A scoop of Ben & Jerry’s may taste like heaven, and for company co-founder Jerry Greenfield, the business of making ice cream has a spiritual side as well.
In July 2009, when everyone could see that the financial collapse of September 2008 was not going to be short-lived, I tracked down and interviewed for The Journal several people who had been hit hard by the recession. I also wrote about what Jewish organizations locally were doing to help and was heartened to find that the community had stepped up its efforts to reach out to those unable to find a job…
While procrastinating on her second screenplay, “The Future,” in 2009, July became obsessed with reading the classified ads in the PennySaver. She set out across Los Angeles to meet with PennySaver sellers, documenting the experiences in her latest book, “It Chooses You,” which blends narrative, interviews, photographs and deadpan humor.
I read with great concern the dual columns about intermarriage from your “demographic duo,” Dr. Bruce Phillips (“Jewish Intermarriage Declining?” 11/15/11) and Pini Herman (“Jewish Intermarriage was down in 2000, who’s going to claim credit?” 11/21/11), and was distressed much more by what was omitted than by what was said. While Dr. Phillips’ column may serve as good advocacy in an attempt to spark interest in “a 2010 National Jewish Population Study”—and by the way, isn’t it almost 2012 already?—it does a dangerously deceptive job of explaining Jewish intermarriage in America.
Two years ago, I did a series of interviews with Jewish community members hit hard by the recession. At that time, they were mostly optimistic that things would turn around soon, but when I checked back this month, I found that they’re all still struggling to find their footing in this unstable job market. Social service agencies I contacted say this is not surprising.
One of the great human virtues is gratitude. In Jewish tradition, we are encouraged to make at least 100 blessings of gratitude a day. The very first words we say every morning are “I give thanks before you, eternal King, for having restored to me my soul.”
At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art right now, in the ground-level hall of the Art of the Americas building, right off the main courtyard, a life-sized, lifelike sculptural installation shows a black man being castrated by a group of five white men wearing cartoonish masks.
A few weeks ago we sent out one of our regular e-blasts with the following headline: “Poll: One in five Americans believes Jews have too much control of Wall Street.”
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