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Jewish Journal

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April 5, 2013

Moving and Shaking: ‘Ed Edelman Day’ declared, Milken Knights win Los Angeles regional FIRST, more

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Koretz

L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz and Mari Edelman, filmmaker and wife of Ed Edelman. Photo by Paul Michael Neuman

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz saluted the new PBS documentary, “The Passions and Politics of Ed Edelman: An Untold Story of Leadership in Los Angeles,” during a ceremony honoring Edelman on March 27 at City Hall. A segment of the film — a retrospective on the career of the former city councilman and county supervisor — was screened at the event. Approving a motion by Koretz, the City Council declared April 4, 2013, to be “Ed Edelman Day.” That’s when the documentary was aired on PBS SoCal/KOCE. Mari Edelman, who produced, wrote and directed the film, was present, but her 82-year-old husband, who is suffering from atypical Parkinson’s, did not attend.

Educator Sheindy Gross has been hired as the principal of Torah studies for the girls division at Valley Torah High School. Gross, a ninth-grade teacher at Bnos Devorah High School, an Orthodox school for girls in Los Angeles, starts at Valley Torah this August. Located in Valley Village, Valley Torah is the only Orthodox high school in the San Fernando Valley with separate campuses for boys and girls.

Shirley

Shirley Friedman and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca. Photo courtesy of Sheriff Lee Baca’s office

A few days before Passover, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca met with volunteer chaplain Shirley Friedman at his office in Monterey Park. Friedman briefed Baca on how the needs of inmates, who put in requests for special food for Passover, were being met countywide. Working in L.A. County prisons, Friedman helped coordinate the delivery of kosher-for-Passover food for approximately 50 inmates this year. In celebration of Passover, Jewish inmates were given seder foods, matzah and other appropriate edibles — allowing them to observe Passover’s dietary restrictions for the entire holiday, according to Scott Svonkin, senior adviser to Baca.

Robots

Members of the Milken Knights, the Milken Community High School robotics team. Photo courtesy of Milken Community High School

The Milken Knights, the Milken Community High School robotics team, won the Los Angeles regional FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition. The competition was held March 22-23 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Next up, the team will compete in the FIRST Championship in St. Louis, to be held April 24-27. The team’s leadership includes Roger Kassebaum, a science and physics teacher at Milken and director of Milken’s Mitchell Academy of Science and Technology, which provides science opportunities to students; Milken 12th-grader and team captain Jonathan Zur; and team mentor Harold Schloss, vice president of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management in Beverly Hills.

Approximately 100 seniors and their family members attended a seder held at the Jewish Family Service Israel Levin Senior Center on March 28. Located on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, the Israel Levin Senior Center provides a home away from home for older adults and hosts a variety of activities, such as peer discussion groups, fitness classes, and Shabbat and holiday celebrations. This was the seventh consecutive year that the seder, established in memory of former senior center member Frieda Schwartz, has taken place. “We thought this was a nice way to give back to the community that she loved,” said Schwartz’s daughter, Shoshi Wilchfort.

Moving and Shaking acknowledges accomplishments by members of the local Jewish community, including people who start new jobs, leave jobs, win awards and more. Got a tip? E-mail it to ryant@jewishjournal.com.

Moving and Shaking: ‘Ed Edelman Day’ declared, Milken Knights win Los Angeles regional FIRST, more Read More »

Supplementing Mediterranean Diet with Olive Oil or Nuts Decreases Stroke Risk

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What is a Mediterranean diet? I had always believed that it involves eating shawarma three times a day while sitting on a beach in Tel Aviv, just because that’s my diet when I visit the Mediterranean. I was astounded to learn that this is not the case. A Mediterranean diet includes a lot of fruits, nuts, vegetables, olive oil, and cereals. It includes moderate intake of fish and poultry, and very little dairy, red meat, and sweets. Wine is included in moderation and consumed with meals.

Like the low-carbohydrate (Atkins) diet and the low-fat diet, the Mediterranean diet has passionate adherents and advocates. A debate between proponents of different diets quickly resembles one between zealots of different religions – there is much heat but little light. That’s because virtually no high-quality studies have directly compared one diet to another. So in the face of weak data, each camp highlights the data that confirms their bias and disregards the rest.

” target=”_blank”>an accompanying editorial makes clear, what is important is what the three groups actually ate, not what they were supposed to eat. The first two groups were pretty good at keeping a Mediterranean diet, but the third group which was supposed to eat a low-fat diet, didn't  Most of the people in the third group, despite being instructed to eat a low-fat diet, ate pretty close to a Mediterranean diet, which is what they were eating before the study. That makes sense. Spain is Mediterranean, and it’s very hard to change people’s eating habits.

So this study doesn't teach us anything about the benefits of a Mediterranean diet, but you wouldn't know that from the headlines in the popular press coverage (links below). This study taught us much more about how ineffective it is to instruct people to change what they eat, and much less about whether one kind of diet is healthier than another.

This study does suggest that in people eating a Mediterranean diet, adding olive oil or mixed nuts decreases stroke risk, which in itself is very interesting. Does that mean that olive oil and mixed nuts might prevent strokes in the rest of us? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't object to my patients adding nuts and olive oil to their diet, and I’m busily trying to figure out how to order that with my next shawarma.

Learn more:

” target=”_blank”>Mediterranean Diet Shown to Ward Off Heart Attack and Stroke (New York Times)
” target=”_blank”>Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet (NEJM article)
Supplementing Mediterranean Diet with Olive Oil or Nuts Decreases Stroke Risk Read More »

The Cancer Intifada

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Malek Nasr A-din entered Caffit Cafe in Jerusalem, gun at hand, suicide belt ready to go. But something happened to Malek: He decided not to blow himself up. He turned around and hurried out of the coffee shop. The patrons finished their cups and went on with their lives.

One of the people sending Malek on his suicide mission that Sunday in 2002 was Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh. Hamdiyeh was arrested, convicted and imprisoned; on Wednesday he died of cancer in a hospital in Israel, at 64. His death triggered a series of “>riot in the West Bank immediately after Mr. Hamdiyeh’s death. Two men are killed – both healthy and much younger than Hamdiyeh was. It’s unclear how much of a leader or a follower the Palestinian Authority is in this; Whatever the balance may be, the Authority seems happy to participate in an reckless escalation, and death from cancer, so it seems, is a reason to recklessly escalate.

Even more frustrating is the Authority’s choice to reject the civilized alternative at hand: Dr. El-Alul, the top Palestinian pathologist, conducts the “>announces through his spokesperson that “The Palestinian presidency holds the government of Netanyahu responsible for the martyrdom” (echoing the well-nurtured myth that Israel killed Yasser Arafat), and Secretary of Prisoners Issa Kara’ke tells the mourning family that “It’s time to turn to the International Court in Hague in regards to the prisoners”. Inversion complete: Terrorists don’t go to Hague, those who put them in prison do.

The prospects of political exploitation of the legal procedure is precisely why both the United States and Israel refuse to be states parties to the “>International Criminal Court. The Palestinians have been throwing fervent glances at the international legal system that the UN nod last November made available to them, with two targets in mind: Delegitimization of Israel, and impunity for their own foul acts. Both goals are as contradictory to the reason this court was established as they are to justice itself. Abuses of progressive legal systems in Belgium, Spain and the UK by pro-Palestinian activists had already led to some restrictions in Universal Jurisdiction legislation – Damage inflicted under the Palestinian banner, and goes unnoticed by a civilization that holds the ideas of Universal Jurisdiction dear.

There’s a constant campaign going on in (and by) the Palestinian Authority to glorify the prisoners and their violence – It’s only natural. Generation after generation, indiscriminate killing – terrorism – is further cemented as the glorious, honorable Palestinian way. [see many examples from Itamar Marcus and PMW The Cancer Intifada Read More »

“Never Forget” by Francky Perez [VIDEO]

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Francky Perez is a Moroccan-born singer whose songs have topped French charts.  Just today he released via YouTube an English version of his French rap song “N'oubliez Jamais”– Never Forget– a rap song about… the Holocaust.   In the Digital Age, Perez's song– catchy, short, backed by strong images and a passionate delivery– might just be the way a new generation of computer-obsessed kids first learns about the Shoah.  That's what Perez is hoping, anyway.   And his last YouTube video for a FRench charity garnered 1.6 million viewers and counting… so he may indeed be on to something.

I called Perez at his current home in Los Angeles to ask about the English-language “Never Forget.”

The project began, he said, after a visit last year to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem.  There Perez saw the image of a young boy in a concentration camp. 

“I looked at the kid and he looked exactly like my second son.   I had a shock. I needed to do something that expressed what I was feelingt, and I'm someone who uses rap music for therapy.”

It took Perez six months to write and produce the music video.  Most of the shooting took place in paris, where he used real streets to recreate the roundups that took place there.   

Perez himself did not lose family in the Holocaust.

“I am Sephardic,” he explained.  “But sometimes when I talk to other Jews, I feel they think that being sephardic we don't feel this hell they went through.   That's not true.  Being Sephardic,  I feel this is in my genes as much as an Ashkenazi. I suffer for my people, I feel it in my genes the same pain and suffering, not like the people who went through it, but like all Jews now.”

Perez hopes a rap video will educate people in ways books and documentaries can't.

“I want this to go beyond the Jewish community, especially to teenagers,” he said. ” They learn by heart rap lyrics.  Maybe this is the right vector to reach the young generation, through a rap song.”

His hope is that educational organzations will help him distribute it to young people, either in DVDs or online.

“I hope its totally respectful to the memory,” Perez said.

Watch it.   It is.

“Never Forget” by Francky Perez [VIDEO] Read More »

The Women of the Wall and the Dictator

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The Israeli news agency Ha’aretz has published a good summary ” target=”_blank”>here) and are arrested on other days? Because that is what happens when who the police arrest, when, and for what, is subject to the whims of a dictator. That is what happens when we surrender democracy to dictatorships.

The Women of the Wall will be praying at the Kotel again on Rosh Chodesh, Thursday, April 11. Those of us who value democracy over dictatorship should be praying with them in spirit, if we cannot be praying at the Kotel with them in person.

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“Like” the ” target=”_blank”>follow me on Twitter.

The Women of the Wall and the Dictator Read More »