Born into a poor Moroccan immigrant family that settled in the development town of Dimona, Yardena Ovadia always dreamed of giving her daughter a fairy-tale wedding.
Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari ripped up a copy of the New Testament and threw it in the garbage.
Lavish weddings featuring guest lists upward of 500 people were seemingly de rigueur in Southern California\’s Iranian-Jewish community just five years ago. But the growth of six-figure simchas strained middle-class families, leading some couples to either call off a wedding or divorce a few months after getting married.
In case you haven’t heard, Orthodox Judaism has pretty much taken over Jewish life on U.S. college campuses. I say this not because I’m smug and happy about it, but as a wake-up call to the Conservative and Reform branches to get their acts together.
There are two striking features about the recent report written by retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy about the status of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank. The first is that the Levy Commission’s “finding” that Israel is not an occupying power — and, thus, settlements and outposts alike are legal — flies in the face of decades of informed judgments by international lawyers, American government officials, and Israeli diplomats and experts themselves.
Among the pleasures of the summer music season is the annual iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates, now in its 15th year. iPalpiti (the name translates loosely as \”the heartbeats\”) is a string orchestra of 28 young professionals from Israel, Tatarstan, Azerbaijan, Norway and 14 other countries. Thirteen concerts are being performed in the Los Angeles area through July 29, but the grand finale at Walt Disney Concert Hall (July 28) has, over the years, become a much-anticipated gala-style affair.
We think we have some important stories to tell, and thus we returned to the subject of Israeli espionage. Our first effort in that field was a book in 1990 titled “Every Spy a Prince.” Twenty-two years later, we spoke with more people and got more stories — about recent events, but also new details about important operations going back to the beginnings of the Jewish state in 1948.
Researchers at the University of Southern California are seeking twins with Alzheimer\’s for a study that seeks to help researchers understand risk factors for the disease. Participants will be interviewed about their life histories and their experience with Alzheimer\’s. The interviews can take place by phone, in the homes of the participants or at the university campus.
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