How do you take one of the most shocking and revolting murder sprees in memory and make it even more disturbing? By pouncing on its supposed root causes for transparently partisan purposes.
Two films have captured the country’s attention over the past year — “Waiting for Superman,” depicting the imploding landscape of American public school education, and “Race to Nowhere,” a highly flawed examination of the treadmill on which American students have found themselves.
On April 3, under the auspices of the American Jewish University, in its Gindi Auditorium, five Los Angeles rabbis competed with one another in an evening titled “Dancing With the Rabbis.” As reported in this newspaper, the sellout crowd loved the evening.
I had a lively debate with the founder of J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, April 11 at Temple Israel of Hollywood, and as much as we disagreed sharply on many issues relative to Israel, there was one item on which we were in complete agreement: The Palestinians’ steady march toward unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September is a disaster-in-waiting for Israel.
Last week, here in Los Angeles, we read with horror of an inmate in a local county jail who was strangled to death in his cell. This inmate had been complaining to a judge that he was being “hassled” by other inmates. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions have plagued L.A. County’s jails for more than 30 years, along with a culture of violence and fear that includes prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and the use of excessive force by deputies.
“How long must I roam, to find my way home …”
A few weeks before Passover, there was a moment when Shirley Friedman looked worried that there might not be enough food for everybody. Friedman, who calls herself “a full-time grandmother,” is expecting to feed three dozen people over the first two nights of Passover at her table at home — but on that Thursday morning, she wasn’t worrying about a problem that could be solved by another trip to the supermarket.
From five stories up, it’s pretty easy to see what he couldn’t, with the expanse of Independence Mall splayed out below. Washington’s newly recreated house is straight ahead, right next to the Liberty Bell Pavilion. One block to the left is Independence Hall and, to the right, the National Constitution Center.
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