Anyone familiar with religious practices can testify to the fact that candles play a crucial role in normative observance for many religions. It is not surprising to find an identical phenomenon in Judaism, the mother of so many contemporary beliefs.
A synagogue in Mumbai, India, celebrated its 150th anniversary.
The Polish journalist and commentator Leopold Unger has died at the age of 89.
For more Gold, check out his video from the Montreal Comedy Festival.
Robert M. “Bob” Brookman, born July 3, 1923, in New York City, died Dec. 15 at 88.
Marvin Saul, proud founder of Junior’s Delicatessen in Westwood, died of a heart attack Dec. 8 at 82. Known by his son David as the “Mayor of Rancho Park,” Saul could be found three days a week, up until his death, greeting guests at his deli, where lines often run out the door on weekends for the kosher-style food and warm atmosphere.
Of all the eulogies and essays about Christopher Hitchens that have appeared following his death Dec. 15 at age 62, one is particularly pernicious.
One way to mark the chronology of the counterculture, a pastime that is beloved by the baby boomers, is by reference to rock festivals. Woodstock and Altamont, for example, are now fully transformed into transcendent symbols of life and death, good and evil, the beginning and end of something. But the real starting point, the uber-festival, was Monterey.
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