From a distance, Sam Geta looks as if he is standing upright in an Elvis Presley-esque knock-kneed stance. He hits his approach shot and cheers triumphantly as his ball finds the edge of the green. He replaces the club in his golf bag, then lifts his legs one at a time back onto the accessible golf cart.
With the introduction of photography in 1839, pioneer practitioners of the nascent medium flocked to the Holy Land, expecting the glorious biblical scenes imagined by Renaissance painters, but finding instead mainly dusty villages and a largely ramshackle Jerusalem.
Orna Eilon is a wife, a mother, a real estate broker and an avid hiker. Somehow, in addition to all that, this superwoman also manages to find time to run the nonprofit MATI, an Israeli community center operating at the JCC at Milken in West Hills. With the help of other Israeli women in the San Fernando Valley, Eilon founded the organization in 2008 and is the current CEO.
There are as many reasons to visit Israel as there are people who make the trip. Some want to establish a deeper connection with an ancient homeland; others are excited to explore a unique modern nation. As part of a massive trip this fall that is being coordinated by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Rabbi Don Goor wants to do even more than that. He wants to send a message.
Brooke Burke and Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue Cantor Marcelo Gindlin share the stage during “Hand in Hand,” the synagogue’s April 3 concert fundraiser for children with special needs held at a Malibu home. Photo by Dana Fineman
By day, I slouched in the second-to-last row of AP Government and tried to make myself invisible. At night, I changed selves with a pair of black (p)leather pants that squeaked when I sat down. I smeared makeup all over my face, and if I avoided direct light, I was Monet pretty. A fog of hairspray, a flash flood of drugstore perfume and sticky lip gloss completed my disguise for Thursday night out at Tempo in Encino.
I wasn’t always as proud to be Israeli as I am today. I never hid that I was born in Israel — not that I could, with a name like mine. And I wasn’t embarrassed by my mom’s harsh Israeli accent, because she didn’t have one — she spent the first 10 years of her life in New York. I didn’t have to eat my school lunches surreptitiously. My sandwiches looked like everyone else’s.
My mother, who for years dreamt of holding her own baby in her arms, beamed as she held me, her firstborn. My beloved late grandmother, whose diplomatic skills were on par with Muammar Gadhafi’s, took one look at me and proclaimed, “Now you have a daughter, so now you can worry.”
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