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February 12, 2009
Exodus to Israel
Cigarette in one hand, venti coffee in the other, Levana Gavriel clamped a cell- phone between her shoulder and her ear.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” she said in Hebrew to her friend on the other end. “I’m giving up.”
On a chilly winter morning, the Israeli ex-pat who made Los Angeles her home for the past six years sat bundled in a thick jacket at a Starbucks in Valley Village. Several days earlier, she had packed up all her belongings, vacated her apartment in Tarzana and moved in temporarily with her eldest son. After six years in the States, Gavriel, 53, had just bought a one-way ticket more…
How Torah Revolutionized Political Theory
Why do we read the Bible? For religion to be sure, but also for politics. After all, unlike the New Testament, which was written in the era of Roman rules and did not have to offer prescriptions for governance (the Romans handled all that), the Bible was a manual not only for individual piety, but also for setting up a society. What does it teach that the surrounding worlds did not know?
Birthright Launches $50M Campaign, Cuts Trips
Chuck Boxenbaum had never made a donation to Birthright Israel — until he was asked. And then he came through with a six-figure gift, making the program that sends young people on a free trip to Israel one of his top funding priorities.
The Fifth District Race: You Can’t Be Too Jewish
When Los Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss is asked why he gets involved in a zoning fight between an Orthodox yeshiva and its neighbors, well outside his own territory, he answers that as the Fifth Council District incumbent he represents the entire Jewish community.
UCLA Symposium on Gaza Ignites Strong Criticism
Academic seminars are so numerous at UCLA that they rarely have much of an afterlife, but this has not been the case with the symposium on “Human Rights and Gaza” held Jan. 21 on campus.