A plastic bag whips in the breeze, trying in vain to free itself from the coil of barbed wire atop a chain link fence that surrounds the Breed Street Shul just off Cesar Chavez Avenue (originally Brooklyn Avenue) in Boyle Heights.
Even during the darkest moments of his four-year cycling odyssey, traversing 42 countries on six continents, Roei “Jinji” Sadan knew he’d never stop. After all, Sadan had a bike he called Emunah — Hebrew for “faith.”
The Turkey-Israel relationship is not out of the woods just yet.
A general pall has fallen over much of the American Jewish community as a combination of Middle Eastern events, Obama policies and hysteria about anti-Israel activity have raised alarms about the future of American support for Israel. The truth, however, is that poll data show Americans are more sympathetic toward Israel than ever before.
Letters to the editor
A little-noted announcement has slipped by everyone’s radar: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he is ready immediately to restart negotiations without preconditions with Israel but that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “refused to return” to the peace table. Unbelievable, no?
The other night, my city councilman was wishing aloud for a new word to call what’s happening lately with our neighborhood, Boyle Heights. “Revitalization” and “resurgence” came to mind, but they sounded a little on the generic side — no more appropriate to Boyle Heights than to downtown, say, or Eagle Rock. Unspoken was the eagerness to christen it anything but what a few have called it: gentrification.
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