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April 26, 2011

The book festival gets a new home

The headliners at the 2011 edition of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books range from literary luminaries like Carolyn See, Dave Eggers, T.C. Boyle and Jennifer Egan, to fitness icon Jillian Michaels and master prestidigitator Ricky Jay, but the biggest news is the change of venue. After a 15-year run at the UCLA campus, the event has moved to the lively and welcoming campus of the University of Southern California in downtown Los Angeles.

U.S. Holocaust museum pushes West Coast visibility

During a lecture on genocide prevention at American Jewish University (AJU) on April 13, Michael Abramowitz, director of the Committee on Conscience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, discussed a shift in the international community’s view of how to handle crimes against humanity. We’re seeing a “shift from a culture responding after the fact to a culture of prevention,” Abramowitz said.

Yaroslavsky observes Nigeria’s democratic process

Zev Yaroslavsky’s latest nation-building assignment wasn’t easy. Dispatched to Nigeria as part of an international corps of election observers, he checked on polling places during elections this month in a nation better known for ethnic violence and corruption than orderly changes in government.

AJU women to honor filmmaker Mazursky

Filmmaker Paul Mazursky will be honored with the Burning Bush Award by the University Women of the American Jewish University (AJU) at the group’s author-artist luncheon on May 3. Sharing the stage at the Beverly Hills Hotel will be Marion Goldenfeld, who will receive the Woman of Achievement Award.

A daughter tells her mother’s story of the Holocaust

A Los Angeles native and child of a Holocaust survivor, Tema Merback has written “In the Face of Evil,” a unique kind of Holocaust book — a novel written in the first person from her mother’s perspective. In relating the true story of what her mother faced during the war, Merback says that the narrative form she chose was missing from the canon of Holocaust books.

Progressive Jews support improved contracts for Hyatt employees

Progressive leaders from the local Jewish community showed support for employees of the Hyatt hotel chain on April 21. A delegation of Jewish community leaders convened at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza and met with hotel staff persons. The delegation called on the hotel to provide better wages for the hotel’s nonmanagement employees, an end to union busting and a safer work environment for its employees.

We were not alone

This year, the first day of Passover and the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fell only one day apart. Passover teaches the story of the Jewish people’s historic, successful dash for freedom. The young Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto, who led the first mass uprising against Nazi rule in occupied Europe, were ultimately defeated, and most of the survivors were transported to the death camps. No Red Sea parted for Warsaw’s Jews during the terrible years of Nazi occupation, nor did the heavens darken; however, they were not totally abandoned to their fate. The 23,788 names on the Yad Vashem roster of Righteous Among the Nations remind us of that. One of those names, Irena Sendler, will be the focus of a new American documentary film that will premiere nationwide on PBS on May 1, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Authors to discuss terrorism at AJU

Authors Thanassis Cambanis, Joel Chasnoff and Mordechai Dzikansky will present on-the-ground perspectives of terrorism in Israel and the Middle East when they appear together next week during a panel discussion, “Terrorism and the Middle East,” at American Jewish University.

Bringing Shalit home

One of the most ironic obstacles to peace in the Middle East is what I call the Jewish disease of “ifonlyitis.” This is the school of thought that says “if only” Israel would do this, or “if only” Israel would do that, then we finally might resolve the conflict. I suffer from the syndrome myself, and for that I blame my mother. She convinced me from a very young age that “if only” I put my mind to something, there’s nothing I can’t do.

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