A German court denied a request to extradite John Demjanjuk to Spain to stand trial on charges of being an accessory to genocide and crimes against humanity. In denying the extradition request on June 9, the Munich court questioned Spain’s jurisdiction in the case and also noted that the evidence presented against Demjanjuk was incomplete.
“It is known that a wide open living space widens one’s mind, and thus the opposite, a crowded living space and lots of people together, degrades one’s mind. Pharaoh strove to degrade the minds of the Israelites, and so he would press them in one place.”
Letters to the editor
Every week, an e-mail circulates among hundreds of Jews in Los Angeles calling for my immediate firing. The subject line of a recent one was, “The L.A. Jewish paper needs a new Editor-in-Chief.” I know when this happens, because the author is always kind enough to copy me on the campaign. The author is usually one of a group of people who reads my editorials, or another essay or headline in the paper and decides that the fate of the State of Israel depends on ridding the Jewish community of what another anti-me organizer called my “über-left anti-Israel perspective.”
As a loving and concerned parent, you may notice that when your daughter enters puberty she will gain weight. Most of this gain is due to her body developing and preparing her to grow taller; the weight usually precedes the growth spurt. A healthy adolescent may gain anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds. Because there is so much focus on weight and body size in our culture, however, adolescents are not given the opportunity to go through these changes with the weight fluctuations that are necessary for normal development. This is the time that most eating disorders start. Over the years, I have heard my clients say that they started their eating disorder between the ages of 11 and 15 years old. Most started with a diet or over-exercising.
About seven of us have gathered for group therapy in a large room scattered with chairs. A woman with frizzy red hair and a head that looks several sizes too big for her emaciated body sits across from me. Next to her, a statuesque blonde has a polished demeanor that belies the fact that, after lunch, staff members will try to keep her from going to the bathroom to vomit.
For nearly 40 years, Sharon Pikus hid what she calls her “dirty little secret”: After an adolescent case of whooping cough caused her to vomit everything she ate, she turned the experience into a trick to lose weight. “I was always a chubbette as a kid, so I said to myself, ‘This is terrific — I can eat whatever I want and throw it up,’ ” recalled Pikus, now 60. She kept up the habit for decades, eventually having to hide it from her husband and children. Even as other parts of her life were in place — her family was happy, her business was successful — her bulimia lurked under the surface, an overwhelming compulsion.
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