Sunday, February 21
Roslyn Kind: In Concert The world-renowned singer and entertainer, sometimes called Rozzi, performs an afternoon of standards that will make you forget she’s Barbra’s younger sister. $45. 4 p.m. American Jewish University, Familian Campus, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Bel Air. (310) 440-1246. title=\”wcce.ajula.edu\”>wcce.ajula.edu.
While growing up in Jewish Los Angeles, I was exposed to many traditional Ashkenazic dishes — kreplach, cheese blintzes and strudel, to name a few. But it wasn’t until I developed an interest in cooking that I realized most other cultures have similar dishes. Kreplach reminds me of Italian ravioli or Chinese pot-stickers, and the wrapping for cheese blintzes is the same as French crepes. My mother always put egg noodles in chicken soup, similar to Italian fettuccini. And the cabbage strudel that I make is like what the Hungarian strudel bars in Budapest serve.
(TU B’SHEVAT)
Newly appointed Los Angeles Police Chief Charles Beck and Los Angeles Fire Chief Millage Peaks celebrate Tu B’Shevat with a dinner at Congregation Bais Naftoli. Also attending are City Controller Wendy Greuel as well as L.A. City Councilmembers Paul Koretz, Jan Perry and Dennis Zine. Open to the public. Sat. 8 p.m. $250 (per couple). Judy’s Restaurant, 129 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. (323) 931-2476. baisnaftoli.com.
For anyone who has grown up in a Jewish household, deli is a byword for comfort, promising big cushy booths and matzah ball soup and old-fashioned sodas, egg creams and malteds. Portions tend to be oversized and unabashedly hearty; the deli menu may be the only one in America immune to the scourge of the side salad.
The Dead Sea has some competition — in Encino. Salt Chalet, the first wellness center of its kind on the West Coast, has brought the healing properties of the Dead Sea within reach of Southern California residents in the form of rooms coated and infused with Dead Sea salt.
When Mark Neuman celebrated his bar mitzvah seven years ago at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture in Vancouver, B.C., he didn’t read from Torah, wear a yarmulke or pronounce Hebrew blessings. He gave a talk on the psychology of Jewish humor.
May 1986. I had moved to Santa Barbara from New York City the previous summer to take the job as Hillel rabbi at UC Santa Barbara. After 10 months in town, I lay awake in bed one night wondering how I would ever find a wife in this small Jewish community. I thought to myself, “It seems as though Santa Barbara is the problem. But is there any woman I have known anywhere in the world who I think might be right for me?” Surprisingly, the answer came to me clearly: my old friend Marian, from England, who was living for two years in New Jersey.
For my first column as a contributing writer for The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, I thought I would share some thoughts on 40 years in Jewish life and introduce myself to readers through a brief, specifically Jewish, autobiography.
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