November 23, 2010

Do-gooder teens can reap some benefit for their hard work through the fifth annual Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award. The award, established by the San Francisco-based Helen Diller Family Foundation and associated with the Bay Area Jewish Community Federation, recognizes California teens who have demonstrated active commitment to social action. Five winners receive $36,000 each, to be used as the teen sees fit. Last year’s Los Angeles-area winners include Megan Kilroy, founder of Team Marine, a group based at Santa Monica High School that travels the state teaching kids and adults about how careless actions such as littering impact the oceans and the environment. She has traveled to Sacramento dressed in a suit covered with bottle caps to lobby state lawmakers.

Nine programs in Israel received $1.2 million in grants from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, primarily supporting educational programs to integrate disadvantaged populations into the economy. The largest grant, $250,000, will fund 35 Ethiopian students to study law, health and business at the Ono Academic College in Kiryat-Ono. Unemployment among Ethiopian men in Israel ranges from 27 to 66 percent, and fewer than 25 percent of Ethiopian women are employed.

The West Los Angeles Reform congregation Temple Isaiah has unveiled a memorial honoring U.S. armed forces — Jewish and non-Jewish — killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, drawing inspiration from a similar memorial in Boston. “I was walking the Freedom Trail in Boston, and along the route, there is the Old North Church and they have this beautiful memorial to soldiers who have died,” said Rabbi Zoë Klein of Temple Isaiah. “I think, for us, the memorial is our Jewish response to be witnesses. It’s about being empathetic partners and empathetic neighbors within a larger community.” The memorial was unveiled during Friday night services at the synagogue, on Nov. 12, one day after Veterans Day, during a night of interfaith worship: Pastor Rachel Ciupek-Reed of Mt. Hollywood Congregational Church, Father Alexei Smith of the Catholic Archdiocese, the Rev. David Farley of Echo Park United Methodist Church and the Rev. Liz Munoz of Trinity Episcopal Church joined Klein in the service.

On most Wednesdays, about 60 or 70 people line up outside the food pantry at the Pico-Robertson storefront of SOVA Community Food and Resource Program of Jewish Family Service (JFS). But at 8:45 a.m. on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the line stretched down the block, well beyond Pico Kosher Deli and nearly to the corner of Pico and Robertson – numbering around 200 people, with more still arriving. They were lined up for a special Thanksgiving giveaway — a bag of groceries in addition to their usual monthly grocery order. On Nov. 18, JFS gave away 1,550 bags of groceries at its three sites, a 25 percent increase over last year’s Thanksgiving distribution.