Rob Eshman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, suggests that Israel should maintain the bedrock of shared values with the United States in order to avoid “quickly put[ting] Israel at odds with the administration of Barack Obama” (“Two Words,” April 10)
Holocaust survivors and their families got a chance to share their legacies with the public April 19 as Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries hosted a Holocaust memorabilia forum at its Simi Valley campus in honor of Yom HaShoah.
On Sunday, May 3, I will be at the city animal shelter in South Los Angeles, creating gripping mini-biographies about the dogs, cats and whatever other strays are residing there that day. The idea is to write those stories on cards, affix them to the cages, and make those wannabe pets attractive to wannabe owners. Want to join me?
Having just completed the Passover seders I realize that the attitude with which one asks the question is often as important as the question itself. The distance between the wise and the wicked child is not that great — it is the distance between “we” and “you,” between participation and alienation — but the response to the two questions is radically different.
As we sat at the Passover table reading the haggadah over the recent holidays, the narrative of the exodus of our people was recited and interpreted by Jews throughout Los Angeles. The interpretation yielded important questions that challenge us to recall the historic narrative of our people and relate it to our contemporary realities.
My good friends Michael Lynton and Gary Ginsberg and I have had an ongoing conversation about Judaism, the changing role of the rabbi and our collective Jewish future. Three years ago, Newsweek magazine published our list of the 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America for the first time. There have now been three of these lists as well as two others, the 25 Best Pulpit Rabbis and the 25 Most Vibrant Congregations.
It’s the second night of Passover, and Jordan Farmar is warming up under the bright lights of Staples Center. His teammates have already slipped into the locker room to decompress before taking the court against the Denver Nuggets. Farmar is still taking shot after shot.
Los Angeles will memorialize the killing of six million Jews at a Holocaust Remembrance Day observance on Sunday, April 26, with author Daniel Goldhagen as the keynote speaker.
Due to unprecedented financial distress, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) is poised to make deep cuts to its programming that might include the closure of two of its three U.S. campuses. HUC-JIR has campuses in Los Angeles, Cincinnati and New York, as well as a fourth location in Jerusalem, which annually cost about $40 million to operate.
Since two local Iranian Jewish brothers were charged with a 176-count criminal complaint by the L.A. City Attorney’s Office in February for alleged labor law violations at their car washes, many area Iranian Jewish business owners are quietly expressing support for the pair. And some believe they are being singled out for political reasons.
