My fascination with Israeli food started the first time I tasted a falafel laced with tahini at a little sidewalk cafe in Westwood, near UCLA. Inspired by this simple Israeli dish, I began developing a list of Middle Eastern recipes that grew with each trip to Israel.
While local news broadcasters debated the West Coast repercussions of the Japanese earthquake, Radio Kol America’s Dudi Caspi, sitting with headphones and a microphone at the station’s North Hollywood studio, posed a different question: Could a tsunami hit Tel Aviv?
At an airy dance studio in the San Fernando Valley, couples dressed in black moodily tango across the floor, stopping in frustration now and then. Hadas Fisher stands out: She’s wearing a bright coral dress, dangly gold earrings and a brilliant smile. Her dance partner, an elderly gentleman, is 3 inches shorter than she is. Fisher guides him through the cha-cha with a gentle patience.
At a quarter to 7 in the morning, 32-year-old Israeli financier Dovi Frances pulls up in his nightshade Mercedes Benz — a fitting color since it’s still dark outside — on his way to run a company meeting in Santa Barbara. When the passenger door opens, a blast of hip-hop music shatters the early-morning quiet, the driver buoyant with the beat pounding his luxury-vehicle-cum-mobile-nightclub.
At least 39 people were killed and 70 wounded Monday by Syrian security forces in the southern city of Daraa, pro-democracy activists said, after the army moved into the city where the current wave of protests began, and fired at protesters.
The Syrian Army stormed the restive city of Dara’a with tanks and soldiers and helped detain dozens in towns across the country Monday in an escalation of the widening crackdown on Syria’s five-week-old uprising, according to residents and human rights activists. They said at least 25 people were killed in Dara’a, with reports of bodies strewn in the streets.
An Australian citizen was arrested by Israel and charged with spying for Hamas. Iaad Rashid Abu Arja, 46, a computer expert, was indicted in Petah Tikvah District Court last week, accused of being recruited by the banned Islamic organization.
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