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Jewish Journal

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August 17, 2011

My Single Peeps: J Keith

Leave a Comment / Culture, Is Featured?, My Single Peeps, News, Singles /

When I first met J Keith, I found his personality really grating. A friend brought him to a softball game my wife and I used to organize every Sunday. He was competitive and started to take over the game. I’m not competitive.  I’m not a huge fan of sports. But I loved our low-key softball games. And this guy was f—-ing them up.

J Keith runs a show called “The Fix Up Show,” “which is a live on-stage matchmaking show where we fix up people on dates with the help of celebrities.” He’s hit me up many times to use “my single peeps” for his shows, and I send them his way. But I know he’s still single. And although I had remembered him being really irksome, I thought I’d give him another chance. So I told him to sit down for an interview with me.

He shows up to meet me looking like a shlump in an old baseball hat, ill-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt. But I quickly notice a nice, tailored dress shirt peeking out of the sweatshirt, as well as an understated dress watch on his wrist. You can sense he comes from money, but it goes back a couple of generations. There’s no need to show it off. “Make me look good,” he says. “Why?” I ask. “Make me look accurate, how about that?” I promise him I will do my best.

J Keith’s last name is Dutch, so people are often surprised to find out he’s “100 percent Jewish.” He was born and raised in Chicago with no religion. “I’m about 96 percent atheist,” he says. His mother was killed in a car accident when he was 2, and his father remarried twice. At 14, he moved to Los Angeles “under great duress.”

He’s a writer/performer. “I’m not a good actor. I’m a good host.” He did a bunch of those VH1 talking-head shows. “I’m good at being quippy that way.” He also writes poetry. And not the cool, hip kind. “It would not work well in a slam. It would work better in a bookstore or a coffeehouse. It’s not contemporary. The best thing about my poetry is that I won’t make anyone read it.” When he discusses it, though, I get a window into his intellectual side, and he lights up as he discusses history. 

He loves art, theater and baseball. “I’m a huge Angels fan, so I’d love someone who’d go with me to games. I also love board games. I’m in a Scrabble club … ladies?” he says with a laugh.

He wants a woman who’s smart, pretty and thin. “Someone who does something creative, even if it’s not their occupation. It’s really important to me that someone does something creative in their life.”

He also wants a woman who works on herself in some way. “I’m very pro-therapy. I think everyone should do therapy. It should be government mandated. We all have our issues, but as long as we’re working on them somehow, it’s very appealing.” 

I ask him about being an artist and if now, at 40, an unstable career scares him. “There was a point where every year was better than the year before, and I thought that will keep happening, but it didn’t. Fortunately, I’ve done well with what I’ve saved, and in many ways I’m a responsible grown-up. I have an IRA, no debt, matching placemats. Luckily I don’t need to worry about money.”

He looks at his watch and excuses himself. “All right, I don’t want to be late to therapy.”

If you’re interested in anyone you see on My Single Peeps, send an e-mail and a picture, including the person’s name in the subject line, to mysinglepeeps@jewishjournal.com, and we’ll forward it to your favorite peep.

Seth Menachem is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. You can see more of his work on his Web site, sethmenachem.com, and meet even more single peeps at mysinglepeeps.com.

My Single Peeps: J Keith Read More »

Rebirthing birthright

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, Opinion /

Birthright Israel is now 11 years old and has brought some 300,000 young Jews to Israel. I recently led another Birthright trip for Mayanot, one of its best and most professional providers, and learned a great deal about how a spectacular program could be made even better.

I knew of Birthright at it conception. Its co-founder, Michael Steinhardt, was sharing with me the scope of the idea as he traveled with Charles Bronfman around the United States raising large sums to get the idea off the ground. It’s one thing for a rich man to give money. It’s an entirely different level of commitment when he traverses city to city soliciting friends and acquaintances. It solidified in my mind that first, Michael was a great man, and that second, Birthright is something to which I should devote myself.

So I packed up myself and my wife and travelled to Israel for our second Birthright jamboree. And boy was it a celebration. Ten days of no sleep and constant discussion, laughter and tears. Inspiration from watching young Jews connect to their land and their people and pain at hearing the participants who had lost parents, seen their families torn asunder by divorce, and found comfort, for the very first time, in knowing they were a wider part and an eternal people. In life we all search for a place called home, an identity, and a place to belong. No Jewish organization on earth provides it more inspirationally than Birthright.

Still, it can be made better.

Here is how:

1. On day one when you read all the rules to the newly arriving participants, don’t treat them like children. These are young adults. Threatening them to be dumped from their trip if they get blotto presupposes their hearts can’t be touched. This is the speech that should be given: “Welcome to Israel. You are home. We are thrilled to welcome you back to the Jewish family. Please understand that unlike the Bahamas, Israel is surrounded by those who believe Jewish people should have no home. It is protected by a nation of humble men and women who serve their country for three years in their teens and watch as loved ones sometimes never come back from war. What we’re saying is, you’re in a sacred place. Please allow your conduct at all times to reflect the dignity of this magical country whose democracy was carved out in the harshest of neighborhoods. These Israelis you see around you, they do not earn the same amount of money as Americans. Yet, they contribute one third of the entire budget that allows you to come to Israel as a free gift. Show them your appreciation by drinking in moderation, partying amid a sense of purpose, and at all times, your thirst, not for booze, but to drink in all that Israel is. If you stay up so late at bars that you can barely function the next day, you are showing the Israeli people that you have no desire to understand their story and their history, something which, as a Jew, you are a part. We know you understand and we’re sure you’ll cooperate. Get ready for a life-changing experience.”

2. Birthright needs substance, and I suggest a stronger values-based component. A young woman sitting next to me on the plane got all excited about our conversation until she discovered that she was with a different Birthright provider. She had shunned the group I was with, all non-observant Jews, because she read that the provider was Orthodox. Here, a young woman who feared religion was denied the pleasure of my engaging company (please stop the laughter and show some dignity) because she’s afraid of religion being shoved down her gullet. Now, of course Birthright should not be in the business of peddling religion so much as attachment to Israel and Jewish identity. But that should not make the trip free of substance. The impact I was able to make on my group stemmed from engaging them in values-based discussion that related to everything they saw. You’re at Yad Vashem: 6 million Jews dead, murdered. Question: Anyone here believe in vengeance? Hands go up. OK, what about forgiveness. Can we forgive something this gruesome? Jesus said love your enemies? Is that something we Jews ought to embrace? Which are the real Jewish values? To be sure, the many speeches I gave were delivered amid healthy doses of humor (you can watch them on YouTube and please try and laugh with me rather than at me). But I was intent on making the Birthright experience not just about Jewish history and geography, but about Jewish values and Jewish wisdom.

3. Expect something in return. I know that the founders of Birthright, Michael included, correctly insist that this is a gift and a gift comes with no strings attached. But doesn’t a gift usually inspire a feeling of reciprocity? I would require all Birthright participants to give one third of what they received, three days, of volunteer work to the Jewish communal charity of their choice back home. They could vacuum the floors of their synagogue, serve as counselors in a camp or work in a local hospital. This would create a mini Jewish Peace Corps, for just three days, inspired by Birthright. Everyone knows you have to give something back. To those to whom much is given, surely something very minimal should at least be expected.

4. Continuity, continuity, continuity. Its absence is the biggest problem of all for Birthright. The trip is so inspirational, so moving, so transformative, that it inspires many to ask, as John did on my trip, “How do I keep this feeling once I return.” I responded, “You can’t.” Emotions by their very nature are ephemeral. They don’t last. What does last are actions inspired by emotions that in turn continue the cycle by further inspiring deeper feelings. In other words, when you get home, you need to do something about your feelings. Your hands need to mold your heart. Hence, my suggestion. Birthright must immediately hire the 30 most charismatic Jewish personalities it can find, and match them with the 30 best administrators it can find. Give them a limited budget to get started as, in 30 cities and towns across America, they begin to provide a monthly large educational event, defined by big-name speakers, twice-monthly Shabbat meals and a weekly class and discussion, coordinated by this duo. You may not get all the alums to participate. But even a third would mean a transformation of the face of young American Jews.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a writer and broadcaster who did not drink on his Birthright trip and has 40 young Jews to back him up, because the evidence he has against them is so much more serious by comparison. So can’t we all just get along? Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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Making Movies Matter

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood, Is Featured?, News /

The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Imagination rules the world.”

A surprising credo to have come from the mind of a military man, but its provenance only reinforces the weight of its message. Even one of Europe’s great military masterminds knew that the ability to influence the human psyche is the ultimate form of power.

Hollywood is in the business of influencing. How people think, and what they think about, are conscious or unconscious components of any film. A docudrama that looks behind the scenes of the financial crisis, such as HBO’s “Too Big to Fail,” can be eye-opening and incendiary. A lifetime of watching romantic comedies can shape ideas about love.

It is a matter of debate as to whether Hollywood should be more deliberate with its power. After all, when hundreds of millions of people are forming ideas through subjects explored in the movies, shouldn’t moviemakers heed Napoleon’s words and consider their impact?

Filmmaker Marc Erlbaum, 41, a relative newcomer to the movie business, thinks so. But his belief in so-called message pictures goes even further, to advocate “positive, values-based films that can entertain and simultaneously uplift.” To that end he established Nationlight Productions (a play on “light unto the nations”) in 2009, a Philadelphia-based production company focused on creating inspiring and meaningful content for mainstream audiences.

A Philadelphia native, Erlbaum started his career in the family business, the national retail chain David’s Bridal, after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1992. But his heart wandered toward writing. After returning from a yearlong sabbatical in Israel and France, he had an epiphany.

“I went to the movies one Saturday night, and I couldn’t find a parking space — at midnight — and it occurred to me at that moment, that if you want to communicate with people, [film] is the medium,” Erlbaum said.

As he was developing his artistic palette, Erlbaum was also becoming more religious. He grew up Conservative, became involved with Chabad as a college student and now identifies as a ba’al teshuvah. “As I became more involved with Judaism and truly internalized ‘light unto the nations’ and tikkun olam, really having a duty to try and change the world, it became more and more clear to me that [making movies] was the best mechanism for doing that.”

Erlbaum wrote and sold his first screenplay after attending a graduate writing program at Temple University. After that, he began producing small, local fare and premiered the feature mockumentary “Head Space” at the Philadelphia Film Festival. But it was reading conservative commentator Michael Medved’s inflammatory book, “Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values,” that fueled his earlier revelation about the power of film.

Medved’s polarizing screed took aim at Hollywood, accusing the industry of becoming a “poison factory” that assaults family values and glamorizes sex, violence and immorality. He argued that there was this huge, underserved audience in [middle] America that wanted more wholesome content,” Erlbaum recalled. For the aspiring filmmaker, the book was a rallying cry; more “positive messaging” carried a subtext that was widely interpreted to mean the incorporation of religious values.

Others consider the book an embarrassing disgrace. In a review for New York Magazine, New Yorker film critic David Denby famously wrote, “This is the stupidest book about popular culture I have ever read through to its conclusion.”

But Erlbaum saw potential. “All these Christian production companies started popping up around that time,” he said, “and I thought, ‘Well, why shouldn’t we have a Jewish production company?’ ”

Apparently the canard that Hollywood already is one giant Jewish production company didn’t cut it for Erlbaum. So he teamed up with local cinephiles and turned to wealthy Jewish philanthropists such as David Magerman, a venture capitalist with a doctorate in computer science, to finance his production company — for what he calls “filmanthropy.” Nationlight launched at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival with a Shabbat dinner for more than 100 guests, and their Facebook page currently counts nearly 56,000 followers. Last month, the company released its first feature film, “Everything Must Go,” starring Will Ferrell, to 220 theaters in 50 cities nationwide. (The film had a 76 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the online review site, and New York Times film critic A.O. Scott called it “sober,” “sad and satisfying.”) This weekend, their second feature, “Café,” starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, and written and directed by Erlbaum, opens at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in Los Angeles.

Watching “Café” at a William Morris Endeavor screening earlier this year, the Jewish content was not immediately clear, though the film seemed, somehow, viscerally Jewish.

“Café” has a lot of talk about “the creator” and moralizes about “meaning,” and thematically addresses favorite religious tropes like the triumph of good over evil. The danger with this type of fare, especially among mainstream audiences, is that it can come off drippy, preachy and sanctimonious.

“I try to express [these ideas] metaphorically and allegorically so they don’t come across heavy-handed or didactic,” Erlbaum said. “Our goal was never to make Jewish films but to imbue films with Jewish values, concepts and philosophy,” he said.

For models, he looks to billionaire investor Philip Anschutz’s film production and publishing company Walden Media, which promotes children’s material with moral messages (“The Chronicles of Narnia”), as well as former eBay president-turned-social entrepreneur Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media, which focuses on social action films (“The Help,” “Waiting for Superman”).

“I think there has been a reluctance in Hollywood to be agenda-driven in your content,” Erlbaum said. “That’s sort of like a long-standing bias, that Hollywood is not about messaging, it’s about entertaining.”

“But as you’re entertaining, is there a way to incorporate a social agenda? Are we looking to escape reality or looking to benefit reality?”

Erlbaum is trying to do his part. He is also the founder of the Jewish Relief Agency, a 10-year-old food assistance organization that provides for the Jewish poor in Greater Philadelphia.

“If I weren’t religious, I wouldn’t be pushing so hard for this,” he said. “I think it’s my faith that makes me so ambitious to make this work.”

Making Movies Matter Read More »

French music renegade is re-discovered

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment, Music, News /

Although he is not widely known in the United States, the French-Jewish composer, lyricist, musician and singer Serge Gainsbourg is a legend in his native country. After Gainsbourg’s death from a heart attack, in 1991 at 62, French President François Mitterrand called him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire,” adding,  “He elevated the song to the level of art.”

A “Serge Gainsbourg Tribute” concert will be staged at the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 28 as part of the KCRW World Festival.  Johanna Rees, the Bowl’s senior programming manager for presentations and special concerts, said among the reasons for the tribute is to recognize Gainsbourg’s great influence on some of today’s popular musicians.

Special guests Beck, Sean Lennon, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Ed Droste (Grizzly Bear), Victoria Legrand (Beach House), Mike Patton (Faith No More) and Nika Roza Danilova (Zola Jesus) will join the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform Gainsbourg’s works.

“Beck, the top name on the roster of artists who will perform, has talked about being a fan of Serge Gainsbourg,”  Rees explains, “and so the idea to explore his music was exciting.  Also, it’s the 20th anniversary of his death.”

To provide context for the evening, KCRW host Anne Litt will give an overview of Gainsbourg’s life and achievements. The vocalists will sing in French and English and briefly discuss the numbers they are performing.

Gainsbourg was particularly noteworthy for the diversity of musical styles he mastered, among them jazz, ballads, pop, disco, rock ’n’ roll, African and reggae.

“He wanted to explore,” Rees said. “Take the reggae period. It didn’t matter if people liked it or didn’t like it. He was doing what he wanted to do. Maybe that was part of his excesses, including musical excesses.”

Many of Gainsbourg’s songs had blatantly sexual subjects. His singular album “L’histoire de Melody Nelson,” recorded with Jane Birkin, his wife at the time, tells the story of a middle-age man, somewhat like Gainsbourg himself, who accidentally runs his Rolls-Royce into the bicycle of Melody Nelson, a teenager. The episode is followed by a seduction, in a narrative reminiscent of “Lolita.”

A rendition of that entire composition will close the evening. Jean Claude Vannier, who did the original arrangements with Gainsbourg, is flying in from France for his first U.S. appearance and will conduct the orchestra in its performance of “Melody Nelson” on the work’s 40th anniversary.

Also appearing at the concert will be Gainsbourg’s 25-year-old son by his last partner, the French model and singer Bambou. Lucien Gainsbourg, or Lulu, as he is called, will perform two of his father’s songs that are also included in the tribute album he recorded, “From Gainsbourg to Lulu,” which is slated for a November release in France.  While Lulu is aware of the womanizing and other extreme behavior that characterized his father’s personal life, he wants the public outside of France to appreciate his father’s considerable accomplishments.

“People need to know who that man was, apart from the drugs and the drinking and the smoking. He was the greatest poet of his generation, and an amazing musician, and he painted. He did everything. I wish that everybody would admire him for what he did as an artist.”

Lulu Gainsbourg. Photo by Richard Aujard

Having recently graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Lulu, who was only 5 when his father died, is trying to forge his own creative path. 

“Since I already have a name that’s known, because of my dad, I realize that a lot of people are waiting for my work, waiting for me to show up. And this is great pressure, because I have one shot and cannot miss that shot. But, I’m doing my own stuff, and some people will like it; some won’t like it. This is life.”

As the product of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, Lulu said he has no particular religious affiliation, though he did have a bar mitzvah and last year visited Israel for the first time.

His father’s Jewish background, particularly his experiences as a child during the Nazi occupation of France, figures prominently in the upcoming biopic “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life,” scheduled to open Sept. 2.  In one segment, the main character’s defiant personality becomes evident when the young Gainsbourg demands that the French police, who are collaborating with the Nazis, give him the first yellow star, which Jews must wear.

Filmmaker Joann Sfar said that the most heavily documented period of Gainsbourg’s life is his childhood, and the episode is totally factual. In conducting his research, Sfar didn’t want to rely too much on the memories of Gainsbourg’s family members.

“I only wanted to work on Serge Gainsbourg’s real words. So I gathered all the words he said in songs, interviews, newspapers, books. All the things he said, even if he was drunk, were the basis for my script. The story is totally written with his words and, maybe, his words only.”

As a French Jew himself, Sfar said he feels a particular affinity for his cinematic hero.

“When I was a kid, I came from a wonderful, and wonderfully boring, Jewish family.  There was a lot of religion, and not so much fun. So, Gainsbourg provided the proof, to me, that a Jew could be cool.” 

“His relationship to religion is very interesting — his family was not religious at all. But the French police made Gainsbourg a Jew the day they gave him the star. ‘This is not my yellow star, officer, it is yours’ may be the most important sentence of the movie. It is a love story between a young Jewish boy and France.”

Sfar’s film portrays many of Gainsbourg’s excesses, which, in his later years, led to embarrassing public incidents. When asked if such a dissolute life, one that may well have contributed to Gainsbourg’s premature death, could be considered heroic, the filmmaker replied that herein lies one of the basic differences between Europe and the States.

“In the United States, the movie storytellers have taught the audience that the hero is the guy who solves problems. If there is an issue, don’t worry; the hero is here, and everything will be OK. In my perception, from Athens to Kafka, the European view of a hero is quite different: the hero is the guy facing the impossibility of living without tragedy. Sorry!  That definition isn’t fun. But I strongly feel that a hero, like Jesus, is the guy who opens his wound for us to drink his blood.”

“Serge Gainsbourg Tribute,” Sunday, Aug.  28 at 7 p.m., Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., (323) 850-2000. For additional information: http://www.hollywoodbowl.com

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Calendar Picks and Clicks: August 17-August 26

Leave a Comment / Community, Picks and Clicks, What's Happening /

WED | AUG 17

“DOOR OF HANDS”
The work of Brazilian visual artist Michel Groisman combines visual art, the human body and everyday materials like water, candles and playing cards. In his meditative movement piece, “Door of Hands,” Groisman uses only his hands to create kaleidoscopic forms, demonstrating the human body’s role in artistic expression.  Wed. 8 p.m. $12 (general), $10 (members), $6 (full-time students). Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 440-4500. skirball.org.

THU | AUG 18

CAMP JEWLICIOUS
A music festival atmosphere mixes with summer camp fun during the second annual overnight camp for young professionals, featuring live concerts, swimming, hiking, horseback riding and more. Visit jewliciousfestival.com for concert lineup details. Thu. Through Aug. 21. $99-$299. Brandeis Bardin Campus of American Jewish University, 1101 Peppertree Lane, Brandeis. (310) 277-5544.

MOSHE KASHER
Fast-talking, self-deprecating and occasionally dark, the up-and-coming comic often explores topics such as his sexuality, Bernie Madoff and why heaven sounds just as bad as hell. Thu. 8 p.m. $14. Improv Hollywood, 8162 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. (323) 651-2583. improv.com.

SAT | AUG 20

CAFÉ EUROPA: PORTRAITS IN BLACK AND WHITE

Photographer Barbara Mack looks deep into the faces and lives of Holocaust survivors who participate in the social and educational group Café Europa. Some subjects pose with cherished objects from their past — like John Gordon, holding in his hands a cut-glass goblet; and Sophie Hamburger, appearing with a garment she wore when she escaped a death march — adding to the personal narrative. A biographical statement, written by Jane Jelenko, accompanies each photograph. Sat. Through Sept 1. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Sat.-Thu.), 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (Fri.). Free. Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, 100 S. The Grove Drive, Los Angeles. (323) 651-3704. lamoth.org.

PHRANC AND PETER CASE
The self-described “all-American Jewish lesbian folk singer” performs opposite Case, a Grammy-nominated folk singer-songwriter, as part of downtown’s Grand Performances series. Born Susan Gottlieb, Santa Monica native Phranc started out in the ’70s and ’80s L.A. punk scene before turning to folk, crafting songs that are as whimsical and political as they are emotional. Sat. 8 p.m. Free. Grand Performances, 350 S. Grand Ave., downtown. (213) 687-2159. grandperformances.org.

ISRAELI CHAMBER PROJECT
The Israel- and New York-based ensemble performs Beethoven’s “Trio,” Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim’s “Three Songs Without Words,” De Falla’s “Spanish Songs” and Brahms’ “Trio” during the closing concert at the first annual iCadenza Future of Music Festival. Sat. 8-9:30 p.m. $90. The Colburn School’s Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown. (310) 896-8527. aicf.org.

SUN | AUG 21

LEWIS BLACK
He yells so you don’t have to. Best-known for his curmudgeonly commentaries on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Black returns to SoCal with more social and political rants as part of his “In God We Rust” tour. Sun. 8 p.m. $57.50-$73. Fred Kavli Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. (805) 449-2700. lewisblack.com.

TUE | AUG 23

YIDDISH, HEBREW AND BROADWAY MUSIC
Sinai Temple’s Yiddish Club welcomes Café Europa for an afternoon of music featuring Cantor Arianne Brown, Aryell Cohen and Cantor Joseph Gole. Tue. 2-3 p.m. Free. Sinai Temple’s Ziegler Hall, 10400 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 481-3243. sinaitemple.org.

WED | AUG 24

“HEBREW SCHOOL HORROR”
Encino native Aysha Wax stars in this comedic one-woman show as a college grad who teaches Hebrew school and must deal with spoiled Jewish princes and princesses in the awkward throes of puberty. Wed. 10 p.m. $5. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. (323) 908-8702. ucbtheatre.com.
 

THU | AUG 25

POOLSIDE BUSINESS MIXER
The Los Angeles Jewish Chamber of Commerce hosts a joint poolside mixer with the Malibu Chamber of Commerce at the Sheraton Delfina Santa Monica Hotel. Complimentary self-parking. Thu. 5:30-8:30 p.m. $25 (door), $20 (general, advance RSVP), $10 (members, advance RSVP). Sheraton Delfina, 530 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. (866) 257-6117. lajewishchamber.com.

DANI AND EYTAN KOLLIN
The Prometheus Award-winning sci-fi author siblings — sons of Rabbi Gilbert Kollin, rabbi emeritus of Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center — sign their latest novel, “The Unincorporated Woman,” the third book in their “Unincorporated” series, which is set in a future society where people ostensibly live forever and buy shares in each other. Thu. 7 p.m. Free. Barnes & Noble, The Grove at Farmers Market, 189 Grove Drive, Los Angeles. (323) 525-0270. barnesandnoble.com.

AN EVENING WITH MIRI BEN-ARI
The Grammy-winning Israeli violinist’s style blends classical with hip-hop, winning over fans like Jay-Z and Michelle Obama. Presented by the American Friends of the Israel Sports Center for the Disabled, the 32-year-old musician performs tonight at Stephen S. Wise Temple. Thu. 8 p.m. $45 (general admission), $60 (reserved seating), $70 (VIP). Stephen S. Wise Temple, 15500 Stephen S. Wise Drive, Los Angeles. (773) 875-2425. afiscd.org.

FRI | AUG 26

KIRA SOLTANOVICH
A series regular on the syndicated hidden-camera show “Girls Behaving Badly,” stand-up comedian Soltanovich was born in the former Soviet Union and raised by immigrant parents in San Francisco. “Like most kids, my parents took me to Disneyland — not for the rides, for the lines. They assumed there’d be food at the end of them.” Fri. 10 p.m. $17. Flappers Comedy Club, 102 E. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. (818) 845-9721. comedycasting.com.

Calendar Picks and Clicks: August 17-August 26 Read More »

High test scores at Einstein Charter School

Leave a Comment / California, Community, News /

In its first year of existence, the seventh- and eighth-graders at the new charter school Albert Einstein Academy for Letters, Arts and Sciences in Santa Clarita scored better on California standardized tests than any other public middle-schoolers in the area.

Einstein, which was originally conceived as a Hebrew charter school, but which now offers Hebrew language classes as one option along with other languages, opened in August 2010 with 173 students in seventh, eighth and ninth grades.

Rabbi Mark Blazer, rabbi of Temple Beth Ami in Santa Clarita and executive director of Einstein, welcomed the recent test results as evidence of Einstein’s academic success.

“We knew that the scores were good,” Blazer said. “We didn’t know until today how they compared to the wider area.”

Charter schools, which are publicly funded, are required to test students as part of the Department of Education’s Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program. Tests cover four subjects: English/language arts, mathematics, science and history/social science.

In 2010-11, students across California took two or more of the tests. The results were released on Aug. 15 and showed that 54 percent of second-through 11th-graders scored at proficient or above in English/language arts. Fifty percent scored at proficient or above in mathematics. Both results were the highest since the tests were first administered in 2003.

At Einstein, the overwhelming majority of the school’s students — 91 percent of seventh-graders, 86 percent of eighth-graders and 89 percent of ninth-graders — scored at or above proficiency on the English/language arts tests. On math tests, 65 percent of Einstein students scored at or above proficiency.

The only school in Santa Clarita whose students scored better than Einstein’s is Academy of the Canyons, a public charter school established in 2000. Ninety-four percent of the school’s 288 ninth-, 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders scored at or above proficient in English/language arts; 71 percent scored at or above proficient in math.

In the past year, Blazer has been stymied in his attempts to open similar schools in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. He said that efforts to open an Einstein elementary school in Santa Clarita were progressing.

After-school enrichment classes with Jewish content are offered at Einstein by an organization unrelated to the school,  and school administrators take care to keep those programs separate from the school’s regular operations. 

Einstein in Santa Clarita will grow to four grades with 275 students for the 2011-12 school year. In addition to Hebrew and Spanish, which were offered in the last school year, classes in Arabic, Mandarin and Latin will be offered in the coming year.

High test scores at Einstein Charter School Read More »

Westside, Milken JCC teams medal in Israel

Leave a Comment / California, Community, News /

At the beginning of the JCC Maccabi Games boys’ soccer tournament in Israel, Westside JCC co-head coach Neil Sadhu gave striker Ari Spitzer three words of advice: power, precision and composure. Tied 1-1 with 15 minutes left in the final at Hebrew University, Spitzer approached Sadhu.

“We were on our last legs, but he said, ‘I can go hard for 15 minutes,’ ” Sadhu recalled.

Into the game Spitzer went.

“I had that feeling you get when you know you’re about to do something great,” the 17-year-old Milken senior said.

Spitzer’s game-winning shot went into the goal eight minutes later, sealing Westside’s win over the combined Denver, Detroit and Houston team for a third consecutive gold medal.

Southern California was well represented in soccer at the JCC Maccabi Games in Israel, July 24-Aug. 5, as one of two Milken JCC boys’ soccer teams secured the bronze with a 2-0 win, and one of two Milken JCC girls’ soccer teams also avenged a semifinal loss with a 2-0 win for bronze.

Top-seeded Allie Peris won the gold medal, and No. 2 seed Nicole Getelman took bronze for Westside in the 17-and-under girls’ tennis tournament.

Second-seeded Sigal Spitzer, cousin of Ari, earned the silver in the 15-and-under girls’ tennis tournament.

Jake Stark was the only Westside swimmer to medal in individual events, taking the silver in the 100- and 200-meter butterfly, and bronze in both the 50-meter backstroke and 200-meter individual medley in the 14-15 division. Stark said the Israel experience was “a thrill.”

“I think I gave my all,” said Stark, a sophomore at West Hills Chaminade. He also added a relay medal to his haul.

Griffin Koffman came away with four medals, all in 14-15 division relay events, including one in which he teamed with fellow Westside swimmer Jake Defeo.

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