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Jewish Journal

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May 4, 2010

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:1-27:34)

Leave a Comment / Torah /

During the rabbinic debate over the Oven of Akhnai, Rabbi Eliezer and the rabbis disagree about the purity of an oven (Baba Metzia 58b-59a). Rabbi Eliezer is convinced he is right and, during the argument, miracles prove he is correct: a carob tree moves, a stream flows backward, the walls of the beit midrash tremble, and even a Bat Kol — a voice from heaven — cries out against the rabbis: “Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer? In all matters, the halachah agrees with him.”

Famously, Rabbi Joshua rebukes the Bat Kol: “The Torah is not in heaven,” which Rabbi Jeremiah explains to mean: “Since the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because You wrote long ago in the Torah at Mount Sinai, ‘After the majority must one incline.’ ”

Advocates for changing the Jewish tradition love to quote this story, especially its conclusion: “Rabbi Nathan met Elijah and asked him: ‘What did the Holy Blessed One do at that moment?’ ” “God laughed [with joy],” Elijah replied, saying, “My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me,” interpreting God’s laughter — and the moral of the story — as divine endorsement of total rabbinic authority over the Jewish tradition.

But the story doesn’t end there. In the Talmud, the story frames a conversation about a verse in this week’s parasha: “Don’t be cruel to one another. You should fear your God. I am Adonai your God” (Leviticus 25:17).

Rabbinic tradition understands the particular type of cruelty being referred to in this verse as ona’at devarim — verbal cruelty. Before the story begins, Rabbi Hisda is quoted as saying: “All gates [of prayer] are locked, except the gates [through which pass the cries of] ona’ah [wounded feelings].” The rabbis give many examples of ona’at devarim:

• a buyer should not ask a seller for the price of an item if one has no intention of buying;
• one must not taunt a convert who comes to study Torah saying, “Shall the mouth that ate forbidden food come to study Torah uttered by the mouth of God?”;
• and one must not speak to someone in pain as Job’s companions spoke to him saying, “Whoever perished being innocent?”

The quintessential example of ona’at devarim is how the rabbis treat Rabbi Eliezer — it was not enough to win the argument; they had to destroy him, too.

“On that day, all objects which Rabbi Eliezer had declared clean were brought and burnt in fire. Then they took a vote and excommunicated him.” Rabbi Akiba gently informs him of the news and Rabbi Eliezer rends his garments, removes his shoes, sits on the ground and tears stream from his eyes — tears of ona’ah that, in light of Rabbi Hisda’s statement, rise to heaven and bring calamity on the world: “The world was then smitten: a third of the olive crop, a third of the wheat, and a third of the barley crop. Some say, the dough in women’s hands swelled up.” Not only does the rabbis’ cruelty directed toward one of their own bring destruction to the natural world, it threatens to destroy the rabbinic academy itself.

When a wave threatens to wreck a ship he is traveling in, Rabban Gamliel, head of the rabbinic academy, defends himself: “God, You know that I acted not for my own honor, nor for the honor of my father’s house, but for You, so that strife would not multiply in Israel,” at which the raging sea subsided. But Rabbi Eliezer’s tears will not be contained.

A woman named Ima Shalom is caught in the middle: She is married to Rabbi Eliezer and is Rabban Gamliel’s sister. Afraid for her brother’s life, and aware of the power of her husband’s tears to wreak havoc, she carefully watches Rabbi Eliezer and prevents him from falling on his face to say the Tachanun prayer, an intense plea before God. But one day, she makes a mistake and returns to find Rabbi Eliezer fallen on his face.

“Arise,” she cries out, “You have killed my brother!”

Rabbi Eliezer asks his wife, “How did you know [that my prayer led to his death]?”

“I have a tradition from my father’s house,” she says. “All gates [of prayer] are locked, except the gates [through which pass the cries] of ona’ah [wounded feelings].”

Sometimes we must choose between being right and being in a relationship. Rabbi Eliezer was right, but he would not follow the majority. The rabbis had the right to impose their decision, but they were cruel and chose to excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer. In doing so, they wounded him and lost their leader in return. Be careful in being right that you do not become cruel along the way. The cries from those we’ve hurt rise straight to heaven.

Rabbi Daniel Greyber will be a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel for the 2010-11 academic year and, in July 2011, will become the rabbi of Beth El Synagogue in Durham, N.C. He is currently completing an eight-year tenure as the executive director of Camp Ramah in California and the Max & Pauline Zimmer Conference Center of American Jewish University.

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:1-27:34) Read More »

Deja vu in Ahmadinejad performance at U.N.

Leave a Comment / Iran, Opinion /

When Iran’s president spoke from the podium at the United Nations this week, the scene it sparked was something of a repeat from his address at the U.N. Durban Review Conference a year ago in Geneva, Switzerland.

Then as now, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks prompted delegates from several Western countries to walk out of the plenum—this time when he accused the West of double standards on nuclear technology.

It was political theater that has become a standard part of the drama surrounding Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.

While the United States, European countries and Israel press for Iranian nuclear transparency, Tehran does what it can to avoid tougher sanctions and divert attention from its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Ahmadinejad’s appearance Monday at the review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, when he tried to draw attention to U.S. and Israeli nuclear weapons, was of a piece with that effort.

“Regrettably, the United States has not only used nuclear weapons, but also continues to threaten to use such weapons against other countries, including my country,” said Ahmadinejad, the only head of state to attend the conference.

Turning to Israel, he said, “Although the Zionist regime stockpiles hundreds of nuclear warheads, wages numerous wars in the Middle East region, and continues to threaten the people and nations of the region with acts of terror and threats of invasion, it enjoys the unconditional support of the Unites States government and its allies and receives the necessary assistance to develop a nuclear weapons program.”

Heeding a call issued by Jewish groups in the days leading up to the conference, delegates from the United States, Britain, France, Hungary, New Zealand and the Netherlands walked out as Ahmadinejad spoke. Israel, one of three U.N. member nations that are not members of the nonproliferation treaty along with India and Pakistan, was not present at the conference.

“Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability poses a threat to the region and the entire Western world,” the president and executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Alan Solow and Malcolm Hoenlein, said in a statement before the conference urging delegates to walk out when Ahmadinejad spoke. “To have President Ahmadinejad address this review conference makes a mockery of the efforts of many countries to prevent nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism from becoming the gravest global threats of this century.”

While Ahmadinejad tried to focus the conference attention on Israel’s non-participation in the international nuclear treaty, Western leaders sought to spotlight Iran’s noncompliance with nuclear inspectors.

“Iran’s president offered the same tired, false and sometimes wild accusations against the United States and other parties at this conference, but that’s not surprising,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the conference. “Iran will do whatever it can to divert attention away from its own record and to attempt to evade accountability. Ultimately, however, we will all be judged not for our word but for our action.”

Borrowing a page from the Jewish response to the Durban Review Conference last year in Gevena, Jewish groups also organized protests and a news conference outside the United Nations.

At one event, several members of the U.S. Congress and Jewish organizational officials massed across the street from the U.N. building, calling the proceedings on the opposite side a sham. The protesters called for tougher sanctions against Iran and demanded that corporations stop doing business with the Islamic Republic.

“Today we renew our call to the companies and say when they do business with Iran, they fund its nuclear development,” U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said.

In their remarks at the demonstration, U.S. Reps. Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, all New York Democrats, echoed the message.

An investigation by The New York Times published in March identified 74 companies that had dealings with both the U.S. government and Iran, in contravention of U.S. law.

Gillibrand later told reporters that she was confident Congress would move ahead in the coming weeks on its own Iran sanctions bill.

The effort to issue a fourth round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran remains stalled. Of the council’s five veto-wielding members, Britain, France and the United States favor strong sanctions, Russia has indicated it will consider sanctions and China is interested only in watered-down sanctions, if any.

For his part, the U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, lay the blame for the standoff between the West and Iran on the Islamic Republic.

“Let us be clear,” Ban said. “The onus is on Iran to clarify the doubts and concerns about its program.”

(JTA intern Ari Bildner contributed to this report.)

Deja vu in Ahmadinejad performance at U.N. Read More »

Two Jewish Mothers

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Opinion /

Sometimes all it takes is a few words or a little touch to ignite a motherly connection.

In the case of Daphna Ziman, it was a little touch. A friend of hers needed to do community service in 1993, so Ziman took the friend to a charity that Ziman supported, the Sunlight Mission in Santa Monica. Ziman recalls seeing little cubicles with tiny cots along the walls.

Beneath the sheets, she could see kids, some sleeping with their drug-addicted or battered mothers, others alone.

As she passed through the kitchen, which prepared thousands of meals a day for the local homeless, she crossed a patio area, where she saw a young girl sleeping on a bench. She approached the girl, who Ziman says looked like a “ragamuffin” with dreadlocks and a caked face. Sensing a human presence, the girl opened her big green eyes and stared right at Ziman. After a short pause, with hardly any words spoken, the girl reached out to Ziman’s hands, holding tight.

It was at that moment that Ziman realized it would be very hard to let this kid go.

So she didn’t. After a long period of mentoring and legal wrangling, Michele became Ziman’s adopted daughter. But Ziman also knew that thousands of other abandoned kids were still out there, longing to hold the hand of someone who would protect them. So she rallied all her Hollywood and political connections and started up, along with her friend and mentor Hillary Clinton, Children Uniting Nations, an organization that promotes the mentoring of disadvantaged kids.

The organization is now involved with everything from lobbying Washington for legislation to strengthen children’s rights, to sponsoring neurological research to reduce dependence on drugs like Ritalin, to training mentors and monitoring the progress of the kids.

I checked out one of their signature events last November, Day of the Child, a large outdoor festival for several hundred mentors and mentees that takes place near the Santa Monica Airport. It turns out that the Sunlight Mission, where little Michele first reached out to hold Ziman’s hand, is only a few minutes away. Now, 17 years later, thousands of disadvantaged and abandoned kids have been the beneficiaries of that little moment.

Six years after Ziman’s 1993 visit to the Sunlight Mission, in the little Israeli town of Hadera, a girl in her late teens named Michal was at a bus station ordering a slice of pizza. She was waiting with her girlfriend for a bus to take them to Eilat for a little vacation.

But before she could get her change back from the pizza vendor, a terrorist bomb went off, killing Michal’s friend and leaving Michal in critical condition, without her legs.

I heard of Michal’s story last week from a woman named Aviva Tessler, who was in town to raise funds and awareness for her organization, Operation Embrace.

Tessler, who lives in Washington, D.C., first met Michal in the hospital a few months after the bombing. Tessler and her husband, a Modern Orthodox rabbi, were in Israel on a one-year sabbatical, and she went to the hospital that day to hand out mishloach manot (baskets of goodies), a ritual of Purim.

When she got to Michal, though, she couldn’t go on. Michal said something that slowed her down. The bombing had been front-page news in Israel, as were the scores of terrorist attacks happening all over Israel in those years. Michal had received many visitors in the first days and weeks after the attack, including members of the press. Now, she felt mostly alone.

“Don’t be a hi-bye friend,” she told Tessler.

This was Michal’s way of saying: “Don’t come to show me your love and then leave, never to be seen again.”

That little phrase got to Tessler. There was an old picture on the wall of Michal dancing in a disco with her boyfriend (who had already broken up with her), and Tessler saw an unspeakable sadness on Michal’s face.

She told herself at that moment that she wouldn’t become another “hi-bye” friend. So she kept in touch with Michal with regular visits and contributions to her rehabilitation, which she continues to this day.

And in Michal’s honor, Tessler founded Operation Embrace.

Over the past 10 years, Tessler’s organization has helped hundreds of terror victims in Israel, helping pay for medical care, post-traumatic counseling and rehabilitation therapy, as well as providing educational scholarships, adopt-a-family programs, free laptops and, of course, distributing hundreds of Purim baskets.

To keep all this going, Kessler goes to Israel about four times a year. She has become a ubiquitous presence in hospitals and shelters, especially in towns that have been the hardest hit, like Sderot.

I heard Ziman’s and Tessler’s stories about a week apart — Ziman’s at my Shabbat table, Tessler’s at a small theater in Beverly Hills. They are two Jewish mothers who don’t know each other but who share at least one trait in common: they are easily moved by little things. Ziman was moved by a little touch, Tessler by a little phrase.

It’s true that when you raise kids, you must learn when to let go. But sometimes, when the pain and trauma are so deep, what children need most is simply a mother like Daphna Ziman or Aviva Tessler to hold their hands … and never let go or say “hi-bye.”

Happy Mother’s Day.

David Suissa is the founder of OLAM magazine and OLAM.org. You can read his daily blog at suissablog.com and e-mail him at {encode=”suissa@olam.org” title=”suissa@olam.org”}.

Two Jewish Mothers Read More »

Jerusalem’s PR Guy: Nir Barkat

Leave a Comment / Community /

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.

At 50, he is a self-made millionaire, dapper, slim, with close-cropped hair, who effortlessly reels off figures and percentages and who peppers his presentation with such Americanisms as “biggest bang for the buck,” “leverage high-quality education,” “create a bullish climate” and “turn the city around.”

Newsweek.com reports that “Barkat has tried to cast himself as a kind of Israeli Bruce Wayne — a young, hip millionaire dedicated to saving his city. He even dresses a bit like Batman, favoring dark suits, dark shirts and blue ties.”

Barkat was elected in November 2008, presenting himself as a nonideological problem solver, but he has not been getting very good press lately.

His insistence on expanding Jewish housing in every part of Jerusalem, including disputed land in the predominantly Arab eastern part of the city, has been met with almost unanimous international condemnation.

As a result, Barkat has recently locked horns with the Obama administration, United Nations and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The mayor, who made his fortune developing and marketing antivirus software, met on May 2 in Beverly Hills with some 30 community leaders at a private home to answer his critics and lay out his vision for the future of his native city.

Jerusalem now has a population of 800,000, about two-thirds Jewish and one-third Arab, and, within 20 years, Barkat expects the city to have 1 million inhabitants.

However, to reach this projection and retain a Jewish majority, Jerusalem must reverse the trend of the last two decades, in which the best and brightest Jewish minds have moved to Tel Aviv, for lack of job opportunities in the capital city and friction between the ultra-Orthodox and secular (or, as Barkat prefers, “Zionist”) segments of the Jewish population.

Part of Barkat’s plan to reverse the trend is to raise his city’s artistic and cultural profile and boost international tourism, each aspect strengthening the other.

“New York now attracts 45 million tourists a year, but Jerusalem only 2 million,” he said. “My goal is to raise the figure for my city to 10 million visitors a year.”

Barkat pledged to provide an equal amount of housing for both Jews and Arabs, in proportion to their populations, but he firmly opposes any formal or de facto division of the city.

“Dividing a city has not worked anywhere else, so why should we go there?” he asked.

As a concrete example of what is being done to transform Jerusalem, Barkat cited the New Spirit (Ruach Hadashah in Hebrew) project and brought along its CEO, 29-year-old Elisheva Mazya.

New Spirit was founded in 2003 by a group of college students and business people to provide opportunities and incentives for university graduates to stay, work and shape the new Jerusalem, she said.

Included in the plan are projects to establish urban communities especially for young professionals, transform Jerusalem into an artistic center and organize an extensive internship program by and for business and government.

For more information, visit www.new-spirit.org.il/en/node/55 or e-mail Mazya at {encode=”shmaz_m@012.net.il” title=”shmaz_m@012.net.il”} 

Jerusalem’s PR Guy: Nir Barkat Read More »

Middle East Speakers at UCI

Leave a Comment / Community /

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.

Israeli actress and film producer Mika Veis and Arwa AbdelRahman, a Palestinian business consultant, shared with students their personal journeys to becoming peace activists and their efforts in Israel and the West Bank, respectively, to encourage moderates on both sides to change the current political situation.

“I thought there was nothing I could do to prevent Palestinians from being angry and violent,” said AbdelRahman, whose father was active in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

A native of Beirut who lived in Syria, Hungary and Tunisia before moving to Ramallah with her family in 1996, AbdelRahman said she was drawn to activism while a student at Birzeit University, when Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank made what should have been a 10-minute drive to school take up to two hours.

“I felt frustrated with the idea that there’s nothing to do.  No one was taking the initiative to talk to the silent majority that wants peace or to show that there are compromises they can make for a just solution.”

AbdelRahman, 28, and Veis, 25, are two of 2,000 youth leaders for OneVoice, a nonpartisan, grass-roots movement centered in Israel and the West Bank that aims to empower moderates in the region to demand their leaders bring about a two-state solution. Founded in 2002, OneVoice works from a paradigm of “enlightened national self interest” that seeks a viable, independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel and an end to terrorism and incitement.

The organization’s platform is informed by issues agreed upon by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians.  On contentious issues, the group seeks to build consensus through town hall forums that engage a broad spectrum of the population, including Israelis evacuated from settlements, Palestinian farmers whose land has been confiscated and Israeli victims of missile attacks.

Settlements and Palestinian claim to a Right of Return are among the most difficult issues on the group’s agenda.

“Regarding settlements, we suggest a land swap,” said AbdelRahman.  Palestinian youth leaders are also proposing that their compatriots relinquish their dream of reclaiming all of Palestine to its pre-1948 borders.

“We tell people, ‘We know you are dreaming of historic Palestine, but the status quo is killing us, leaving us in a worse situation,’ ” she said. “Enough with the dream. Everyone wants it, but it is hurting us.”

Both women expressed concern that the window for a two-state solution is closing.

“We are getting to a point of no return,” said Veis, the daughter of a former Israeli parliament member from the Meretz Party.  “The two-state solution is still a popular option, but if we wait and do nothing, nothing will be the same because everything is escalating.”

The stop at the Orange County campus was part of a seven-university tour that also brought them to California State, Northridge (CSUN), and the University of Southern California. The group’s campus initiative was started five years ago in response to the polarization of Muslims and Jews at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The event at UCI was sponsored by the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), which brings together students of different faiths to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to engage in constructive dialogue. This was the fourth time OneVoice leaders have spoken under the auspices of the OTI.

“We have decided to come to UCI because the polarization which plagues this campus is precisely the dynamic our program is designed to redress,” said China Sajadian, international education program director of OneVoice. “By introducing OneVoice youth leaders to divided campuses, we aim to bring opposing groups together and to deliver a message of civility and mutual recognition. We hope to offer student groups a common cause and focus for their endeavors, which will enable them to create a positive and effective joint force, a force which the Olive Tree Initiative embodies. Replicating our Middle East methodology, OneVoice demonstrates to student groups that their views and goals overlap more than they realize, and that constructive dialogue can help build sustainable peace.” 

About half of the students who attended the forum were OTI participants and half were students studying conflict resolution and mediation, according to OTI facilitator Paula Garb.  Noticeably absent from the group were members of the university’s Muslim Student Union, who have been involved in protests demonizing Israel and Zionism.

“It would be helpful to bring those people who are more hardened in their views to these events,” said Sajadian, noting that the forums at CSUN and the University of California, San Diego, were sponsored by the student group Students for Justice in Palestine. “We can’t convince the extreme, hardened groups to attend, but they’re welcome to.”

“These students are speaking out of passion, not out of reason,” AbdelRahman said. “It’s not about black and white.  It’s about find a solution to keep everyone [in the Palestinian territories] fed.”

Middle East Speakers at UCI Read More »

Dos Equis’ pitchman is Jewish actor living in Marina del Rey

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood Jew /

“He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels. He lives vicariously through himself,” a disembodied voice states.

“He is the Most Interesting Man in the World.”

Seated at a table, surrounded by beautiful women, a bearded man with salt-and-pepper hair looks into the camera: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends.”

At a time when many viewers use DVRs to skip over TV commercials, Dos Equis gets people to stop and watch its ads for their potent blend of machismo and absurdist humor. The debonair Latin pitchman, a creation of Euro RSCG, appears one part Earnest Hemingway, one part Baron Munchausen. We learn his “beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body.”

But the actor who portrays the Most Interesting Man in the World is more likely to attend a bar mitzvah than a Quinceañera. Jonathan Goldsmith, 72, whose face and voice are now inexorably linked with one of Mexico’s top-selling beers, is a New York-born Jew who lives with his wife on a 50-foot Beneteau sailboat in Marina del Rey.

“It’s 47.3 feet,” he corrected during a recent phone interview. “It had a bris … it was 53 feet.”

Story continues after the jump.

Goldsmith says he had a nice career as a character actor before his Dos Equis stint, which began in 2007. He appeared in films, like “Go Tell the Spartans,” and television shows such as “The A-Team,” “Knight Rider” and “MacGyver.” “But I’ve never gotten the accolades that I’ve gotten since this wonderful campaign started,” he said. 

Given the campaign’s popularity, Goldsmith says he can’t venture outside without being recognized.

“I was sitting with my wife in a little Mexican restaurant that we love to go to for breakfast. A fellow came over and said … ‘I was speaking with my little boy yesterday, who is 7, and I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. Unhesitatingly, he said, “I want to be the Most Interesting Man in the World.” ’ And on the other end of the spectrum, we were on a bus, and an elderly gentleman on a cane came over and said, ‘When I come back, I want to be like you.’ ”

When he auditioned for the Dos Equis role, Goldsmith said he drew inspiration from a renowned Argentine actor.

“I immediately thought of my friend, Fernando Lamas, who was a great raconteur and a sailing buddy of mine. … That was the first thing that came to my mind, and it stuck with me after that,” Goldsmith said.

Despite the grandiosity of the Dos Equis character, separating the actor from his Latin alter ego is not as easy as it might seem. Goldsmith has yet to arm-wrestle Fidel Castro, but he has led an interesting life that includes saving two people from certain death and rescuing tigers.

Born in New York to a gym teacher father and a mother who modeled, Goldsmith was brought up in a family with religious grandparents and a great-grandfather who founded a Brooklyn yeshiva. He attended Hebrew school and became bar mitzvah, but these days he keeps his observance to High Holy Day services.

“Wherever the tickets are less than flying to Paris, we’ll drop by,” he said.

Goldsmith is a vocal proponent for the S.A.B.R.E. Foundation, a tiger rescue organization in Nevada. He traces his love for the animal to a toy tiger he carried around during his early childhood.

“I just fell absolutely in love with it,” he said. “My zayde used to take me to The Central Park Zoo to [visit] the lions and tigers. Those were wonderful, wonderful days.”

Goldsmith met Peter Renzo of S.A.B.R.E. while living in Nevada City, Calif. At the time, he was introduced to two 30-pound tiger cubs. Several years later, after S.A.B.R.E. moved outside of Fernley, Nev., Goldsmith paid a return visit and found the cuddly cubs had become 700-pound adults. Renzo invited Goldsmith to step into the cage to feed one of the tigers by hand, and Goldsmith said the big cat wasn’t exactly intimidated by the Most Interesting Man in the World.

“He handled it very well,” Goldsmith joked. “I was a little bit nervous, but he looked like a Landsman, so it was alright.”

Among Goldsmith’s other charitable causes are Free Arts for Abused Children, which pairs artists with children in protective custody, and the Stella Link Foundation, a group calling attention to child sex trafficking in Cambodia.

In addition to helping children and animals in need, Goldsmith has rescued people from deadly situations on two separate occasions. Once, while hiking during a snowstorm, he found a man stricken with hypothermia and cared for him overnight until help could arrive the next morning.

The second incident occurred at Malibu Lagoon. 

“I noticed one girl who was in trouble right in front of everybody. I got her just as she went down. If I wasn’t there, she would have drowned 10 feet from her parents. It was just fortunate,” he said.

And while the Most Interesting Man in the World is portrayed with a Superman-like invulnerability, Goldsmith says he knows a thing or two about dying in front of the camera. During a career that spans more than 50 years, he has been drawn-and-quartered, shot, electrocuted and drowned, and Marshal Matt Dylan killed him on five separate occasions on the TV show “Gunsmoke.” But Goldsmith’s favorite death sequence was a public hanging in a movie of the week—the 1969 Western “Cutter’s Trail.”

“It was dawn in Kanab, Utah, and there were hundreds of extras. There was a long drum roll and a pronouncement. I had this long walk to the gallows, and then made some last-minute speech of defiance,” he said. “That was one of my favorite ways that I passed on.”

Dos Equis’ pitchman is Jewish actor living in Marina del Rey Read More »

Southern California Camps Name New Directors

Leave a Comment / Community /

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.

Before arriving at Dallas’ Congregation Shearith Israel in 2006, the Portland, Ore., native was the director of Hillel at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for six years. His first encounter with Ramah was in 1995 as a teacher and social justice coordinator; he then served in various other Ramah positions, including division head and founder of a Ramah-sponsored social justice program for high school students. Menashe is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and was ordained in 2000 at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

“I am humbled by this honor,” Menashe said, “and excited to build on Ramah California’s storied history of over 50 years, including these last years of incredible growth and vision under the leadership of my friend and colleague, Rabbi Daniel Greyber.”

Greyber plans to complete a one-year fellowship at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem, starting in September 2010, after which he will head to Durham, N.C., to become rabbi of Beth El Synagogue, a Conservative congregation.

American Jewish University has announced the hiring of Josh Levine, an Alonim alumnus, who will replace outgoing director and fellow alumna Jordanna Flores, who took the helm in the fall of 2005 and announced her resignation in October 2009.

Levine worked his way up the Alonim ladder from first-time camper in 1991 to counselor, division head, boys’ head counselor and director of leadership programs, among other positions. He now takes over the top leadership role at the Jewish summer camp — effective May 3 — after having worked at an L.A. law firm as an associate since 2005.

“It’s the dream of a lot of campers who love Alonim to one day go back to the camp in a leadership role,” said Levine, who heard about the opening through the Alonim community. “But I care too much about the camp to apply just in order to scratch an itch of nostalgia — I came to this decision very seriously.”

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Anachnu B’America Editor Let Go

Leave a Comment / Community /

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.

The editorial position was Dinur’s first foray into journalism; she has also worked in theater, retail sales and the restaurant industry. Dinur had served as the magazine’s editor since its launch in August 2006. Dinur “built this magazine from the ground up and spent days and nights working on it. We are so grateful for her enormous contribution,” said Eyal Shemesh, the current publisher of Anachnu.

Shemesh said 10,000 copies of the glossy are distributed every month to local hubs of Israeli activity, such as supermarkets, restaurants and retail stores.

According to Shemesh, the reason for Dinur’s departure was financial, although a planned reorganization of the business may include a new editorial direction. Rinat Shemesh, Eyal’s wife and a contributing writer and co-publisher of the magazine, will take over the solo editorial position until a replacement is hired.

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Family Still Asking, ‘Where Is Adam?’

Leave a Comment / Gina Nahai, Opinion /

Thursday morning, Adam woke up, took his medication and vanished. Just like that. A drop of water in the desert at high noon. A 34-year-old man with a round face and the temperament of a boy in his late teens, wearing a black jacket and pajama bottoms. One minute he’s standing in the middle of his mother’s kitchen in Stevenson Ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley; the next minute he’s nowhere.

I write this kind of story in my novels, and people call it Magical Realism. I keep saying there’s no magic, just too much reality in these tales, that some people’s reality is just bigger, more crushing, maybe also more incomprehensible than others, and that it has nothing to do with what piece of history or part of the world they occupy.

They look for him throughout the house, up and down the streets of the affluent neighborhood with the clean, sunny streets and kids running around, at the bus stop a block away, in the park three blocks away. They call the police, talk to the neighbors. They search hospitals and the morgue, put up fliers everywhere. They know he had little, if any, money on him, no ID, cell phone or credit cards. He was out of shape and couldn’t have walked very far, had no friends or even acquaintances, hadn’t left the house for months before that Thursday, and, at any rate, who says he left the house that day, either? No one saw him go anywhere; they just know he was in the kitchen because that’s where he kept his meds, and that he took them because the little box that said Thursday was empty. There was no note, no sign of foul play, no conceivable reason for Adam to want to disappear.

That was two-and-a-half years ago, on Nov. 8, 2007. Since then, Adam Kellner’s family has exhausted every resource and chased every red herring, and, still, they know no more now than they did on that first day. His mother, Sherrill Britton, is associate vice president of university relations at Loyola Marymount University. She has a too-long commute to work and might have moved closer to LMU, but she can’t take a chance that Adam will come back to the house and find someone else living there. For months after his disappearance, she left the door unlocked at night, certain he would wander in while she slept. She kept a pair of shoes and a jacket in the trunk of her car, for when she found him during one of her searches on Skid Row. She hasn’t even thrown out the half-empty pack of cigarettes he left in the garage.

I knew Sherrill when she was executive director of PEN West. Among other things, she organized and managed human rights campaigns on behalf of writers who were condemned to death, or imprisoned, or just gone missing, because of their work. That was in places like China and Kenya and the Soviet Union. I wonder if she thinks about that now — now that she’s searching for her own missing son; if any of us ever believes that kind of thing can actually happen, until it does.

The difference between fact and fiction, between a great novel, say, and a well-written biography, is not the “what happened.” Whatever event we make up in fiction has already happened a thousand times in real life. The difference is the “why” — why did Adam Kellner suddenly become invisible? Why hasn’t anyone been able to find a trace of him? Why would he have left — if he did leave — and why hasn’t he made contact? 

Adam took medication because he had been hearing voices since he was in his late teens. Before that, he was a good athlete and an outgoing, popular kid. Afterward, he withdrew into a quiet, peaceful, domestic life in which his only companions were the girls that only he could see. He liked the girls and they liked him; he was a happy schizophrenic, the kind that takes out the trash for his mother and offers to help his ailing stepfather up the stairs and has too much going on at home to ever want to step out.

I once wrote a novel about a boy who became invisible except to his mother and sister. He had been a rambunctious, adventurous kid until he lost his hearing and withdrew into his own, soundless orbit. Long after everyone else believed him dead, the Ghost Brother kept returning to his mother’s and sister’s homes, asking to be let in, waiting for them to make him manifest to the rest of the world, to point him out and say, “Look here, it’s my son, my brother, he’s come back from the land of the unseen, older and wiser, yes, and not entirely unscathed, but he’s real and in the flesh, he’s materialized because I’ve been telling his story everywhere I could, to anyone who’d listen, year after brutal, heart-breaking year, even after I knew I should give up hope, I sent the words, the pieces of his legend, into the abyss until one by one, those words came together, formed a sentence, then a page, and for once, life imitated art and the story became the person and walked back in through that same door I had left unlocked.”

Adam’s mother and older brother are counting on this — the power of words — to bring him back.

To read more about Adam, visit Help Us Find Adam Kellner on Facebook.

Gina Nahai is an author and a professor of creative writing at USC. Her latest novel is “Caspian Rain” (MacAdam Cage, 2007). Her column appears monthly in The Journal.

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Picks and Clicks: May 6-14, 2010

Leave a Comment / Picks and Clicks, What's Happening /

THU | MAY 6

(FILM)
Filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian screens and discusses “The River Ran Red,” his 2008 documentary on the Armenian Genocide. Taner Akçam, a Turkish historian, former political prisoner and author of “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility,” also lectures. Thu. 7 p.m. Free. Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 788-6000. vbs.org.

(ISRAEL)
Multiple speakers address “Israel: Lessons of the Past, Promises for the Future,” including Journal contributor David Suissa, who discusses “Israel: The Missing Debates,” and CAMERA Regional Director Talia Shulman Gold on “Media, the Power of Words, and the Global Defamation of Israel.” Thu. 6:30 p.m. Free. West Hollywood location provided upon RSVP. (310) 855-9606. camera.org.

FRI | MAY 7

(MUSIC)
Ring Festival L.A.’s “On Wings of Song: The Music and Soul of Felix Mendelssohn” celebrates the bicentennial of German Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn’s birth with a lecture on his life by pianist and professor Neal Brostoff. A staged reading of scenes from writer Jacqueline Bassan’s “Mendelssohn! On Wings of Song” follows, examining the rivalry fueled by religious differences between Mendelssohn and composer Richard Wagner. Brostoff, mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin and L.A. Philharmonic violinist Mark Kashper and cellist Barry Gold perform select works by Mendelssohn. Rabbi Edward Feinstein leads Shabbat services. Fri. 8 p.m. Free. Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 788-6000. vbs.org.

SAT | MAY 8

(FILM)
The fifth annual Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival kicks off six days of Jewish cinema with the premiere of the Israeli sumo wrestling comedy, “A Matter of Size” (“Sipur Gadol”), and a discussion with filmmakers Erez Tadmor and Sharon Maymon, moderated by Jewish Journal Editor-in-Chief Rob Eshman, at the Writers Guild Theatre. The festival’s lineup of more than 20 films includes the Chasidic drug-smuggling drama “Holy Rollers,” the yeshiva baseball farce “The Yankles” and the U.S. premiere of “The Loners,” a drama centered on Russian immigrant IDF soldiers fighting arms-smuggling charges. Other events include panels, a student film showcase on Mother’s Day, and a photo and short film exhibition at Sinai Temple. Sat. Through May 13. Visit lajfilmfest.org for the schedule and to purchase tickets, or call (800) 838-3006. For more information or group ticket sales, call (323) 938-2531.

(THEATER)
A Jewish family hopes to find peace, self-acceptance and love in writer Daniel Goldfarb’s “Sarah, Sarah,” a comedy-drama that stretches from 1960s New York, where matriarch Sarah Grosberg is about to meet her future daughter-in-law, to 2001 China, where Sarah’s single granddaughter has adopted a baby named for her grandmother. Howard Teichman directs this production for West Coast Jewish Theatre. Sat. Through June 27. 8 p.m. (Thursday, Friday and Saturday), 2 p.m. (Sunday). $35 (opening night), $20-$30 (remaining dates). Pico Playhouse, 10508 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 821-2449. wcjt.org.

SUN | MAY 9

(ART)
Plastic mesh, waxed linen and more make for “Uncommon Threads,” an exhibition featuring the fiber-made sculptures of Cathy Breslaw, Lois Z. Brooks, Leah Danberg, Merrill Morrison, Rosalie Friis-Ross, Deborah Wier and Norman Sherfield.  Sun. 3-5 p.m. (artist reception). Free. American Jewish University Platt and Borstein Galleries, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles. (310) 476-9777, ext. 201. ajula.edu.

(BOOKS)
Noah’s Bagels founder Noah Alper holds a meet-and-greet and signs copies of his book, “Business Mensch: Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Entrepreneur.” Sun. 9-11:30 a.m. Free. Noah’s Bagels, 546-548 W. Washington Blvd., Marina del Rey. (310) 574-1155. businessmensch.net.

(MOTHER’S DAY)
Conga Line for Congo, a women-only dance party, supports Jewish World Watch relief efforts in Congo. Sun. 7:30 p.m. $18 (students, advance), $36 (adults, advance), $20(students, door), $40 (adults, door). B’nai David-Judea Social Hall, 8906 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (818) 501-1836. jewishworldwatch.org.

TUE | MAY 11

(MUSEUM)
Music journalists and Skirball guest curators Roger Bennett and Josh Kun lecture on “Jews on Vinyl,” an exhibition that includes displays of vintage Jewish music LP cover art from the 1940s to the 1980s and listening stations set in 1950s suburban-style living rooms. “Jews on Vinyl” opens May 12 and closes Sept. 5. Tue. 8 p.m. Free (RSVP to lecture required). Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 874-9667. skirball.org.

WED | MAY 12

(THEATER)
Rachel Bailit stars in the autobiographical “Sugar Happens: A One-Girl Show,” the story of a nice, determined Jewish girl from the East Coast seeking superstardom in Hollywood. Bailit co-wrote the show with Sherry Cohen, and Phil Ramuno (“Grace Under Fire”) directs. No one under 17 admitted. Wed. Through June 20. 8 p.m. (Wednesday), 7 p.m. (Sunday). $20. Sidewalk Studio Theatre, 4150 Riverside Drive, Burbank. (800) 838-3006. brownpapertickets.com.

THU | MAY 13

(THEATER)
Sibling writers Nora and Delia Ephron’s “Love, Loss and What I Wore” opens for a nearly two-month L.A. run at the Geffen Playhouse. A rotating cast of actresses — including Rita Wilson, Carol Kane and Natasha Lyonne — stars in vignettes based on the book by Ilene Beckerman. Thu. Through June 4. 8 p.m. (Thursday opening), Various times (Rest of dates). $69-$74. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles. (310) 208-5454. geffenplayhouse.com.

(BOOKS)
Comedian and author Joel Chasnoff discusses, reads from and signs copies of “The 188th Crybaby Brigade,” a memoir of his experience in the tanks division of the Israeli army and his tour of duty in Lebanon. Sponsored by LimmudLA. Thu. 7:30 p.m. Free. RSVP to {encode=”specialevents@limmudla.org” title=”specialevents@limmudla.org”} for private Valley Village location. (310) 499-1787. limmudla.org.

 

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