things Up

This is not news on the weight-loss front. You may have to give up desserts, trans-fats, large portions. You may even need to stop stocking junk food in your pantry.

Ditto for all kinds of temptation we renounce yet keep accessible. Also, to become spiritually “lighter,” you will need to give up grudges, cast off sin, forsake false gods (Deuteronomy 29:25) and, in the image of Nitzavim, remove the foreskin from around your heart (Deuteronomy 30:6 and 10:16).

Despite what they know intellectually, people often believe that extra weight is “keeping them safe” from sexuality, accountability or their own power. Similarly, many folks operate from the belief that they protect their honor by refusing to forgive. Setting that boundary keeps justice alive and prevents them from being betrayed again. Or does it?

Take Some Things On

Healthy eating and teshuvah are undermined when we confuse them with deprivation. Both are enhanced when we consider not just what we are renouncing, but what we are gaining. What is your best intention and vision? Nitzavim foresees “abounding prosperity in all your undertakings,” even after severe missteps (Deuteronomy 30:9).

What antioxidant super-foods can you add to your diet to give you better energy? What “mega-mitzvot” can you engage in, to remove spiritual “rust” and give you new vibrancy? With what positive habit might you replace destructive patterns? Don’t settle for what satisfies right now but does no good in the long run.

Keep At It: Small Changes Make a Big Difference

The Song of Songs says, “the little foxes spoil the vineyards” (2:15). Sometimes, it is the seemingly trivial negative habits that undermine success. A small tweak, over time, can yield powerful results.

Bear in mind, too, that with teshvuah and eating habits, results are not immediate. You don’t practice patience once, or eat well for a day, and see dramatic changes. Persist, and you will.

May you be blessed with a truly new year — for body, mind and spirit.

Rabbi Debra Orenstein is spiritual leader of Makom Ohr Shalom (www.makom.org) and a frequent scholar-in-residence. Her new Web site (www.rabbidebra.com) offers teaching CDs and other resources for spiritual work in anticipation of the High Holy Days and year-round.

Teshuvah and weight loss Read More »

Resurrected Westside JCC gets a major facelift

Leave a Comment / California, Community /

The Westside Jewish Community Center (JCC) has announced plans for an Oct. 29 groundbreaking on its Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Aquatic Center, a $4 million renovation of the center’s pools and related areas. Four-time Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg, who operates a swim school at the facility, will join community leaders, government officials and representatives of Lehrer Architects, the project’s designers, at the 3:30 p.m. event.

The aquatic renovation, scheduled to be completed by May 1, 2009, will honor the midcentury facility’s original design, which Los Angeles architect Michael Lehrer calls a “quintessential optimistic Southern California building that basks in sunshine and fresh air.”

The announcement is particularly welcome news to patrons and supporters of the JCC, who have been concerned about the center’s viability since a financial crisis threatened Los Angeles’ JCC system seven years ago. In recent years, the facility’s operators have implemented a new business model, which helped revive programs, increase membership and raise $8 million toward its larger goal — a $20 million master plan to extensively upgrade the complex.

A crisis among many of the local JCCs came to light in 2001, when a $2 million budget shortfall led the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles (JCCGLA) — the local JCCs’ parent organization — to consider closing several of its sites, including the Westside facility.

After closing the Conejo Valley JCC and Bay Cities JCC, JCCGLA initially kept the remaining centers open but drastically slashed operating budgets. Centers were forced to cut services and programs, lay off staff and, in the case of Westside JCC, shutter part of its facility.

Regrouping at the Westside JCC began within a year, according to Michael Kaminsky, president of its board. By September 2002, nursery school enrollment was increasing and some senior programs were reinstated. The center also instituted new fundraising avenues, such as its Celebrity Staged Play Reading series.

“The key for us in rebuilding the center was, and is, to put on programs of excellence,” Kaminsky said. “But we had to do so in a financially responsible way…. We couldn’t expand programming unless we were assured that it would pay for itself and generate additional revenue for the center,” he added.

So Westside JCC began partnering with outside organizations to bring in “high- quality, successful programs that fit with our mission,” Kaminsky said.

First, Krayzelburg — who swam at the center after emigrating from Ukraine with his family as a teen — opened his swim school there in 2005. He contributed $115,000 of the $250,000 needed to refurbish and reopen the pool. And while he operates the Lenny Krayzelburg Swim School — hiring staff, handling admissions, paying operating costs — he pays Westside JCC a fixed percentage of the school’s gross revenue.

“The program was so successful, programmatically and financially, that we decided to use it as a basis for other programs,” Kaminsky said.

Westside JCC has entered into similar partnerships with the Los Angeles School of Gymnastics, Segev and Sara’s Super Duper Arts Camp and the Gilbert Table Tennis Center.

The center has operated “quasi-independently” since 2003, became an independent nonprofit in 2005 and has run in the black every quarter since summer 2003, Kaminsky said. Funding from The Federation currently comprises about 9 percent of the center’s annual budget. In addition, an annual fundraising campaign regularly seeks grants from individuals and foundations for ongoing programs and this year is expected to raise approximately $250,000. On Sept. 18, the Jewish Community Centers Development Corporation (successor to JCCGLA) pledged $1 million to the capital campaign, bringing the total earmarked for the aquatic center to $3.3 million.

Facility usage has also risen from 7,700 monthly visits in 2005 to more than 12,000 in the first half of 2008. As many as 1,200 children take swim lessons each week, and another 200 people of all ages participate in lap swim, family swim or aqua-fit programs. While the increased traffic is exactly what the center’s operators hoped for, it has taken a toll on the aging facility.

Architect Lehrer said he believes “the building’s bones from the original design are fantastic,” so his goal has been to revive “the building’s original intention.”

His plan will restore original features that have been altered over the years (opening up patios that became offices, for example) and amplify the spacious, light-filled original architecture.

In the aquatic center, Lehrer’s design will open three of the four major walls. “Along the south wall, there will be 20-foot-high garage doors, which most days will be open to the out-of-doors; it will be more like an indoor-outdoor pool,” Lehrer said. The cross-ventilation and natural air, along with a natural salt purification and filtration system that uses less chlorine and fewer chemicals, will also make the facility greener, he added.

Kaminsky is optimistic that the center’s long-range goals can be met. The second of three planned phases will upgrade and renovate the main Olympic Boulevard building, and is estimated to cost between $8 million and $10 million.

“Basically, we’ve raised enough for phase one without borrowing any money … and we’re looking at coming out of phase one with over $4 million for the remaining work,” he said.

For Lehrer, the main challenge has been “to take limited resources and to do something of consequence, something catalytic and transformative” for an iconic piece of L.A. Jewish history.

“Westside JCC is central to the Jewish community — it’s emblematic of the community’s re-engagement in the heart of the city … in an area that is deliciously diverse, a real city,” he said.

And, Lehrer added, after more than 50 years of being “nearly loved to death,” the renovation will finally “allow the facility to sing again, in its fullest glory, and to make its contribution back to the city at large.”

Resurrected Westside JCC gets a major facelift Read More »

Neighbors oppose Chabad expansion on Pico

Leave a Comment / California /

Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, head of Chabad of California, has a dream — a block-long, five-story “village” on Pico Boulevard that would provide a girls day school and boarding school along with affordable, safe housing for Holocaust survivors and other elderly people and for teachers with large families.

On the ground floor, retail stores — such as “milchig” and “fleishig” commissaries, a pharmacy and a clothing store selling inexpensive, modest but fashionable clothing — would serve the residents as well as the community. Beneath the proposed almost 108,000 square-foot building, 80 feet in height, would be two levels of subterranean parking.

“It will make lives easier for people, including the people down the block,” Cunin said.

But for neighbors living in the vicinity of this one-block area on the north side of Pico Boulevard, bordered by Wetherly and Crest drives as well as a back alley, the project represents anything but a dream. They envision a nightmare — a structure too massive for the 28,000-square-foot parcel of land that they believe is certain to bring more noise, traffic and trash into an already congested area.

“I don’t want a monster built right behind my back yard. It destroys my privacy. It’s outrageous,” said Mike Rafi, who lives on Wetherly Drive, one house away from the alley behind the Chabad property.

The Master Use Permit Application that Chabad of California filed on Aug. 7, 2007, for property located from 9001 to 9041 W. Pico Blvd. calls for the four buildings currently occupying that block, which is owned by Chabad, to be demolished. The proposed mixed-use development complex would include seven retail stores on the ground level; a junior high school accommodating 225 girls and high school for 200 girls on the second floor; 25 dormitory rooms housing 100 girls on the third floor; and 31 residential condominiums, one to three bedrooms, on the third, fourth and fifth floors.



View larger map

Neighbors and community advocates brought their objections before the Land Use and Economic Development Committee of the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council at meetings held on Aug. 5 and Sept. 2. The neighborhood councils, created in 1999 by the new Los Angeles City Charter, serve as advisory bodies to city council members and the mayor but have no regulatory power.

Opponents focused on the scope of the project, claiming their point was illustrated by the number of variances that Chabad is seeking, including exemptions to zoning and building requirements stipulated by the Los Angeles Municipal Code and the West Los Angeles Community Plan.

These include Chabad’s request to build to a height of 80 feet instead of the mandated height of 45 feet. The organization is also asking for a floor-to-area ratio of 3.84 to 1 in lieu of the established 1.5 to 1, which pertains to the building’s total floor area in relation to lot size.

Additionally, Chabad wants approval to provide 71 parking spaces instead of the required 168 and also wants the mandated loading space to be waived.

Chabad attorney Benjamin Reznik, a partner at Jeffer, Mangels, Butler and Marmaro, maintained that the variances are necessary because of the limitations the commercial zones impose on a building’s square footage.

“L.A. was designed and built as a commuter city where all the major boulevards — Pico, Olympic — have shallow lots that don’t lend themselves to the ability to create a mixed-use village,” he said.

He added that the limitations concern traffic and that the impact, with students who are not allowed cars and with many elderly residents who don’t drive, will be controlled.

South Robertson Neighborhoods Council’s Land Use Committee members proposed that both sides appoint representatives to meet and attempt to work out some compromises regarding size. Meanwhile, because the project is currently undergoing review by the Los Angeles City Department of Planning, with the environmental impact report expected to be released in the next week or two, the committee also proposed sending a letter to City Planning stating its opposition to the requested variances.

The motion passed unanimously at the Sept. 10 South Robertson Neighborhoods Council board meeting, held at Hamilton High School’s cafeteria.

Four community members have been selected to participate in talks with Chabad, according to community advocate Lorrie Stone, and are waiting for the next step. Cunin also confirmed that Chabad staff members will take part.

Meanwhile, Stone expressed concern by many residents dating back to 2001, when Chabad’s variance requests were approved to build the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade Bais Chaya Mushka School in the block immediately west of the proposed project.

“The zoning code exists to give us livable neighborhoods,” Stone said, adding that Chabad is not enforcing conditions that were imposed on Bais Chaya Mushka.

“All drop off and pick up is supposed to be on school grounds, but parents are totally parking on neighborhood streets,” Stone said. “They bring snacks for their children and change diapers, leaving the trash and diapers on the sidewalks.”

Cunin has recently hired a full-time professional security guard to prevent any violations. At the same time, he suggested that the diapers could also be from a neighborhood daycare facility.

Attorney Joubin Nasseri, who has volunteered to serve on the mediation committee as a community member, hopes that the two visions — that of Chabad and that of the neighbors — can be resolved.

“The bottom line is that Chabad is going to build. The question is to what degree,” Nasseri said.

Neighbors oppose Chabad expansion on Pico Read More »

Beauty can arise from tragedy

Leave a Comment / Community /

In mid-July, our 26-year-old son, Micah, lost a lifelong friend, whom he had gone all through school with at Adat Ari El and Milken. On that day, Micah went to a birthday party for his friends Arash Khorsandi and Daniel Levian, two Persian Jews in his intimate circle of about 20 friends from his high school class. The bonds among these kids have only grown stronger since they all returned from college.

Micah left the party early because there was a reunion at Camp Alonim that evening that he did not want to miss. We spoke to him and asked about the party, “Lots of drinking, but I got to spend some good time with Daniel Levian, who kept kidding me, ‘Micah, I knew you’d be one of the white boys to show up.'”

Since the seventh grade, the Milken friends have always joked with one another about their Persian and Ashkenazic backgrounds. My son and all his Ashkenazic friends used to refer to the Persians as the Persian Posse. No one could have predicted the lifelong friendship that would flourish among all of them.

Late the next afternoon, Micah called sobbing: “Daniel Levian was killed in a car accident leaving the party last night. His brother is in critical condition.”

As the events unfolded, it was a story that could only be measured against the biblical account of Job. It was everyone’s worst nightmare. Daniel and his brother were passengers. They had taken a taxi to the party and intended to take one home. But as they were leaving, they accepted a ride home with another friend, who survived the accident with minor injuries. Daniel’s brother initially was given a 2 percent chance of survival; he has since come home and is expected to make a full recovery.

Arash and Daniel had been inseparable best friends since the seventh grade. I remember Daniel as an outgoing, engaging roly-poly kid and Arash as a talkative little guy with big, expressive eyes. They grew up to be two swarthy, handsome, successful young professionals with slick black hair raised to stylish points above their scalps — Daniel a real estate investor and Arash a lawyer.

Following Daniel’s death, Arash immediately began working through his sorrow. Just days after the accident, he gathered his friends to meet as a group with a psychotherapist. He followed up with a Friday night Shabbat dinner attended by those who had been at the party, because they all recognized that they needed to be together.

The conversations that ensued began with memories of Daniel, but then transitioned into why Daniel had died; what vulnerabilities they all could encounter; and for which actions could they take responsibility. Faced with Daniel’s death, they were forced to admit that the out-of-control consumption of alcohol among their generation was the fatal mistake. As they spoke further, they realized that many of their generation of young Jewish professionals, including themselves, were living in excess, not only with alcohol, but also through materialism. They spoke about their value system, which ultimately returned them to their Jewish roots.

Since July, about 30 young people, Persians and Ashkenazim, have begun to meet regularly to create the LEV Foundation, inspired by their love and their loss of Daniel Levian. Lev, which means “heart” in Hebrew, is what they often called Daniel.

Recently I sat in as Arash and another close friend, David Chasin, came to The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles to present the LEV Foundation to Federation President John Fishel and ask for guidance and infrastructure support. David is a participant in The Federation’s Geller Leadership Project. The two described Daniel’s personality and values, and through pictures and stories, they brought him right into the room with them. They proudly told Fishel they were not looking for money; the group, their friends and families would be the funders.

The LEV Foundation envisions itself as built upon multiple pillars. One of them would be social service projects designed to protect young Jews from driving drunk by offering free taxi service to pick them up and take them home. The group even worked out ways that kids’ cars could be driven home so no one would feel they had to drive in order to hide their behavior from their parents.

Another pillar would be advocacy, tackling the issues of excess so apparent in this generation.

Another would be about values, offering Shabbat dinners alternating between Ashkenazic and Persian traditions, Torah study, Israel travel and funding. During this phase of The Federation presentation, Arash and David commented that every one of the 40 young people involved in the creation of this foundation are either day school graduates or Birthright Israel alumni.

I thought about the millions of dollars the Jewish world has invested in day schools and Birthright. If there has ever been a return on the community’s dollars, this effort is the best demonstration. When the critical need arose to face this tragedy, these kids had the knowledge, the values, the tools and the path on which to place their sorrow, so that from it they could work to create a better world. These are our community’s children, of whom we can be very proud.

I thought about all the comments I had heard over the years in the kids’ day schools about the Persian, Israeli and Russian populations.

“Oh, the school is becoming so Persian! The school is becoming so Israeli!” Together, these kids prove that their parents were wrong. As they are showing us, the schools have turned out Jewish kids who can bridge the gaps between them themselves by celebrating one another’s cultures, knowing they are all deeply connected as Jews and friends who share many common experiences.

As Arash and David walked out, I could see Daniel Levian being carried on their shoulders: He wasn’t the tall, thin young man with slick black hair. He was the roly-poly, engaging kid I remembered, and I realized he belongs to all of us.

Gary Wexler, a former advertising agency creative director, owns Passion Marketing, a consulting firm to nonprofit organizations worldwide, including major Jewish organizations in the United States, Canada and Israel.

Beauty can arise from tragedy Read More »

Craig X, pot pastor, candidate for LA mayor

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Two years ago, Craig X Rubin started a unique church where pot was used to communicate prayers to God. Temple 420 (still around) was odd and unorthodox—mixing Christians and Jews and claiming that cannabis was the Tree of Life—and it landed Rubin in court. He avoided jail, and this month re-appeared on The God Blog. Today, Rubin sent me a note announcing his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles.

I believe Rubin has filed with the clerk’s office; here’s his campaign website.

Previously, Rubin told me he was a Reagan Republican, albeit one who opposes the war on drugs. His mayoral campaign platform consists of building a water desalination plant in the Pacific; bringing back the car manufacturing and aerospace companies that left in the early ‘90s; and getting the feds off California’s back (namely when it comes to their intermittent raids and harassment of medical marijuana facilities).

Craig X will officially announce his candidacy at the LA Press Club on Monday evening, an hour before the end of the Jewish year. He said that’s not coincidental.

“This is the Day of Judgment in my culture and at this time in the history of the City of Los Angeles,” Rubin said in a statement. “Working together we can make the City of Angels a heavenly place to live.”

No wonder L.A.‘s current mayor is in San Antonio seeking re-election cash. Look out, Antonio.

Craig X, pot pastor, candidate for LA mayor Read More »