May 4, 2010

Nir Barkat is the mayor of Jerusalem, but it’s easier to visualize him as a no-nonsense CEO who has taken over an old company with a great brand name but badly in need of rejuvenation.

On a campus fraught with provocative, anti-Israel activity, two voices of Middle East moderation spoke to nearly 30 students at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), on their commitment to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Camp Ramah in Ojai and Camp Alonim in Simi Valley, two of the Los Angeles region’s largest sleep-away summer camps, have named new directors. Ramah tapped Rabbi Joseph Menashe, an associate rabbi at a Conservative synagogue in Dallas, to take the reins from Rabbi Daniel Greyber, who has served as executive director of Ramah since 2002 and announced his resignation in January to pursue a pulpit position. Greyber will stay on through the upcoming camp season, turning Ramah, which is under the educational auspices of American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is affiliated with the National Ramah Commission, an arm of the Conservative movement, over to Menashe on Sept. 1.

Ori Dinur, 44, founding editor of Anachnu B’America, was let go from the Los Angeles-based Hebrew-language magazine this month for financial reasons, she said.