The umbrella organization of British Jewry criticized the BBC\’s correspondent in Washington for referring to the \”Jewish lobby\” in a tweet about the U.S. election.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Asaf Shasha, then 16, had everything a teenager could want: a loving family, good friends and a comfortable home. Still, Shasha couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to life than the fancy gadgets prized by the kids at his Jewish day school.
A Turkish court began a trial in absentia for four Israeli military commanders responsible for the raid on the Mavi Marmara ship. The court case against former Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as former navy Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, ex-military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and former air force Brig. Gen. Avishai Levi, opened on Nov. 6 in Istanbul. The charges reportedly include manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, causing bodily harm, deprivation of freedom, plundering, damage to property and illegal confiscation of property.
Craig Taubman, the singer/composer/maestro known for bringing large-scale cultural events to synagogues and other venues across town, is hoping for an audience of 2,000 for his upcoming interfaith concert at Sinai Temple on Nov. 15.
Citing budgetary pressures, the Zionist Organization of American (ZOA) will vacate the small office it has rented in The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard later this month. The pro-Israel nonprofit exercised an opt-out clause in October, passing up the chance to renew its one-year lease on a small office space on the building’s fifth floor, for which it has paid somewhere between $800 and $1,000 each month, according to officials from ZOA and Federation.
“Judaism, the Jewish religion and the history of the Jewish people are steeped in values,” said retired Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, who also served in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret. Addressing a crowd of elementary and middle school students from Sinai Akiba Academy and Brawerman Elementary School, Fridovich explained how Jewish values helped him succeed in the armed forces.
By now it has become a celebrated fact that the Israeli creative industry is in the throes of a modern renaissance. This makes the annual Israel Film Festival — set to roll out the red carpet for its 27th year next March — a gift to Los Angeles and its two-week film program an anticipated moment on the city’s cultural calendar.
Two documentary films, each touching the Holocaust era and celebrating the courage and devotion of non-Jews, are screening in Los Angeles. The first is about Leopold Engleitner, bright-eyed and lucid at 107, who spent 11 years in and out of prisons and Nazi concentration camps, and, after a flight from Vienna to Los Angeles, is ready for his personal appearance tour.
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