fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

May 8, 2013

Israel à la Tarte Tatin

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Food, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

Restaurants have souls.

It comes across as much in the food as in the feeling you get from being there. You don’t find it out from the advertising. Otherwise every time you ate in an Applebee’s you’d feel comfy and at home, instead of bored and dissatisfied. You don’t discover it in the marketing. Otherwise every time you ate in a Burger King you’d feel edgy and cool, not gross and sad.

And it doesn’t even come across just from the food. Plenty of places with great food leave you cold. Meanwhile, a place with a warm soul like my late, lamented Benice in Venice, may never get a Michelin star, but leave their diners feeling warm and satisfied.

And that explains why a visit to the small and very French Tarte Tatin Bakery & Café on Olympic Boulevard near Doheny Drive makes you feel like you’re at home … in Tel Aviv. The pastries at Tarte Tatin — pains au chocolat, croissants and, of course, tartes tatin — look and taste like something in the window of a Paris patisserie. They are stacked up behind the counter of the tiny all-white space, and they are deceiving. Because as good as they are, as French as they are, as close to the Patricia Wells-ian ideal as they are — the soul of Tarte Tatin is Israeli.

Chef and owner Kobi Tobiano is an Israeli of Algerian heritage. His little gem of a cafe is the kind of place you’ll find tucked into a side street off Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. It has no pretensions. The service can be spotty, sometimes rushed, always familiar. The food aspires, and reaches, an international standard. It is small, it hits way above its weight, and it is full of surprises — just like Israel.

The biggest surprise of all: You’ll find the best Israeli breakfast in Los Angeles at Tarte Tatin.

In that imaginary café off Rothschild, breakfast would mean a selection of craft breads, thick leben cheese doused in olive oil, some feta, olives, chopped tomato and cucumber salad with za’atar, maybe a bite of homemade hummus and a couple of eggs. Order the Israeli breakfast at Tarte Tatin ($16) and that’s what you get, along with dark, hot coffee. It’s all laid out in neat white ceramic dishes, and every bite recalls Tel Aviv. Ask for Tobiano’s smoky hot harissa, as well as for a glass of limonana — lemonade with mint.  

The other surprise is the Tunisian Tuna Sandwich ($11.95), which has become my favorite tuna sandwich in the city. Tucked into a soft, homemade French roll you get olive-oil-packed tuna, slices of potato, a shmear of that harissa, olives, hard-boiled egg, pickles and slices of preserved lemon.

Where do the excellent olives and leben in this Israeli-French café come from?  Tobiano’s Lebanese supplier, of course.  An Israeli chef of Algerian heritage running a French cafe in Beverly Hills using ingredients from Lebanon to make the best Israeli breakfast in all of Los Angeles — of course.  

Tobiano trained professionally as a pastry chef and served as one at Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco. He arrived in Los Angeles and worked as a private chef. Tarte Tatin is his dream-come-true place of his own, and as hard as he works — constantly, ceaselessly — and as much as he bemoans his lack of rest, you can tell he has created a place that exactly reflects the food of his heritage, the foods of his home, the foods he loves. That’s what makes Tarte Tatin special. That’s what gives it its soul.

Tarte Tatin Bakery & Café, 9123 W. Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 550-0011. NOTE: Tarte Tatin is not certified kosher. But it is certified a Foodaism favorite.

Rob Eshman is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal.

Israel à la Tarte Tatin Read More »

U.S., Russia seek new Syria peace talks, rebels skeptical

Leave a Comment / Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, United States /

Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks with both sides to end Syria's civil war, but opposition leaders were skeptical on Wednesday of an initiative they fear might let President Bashar Assad hang on to power.

Mindful the conflict may be far from over, Britain has urged fellow European Union states to lift an arms embargo, arguing it would strengthen those rebel groups favored by Western powers.

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed sites near Damascus and as President Barack Obama also faces renewed calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said late on Tuesday that Russia agreed to work on a conference in the coming weeks.

An East-West disagreement that has seen some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War has deadlocked U.N. efforts to settle the Syrian conflict for two years, so any rapprochement could bring an international common front closer than it has been for many months.

Israeli air strikes, reports of the use of chemical weapons and the increasing prominence of al Qaeda-linked militants among the rebels have all added to international urgency for an end to a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

But with Syria's factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever, it is far from clear the warring parties are ready to negotiate with each other. Most opposition figures have ruled out talks unless Assad and his inner circle are excluded from any future transitional government.

“I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head,” said Samir Nashar of the opposition's umbrella National Coalition.

“Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad's role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made.”

In the past, the United States has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said that must be for Syrians to decide, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power.

Opposition members said they were concerned by comments from Kerry in Moscow, echoing Russia, that the decision on who takes part in a transitional government should be left to Syrians.

“Syrians are worried that the United States is advancing its own interests with Russia, using the blood and suffering of the Syrian people,” said National Coalition member Ahmed Ramadan.

Inside Syria, where rebel groups have disparate views, a military commander, Abdeljabbar al-Oqaidi, told Reuters: “If the regime were present, I do not believe we would want to attend.”

There was no immediate response from the Syrian government, which has offered reforms but dismisses those fighting it as terrorists and puppets of outside powers – the West, Turkey and Arab states opposed to Assad's ally Iran.

EU ARMS BAN

If fears of an escalation of the war are driving new peace moves, they have also set some Western powers looking again at their military options. Washington said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels, and on Wednesday it emerged Britain has been lobbying the EU to let it do so, too.

Several EU governments are resisting French and British efforts to get the embargo lifted, concerned that the move could escalate the two-year-old conflict.

In a paper seen by Reuters, London suggested ways the ban could be amended to get arms to the National Coalition. Existing sanctions expire on June 1. With France, the other main military power in the bloc, Britain is trying to persuade Spain, Austria, Sweden and others to ease opposition to arming the rebels.

But with the prospect of the conflict spilling across a volatile region central to global energy supplies and transit routes, major powers also have, as Kerry told Putin on Tuesday, “very significant common interests” in pushing for a settlement.

“The alternative,” Kerry later told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos”.

Both sides fear a failed state in Syria could provide a base for hostile militants willing to strike around the world.

Last June, at a conference in Geneva, Washington and Moscow agreed on the need for a transitional government in Syria, but diplomacy has foundered since then, and the mediator of the Geneva conference, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, quit in despair, saying differences among powers were too wide.

Kerry said the conference might be held as early as this month, though no venue has been set.

Russia, backed by China, has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions hostile to Assad. Alarmed at Western powers' use of a U.N. mandate to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Moscow and Beijing are wary of such interference in their own affairs.

RISK OF POWER VACUUM

Recent developments have focused minds on the risks of wider war in the Middle East.

The White House said last month that Assad's troops probably used chemical weapons – which Obama has called a “red line” that would mandate a strong, if unspecified, response. The government and rebels each accuse the other of using poison gas, a charge both sides deny. British Prime Minister David said on Wednesday there was evidence Assad's forces “continue” to use sarin gas.

But despite pleading from the opposition, Western leaders have been reluctant to weigh in by arming the rebels, especially as Islamist fighters have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, highlighting the risk to the West that a poorly managed change of leadership in Syria could bring hostile militants to power.

Israeli air strikes in recent days – which Israeli officials said hit Iranian arms headed for Assad and Tehran's Lebanese allies Hezbollah – underlined the risk of cross-border conflict.

The violence has inflamed a confrontation between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in the Middle East, with Shi'ite Iran supporting Assad, and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia backing the rebels.

Tehran warned of unforeseeable consequences if Assad were toppled and said only a political deal would avert a regional conflagration: “God forbid, if there is any vacuum in Syria, these negative consequences will affect all countries,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said. “No one knows what will happen.”

Diplomatic sources in Moscow made clear the latest push for peace was being driven by growing alarm following the Israeli air raids, the possibility of foreign arms pouring into Syria and the possible use of chemical weapons.

Moscow and Washington have also signaled they want to improve cooperation on security matters since the Boston Marathon bombings, which U.S. officials suspect was carried out by ethnic Chechens who had lived in Russia. U.S. officials said FBI chief Robert Mueller had been in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bombings, but gave no details.

In a further sign of Washington's efforts to improve ties with Russia, Kerry avoided any sharp public criticism of Moscow's human rights record when he met civil rights activists in the Russian capital on Wednesday before his departure.

In Syria, Internet connections and phones to the outside world were restored after a day-long blackout that officials put down to a technical fault on a cable but which opposition activists said was deliberately imposed for military operations.

Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Arshad Mohammed, Timothy Heritage, Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff; Editing by Will Waterman

U.S., Russia seek new Syria peace talks, rebels skeptical Read More »

The mishegoss of mom, shmaltz-free

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Theater /

Anybody who has trod the boards knows that little blitz of stage fright that can flood through an actor when a member of the family is in the audience.

Jane Press, author and star of the play “My Mother’s Keeper,” has long since dispensed with any such anticipation. Her mother, Della, attended the play’s world premiere last year at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel, Calif., and — at age 83 — will make the journey south to see its L.A. premiere at the Electric Lodge in Venice this weekend. Press’ daughter, Monica Steiner, also saw the play in Carmel, mere weeks before giving birth to the playwright’s first grandchild, Colin Steiner. 

But even when she doesn’t have kin in the seats, Press spends her evenings at the theater surrounded by family. “My Mother’s Keeper” is a memory play about four generations of the author’s family, from her great-grandmother all the way down to Press, who is a character in the play both as her adult self and — played by a different actress — as 11-year-old Janie. 

“The interesting thing is that, as we go along in rehearsals, I see my grandmother and my mother coming through. The actors start to channel them,” Press said. “At one point, I play my great-grandmother and she comes through me. It’s a very interesting experience. I keep saying to the director, ‘The angels are circling.’ ”

Perhaps, but they’re not always particularly angelic.

While Press can talk about the mishegoss with which all colorful families — Jewish or otherwise — must deal, “My Mother’s Keeper” presents the “mish” (as Press calls it) as both funny and quite painful. The play spans nearly 100 years, jumping between the early 1900s and the present day. An event from 1914 involving Press’ great-grandmother Lina Moscowitz sets off a cycle of damage and dysfunction that will filter down through subsequent generations. Press says she wrote the work — the first she has written after decades of acting — in part to “break the chain.”

“A major theme of the play is the blessings and curses that are inherent and inherited from, in this case, mother to child,” Press said. “I specifically looked at the mother-daughter dynamic, which is just as specific as the father-son dynamic. However, everyone has or had a mother. That’s what makes this play universal.”

If “My Mother’s Keeper” is our guide, then Press’ own dame was a piece of work. The opening monologue finds Press making reference to the abusive relationship between Joan and Christina Crawford alleged in the memoir “Mommie Dearest.” As depicted in the play, Della is selfish, controlling, hard-hearted and physically abusive to her children, who call her “the police woman.”

During an interview, when she speaks of her mother — Della Press, née Thelma Colodny — Jane calls her “Della” more often than “Ma.” Even so, things have changed. 

“She’s mellowed a lot. She’s a real doll now,” Press said of Della. “I’m the only one of her four children who speaks to her or who has any relationship with her. Old age is a great leveler, and when your children become adults and won’t have anything to do with you, I think that got her attention.” 

That understanding between mother and daughter was hard won. For Press, breaking the chain took years of therapy and recovery through 12-step programs. 

“We are so fortunate to have such wonderful tools available to us,” she said. “I finally felt strong enough to be able to address the issues I wanted to share. And I wanted to give voice to this whole generation of women that are being portrayed in ways that I think can be deeper, stronger, more accurate and funnier.”

Ah, yes, funny. 

For all its emotional thorniness, “My Mother’s Keeper” is intended to provoke guffaws and tears in equal measure. Press’ Grandma Ida and her cadre of mah jongg-playing Brooklyn bubbes are built for laughs, but they are depicted exactly how the then-adolescent Jane Press remembers them. Ida Colodny — the funniest of them all — was the equivalent of a stand-up comedian, a woman constantly enlisted to tell jokes at large social and family gatherings. In fact, one of the props used in the play is a plastic bag filled with punch lines that actually belonged to Colodny. The actress who plays Ida rummages through it and gives young Janie — and the audience — a sampling of the now-legendary Ida wit. 

“She was very beloved in Brooklyn,” Press said. “In those days, before TV, they had large gatherings in all our houses. We have a black-and-white picture somewhere of people dressed up all around these big round tables and they’re all turned toward the camera and smiling, and there are cigarettes and ashtrays and cigars, and everybody’s having a great time. They used to have big get-togethers, big luncheons and dinners, and my grandmother was the entertainment.”

The play depicts the tender and very close relationship shared between 11-year-old Jane and Grandma Ida, but director Robin McKee, who has been with “My Mother’s Keeper” since its inception, insists that the play is shmaltz-free.

“I don’t like sentimentality,” said McKee, who is not Jewish. “Whatever kind of sentimental stuff was in there, we’ve been able to weed out. I think I helped bring a sort of concept to it. It was a beautiful series of memories and scenes. By reordering scenes and connecting ideas, we were able to find a shape to the piece that leads to an emotional truth.”

During the play’s Carmel run, Press and McKee heard from numerous audience members who insisted that the exploits of the Moscowitz and Colodny clan closely mirrored the “mish” of their own families. And these comments came from families who were Irish, Asian and Indian. The humor may be Jewish, but the experience of being part of a big, crazy family is universal, McKee said.

Press, who lives in Monterey, hopes to take the play to New York eventually. They have sent “My Mother’s Keeper” to Tyne Daly in the hopes of interesting her in the role of Grandma Ida. 

As for the L.A. run, which will last through June 16, the timing — and particularly the opening — is by no means coincidental.

“We have two shows on Mother’s Day, and it’s the perfect Mother’s Day experience,” Press said. “But I don’t recommend it for children under the age of 9.”

 

“My Mother’s Keeper” plays Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. Sun., May 12: 3 p.m., 8 p.m. Through June 16. Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice. $28. (310) 306-1854. electriclodge.org

The mishegoss of mom, shmaltz-free Read More »

Math skills add up to success for day schools

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Education, News /

Day schools are typically known for their comprehensive approach to Jewish studies, but not as much for the secular education they offer. Now, a few Jewish day schools in Los Angeles have proven that they’re just as strong at academics as they are in religious curriculum.

This year, both the Conservative Pressman Academy and Orthodox Maimonides Academy, which cover early childhood through eighth grade, placed among the top schools in Los Angeles in the Math League, an annual contest measuring middle school students on mathematics principles and ranking schools based on scores. In the Los Angeles region, Pressman came in third (out of the top five schools) in the sixth and eighth grade, and second in the seventh. Maimonides placed fourth among sixth- and eighth-grade students, and third among seventh-graders. 

Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, head of school at Pressman, said, “Oftentimes there is a question of whether or not the level of general studies is at the same level of other schools. The results indicate that, at least in math, our schools are competing at a very high level.”

Each year, more than 1 million students in the United States and Canada participate in the Math League. Schools have the option to select which of their students participate or, like Maimonides and Pressman, may require that all students compete. On the individual level, Pressman students Daniel Schrager, Daniel Ornstein, Mira Berenbaum, Avi Bernat-Kunin and Noah Mermelstein received some of the top scores in the region. 

Pressman students have competed for more than a decade, and Allison Sostchen, general studies director at Maimonides, said her school has been part of the contest for the past 12 years, and that the faculty and staff put an emphasis on mathematics “because it’s essential from kindergarten straight through eighth grade. Students need it as a basic life skill.”

She attributes Maimonides’ success in math to the interdisciplinary and competitive approach that the staff takes to the subject. Third-graders learn math by starting their own businesses in the classroom and balancing accounts, and each week, a tricky math question is displayed in the hallway for everyone to solve. “They’re always being pushed every step of the way,” mathematics department chair William Walton said. “They do [the problems] for the sheer joy of math.”

Walton said that in each grade at the school, math is seen as a subject that’s “fun and challenging. It’s about taking a problem, no matter how complex, thinking clearly and deliberately about it, and working your way through it.”

Like Maimonides, Pressman places special attention on math. In particular, Malkus said, his teachers prepare the middle school’s 105 students for high-school mathematics. Math has “sparked an interest in students, and their desire to do well in it has increased over the past few years,” Malkus said. “They take a lot of pride in their work.”

Pressman middle-school general studies teacher Carla Schultes added, “This year, our students performed so well. They will, hopefully, continue to do well in the future.” 

Math skills add up to success for day schools Read More »

Restoring Mount Zion Cemetery

Leave a Comment / California, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

The headstone of Isabel Janken’s father, Henry Morhar, lies flat on the ground at Mount Zion Cemetery, knocked from its ledger. It’s an elegant headstone, weighing more than 1,000 pounds. A few feet below, an engraved picture showing a handsome Morhar is inscribed in capital letters, “Gone But Not Forgotten.”

Just a few feet away is the headstone of Isidore Goldstein, her grandfather. It, too, lies flat on the ground, but unlike Morhar’s headstone, this one had the misfortune of landing face down.

The headstone of Ned Goldstein, Janken’s uncle, is intact for now, but it leans dangerously over the cement block that shields the casket. The cement block is cracked in half and sinking into the ground. 

Only the grave of Rebecca Goldstein, Janken’s grandmother, has managed to withstand severe damage, a stroke of luck seen too rarely at this cemetery in East Los Angeles, where nearly 7,000 Jews have their final resting place. The last burial occurred seven years ago.

“I feel very bad that they are in such a place that is so neglected,” said Janken, an 85-year-old Westwood resident. “There’s no element of respect for the lives that they led.” 

Hundreds of beautiful headstones have been toppled over, cracked or shattered — many face down. Some are so heavy that as they fell on the cement block overlaying a casket, the force of the impact severely cracked the cement. 

The site’s internal roads are in desperate need of repair, the uneven and ragged grounds have little or no grass, and the untended trees are infested with rats — but those are the least of Mount Zion’s problems. What has plagued the Jewish cemetery has been a failure to curb vandalism and to repair the severe destruction caused by the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. 

The vandalism appears to have been caused by neighborhood gangs who enter the cemetery due to inadequate fencing, according to Akiva Leyton, the funeral director at Home of Peace Memorial Park and Mortuary, one of Mount Zion’s neighboring cemeteries and operator of Mount Zion. None of the vandalism, Leyton said, appears to be motivated by anti-Semitism.

“I just feel devastated that a place like this exists in Los Angeles,” Leyton said during a recent walk through Mount Zion. 

Hundreds, if not thousands, of massive headstones — works of art, really — line the rows of the cemetery that dates back to 1916. These impressive headstones would cost hundreds of dollars in the early 20th century, Leyton said, and would carry a price tag in the thousands now.

But even the heaviest headstones don’t stand a chance against a determined shove or kick, and certainly not against an earthquake. When Home of Peace employees find a headstone lying helplessly on the ground, they can’t do much. As the cemetery’s operator — not the owner — its employees can do no more than basic week-to-week maintenance. 

Bringing in contractors for serious restoration work at Mount Zion requires approval from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which agreed to become the cemetery’s custodian after the original owner, the Jewish free-burial society Chevra Chesed Shel Emeth, notified it in 1969 that it was no longer able to manage the cemetery. 

Ivan Wolkind, Federation’s chief operating and financial officer, said that for at least the past 10 years, Federation has spent about $25,000 annually on the cemetery. Every year, Home of Peace receives $12,000 from Federation to perform routine maintenance and, according to Wolkind, Federation spends about another $13,000 per year on various projects, including graffiti removal and compliance with various city ordinances.

The cemetery’s most urgent needs — repaired fencing, a new front gate, new concrete for cement ledgers and covers and, most noticeably, the repair and reattachment of hundreds of headstones — would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 2007 estimate projected a cost of about $250,000 to repair more than 4,000 headstones. 

According to Wolkind and Federation President and CEO Jay Sanderson, Federation’s approval for any restoration project undertaken by an outside group primarily would hinge on raising all the required money for skilled contractors in advance of beginning any work. Wolkind said his fear is that a partial job done by an unqualified contractor could leave Mount Zion “worse than what we started off with.”

That’s what happened in the early 1990s when a company was brought in to right some of the fallen headstones, according to Ted Gostin, past president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles.

“In order to do some of the concrete work, they moved the stones and didn’t know where to put them back,” he said. “It wasn’t done really well, and it created almost as many problems as it solved.”

Rabbi Moshe Greenwald of Chabad of Downtown Los Angeles is organizing a
fundraising campaign and pursuing estimates from contractors. He said that Federation should allow professional and licensed contractors to begin work even if only a portion of the required money has been raised.

“If we could fix one grave, that’s a tremendous mitzvah,” Greenwald said.

Izek Shomof, a real estate developer who has worked on several downtown restoration projects, has pledged up to $25,000 to repair an entire row of graves at Mount Zion.
Greenwald’s plan is to restore one row and then launch a campaign where any willing individuals, organizations and synagogues could sponsor the restoration of individual graves and entire rows.

“What are we waiting for?” Greenwald asked.

Sanderson, who has visited the cemetery within the past month, said that if the community is serious about fixing Mount Zion, then other parties aside from Federation have to play a role.

“I believe that we have done a community service by taking care of it to the best of our ability to this point, but it’s not coming from our budget. It’s not in our priorities,” he said. “We have to prioritize what we do with our resources and we can’t do everything, and it’s unfair to think that we can.”

Later this month, Greenwald, Sanderson and a group of local rabbis will travel to the cemetery to observe the damage. Greenwald hopes that the effect of viewing Mount Zion’s state of ruin, as a group, will help get the restoration work started.

“This is a Jewish obligation to do,”  Greenwald said. “It’s not a secondary issue.” 

Restoring Mount Zion Cemetery Read More »

The ‘light’-er side of Temple Israel of Hollywood

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment, News, Theater /

Temple Israel of Hollywood (TIOH) lived up to its name on April 28 when it threw a free biblically themed matinee musical, “Let There Be Light,” on Lag B’Omer featuring numerous celebrities.

The Sunday afternoon performance at the Hollywood Boulevard synagogue included such well-known names as Alan Rosenberg of “L.A. Law,” Keith Powell of “30 Rock,” and Monica Rosenthal, who played the character of Amy MacDougall-Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” After her brief appearance, Rosenthal joined the approximately 350 people in attendance to watch the remainder of the show, which was held in TIOH’s main sanctuary.

The show was an encore of the synagogue’s gala the night before, which sold out and drew more than 800 people to a performance of the musical.

“When we were able to meet the financial goals of the gala, we decided that it would be wonderful to do the matinee so that friends and family of the cast and crew could come to see the show, so we opened it to the community-at-large,” explained Jonathan Maseng, the show’s producer and son of TIOH’s chazzan and musical director, Danny Maseng.

The musical, written 25 years ago by Danny Maseng, tracked a handful of major biblical stories from Creation to the Jews’ arrival in Israel. The version seen at the gala and matinee had never been previously performed for the public.

Eva Bloomfield, who attended on Sunday, was impressed by the professionalism of the musical.

“Everyone was extraordinarily talented,” she said. “That was a synagogue experience unlike any I’ve ever had.”

Plenty of work went into making it that way, said Jonathan Maseng, who is also a contributing writer for the Jewish Journal.

“It’s a monumental effort to transform a synagogue sanctuary into a theater with full lighting, projections, fog effects and high-level sound,” he wrote in an e-mail.

One Hollywood star who was half-missing was temple member and “Star Trek” legend Leonard Nimoy. Slated to appear in the role of God, he missed the performances to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. He didn’t miss any lines in the play, though — his distinctive (recorded) voice still boomed throughout the sanctuary.

The fact that Sunday’s performance fell on Lag B’Omer was fitting, according to Jonathan Maseng. 

“I don’t think there’s any better way to honor a holiday like Lag B’Omer than by spreading light into the world,” he wrote. “Especially when that light is based on
the Torah.” 

The ‘light’-er side of Temple Israel of Hollywood Read More »

Political Correctness and Honesty—Time for a Change

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News, United States /

The bombing of the Boston Marathon last month has called into question some notions that have been close to sacrosanct in the civil rights/human relations communities for decades.

That act of terror has raised profound questions about the nature of our democracy, the rights of individuals and groups, the tolerance level of the public towards minorities and the balance between individual rights and the public good.

The Boston Marathon bombing has, by virtue of the alleged perpetrators, raised the question as to how far law enforcement has gone and ought to go to prevent the recurrence of similar “lone wolf” acts of terror by Islamist jihadists.

The facile and oft repeated response is that no group should be “profiled.” Lacking “probable cause” that a crime is being planned, no group should be watched nor individual members of a group monitored more closely than others. The traditional notion is that unless a crime is imminent individuals and groups are to be viewed and treated equally and at a distance.

But the Boston Marathon bombing (committed not by foreign nationals sneaking their way onto our shores) callously and murderously executed by seemingly normal neighbors validates the position taken by the New York Police Department (for which it has been widely vilified) that certain groups warrant closer scrutiny and, yes, profiling.

Last year, the NYPD’s Demographics Unit was” target=”_blank”>column pointed out that the NYPD has thwarted 16 terrorist attacks in the city since 9/11. A fact that it is easy to be blasé about, but the countless lives that weren’t snuffed out or destroyed in the absence of terror is a significant accomplishment.

In response to his critics, Mayor Bloomberg has been refreshingly” target=”_blank”>noted that “Some of the most dangerous Western al Qaeda-linked/inspired terrorists since 9/11 were radicalized and/or recruited at universities in MSAs.”

To acknowledge the obvious is not to stereotype Muslim Americans or Arab Americans; it is simply to state what most Americans can glean from reading their newspapers and watching the news over the past decade— there is a problem that Islam must deal with.

As The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman recently ” target=”_blank”> found that:

At a personal level, most [Muslims] think that ordinary Americans are friendly (48%) or neutral (32%) toward Muslim Americans; relatively few (16%) believe the general public is unfriendly toward Muslim Americans. About two-thirds (66%) say that the quality of life for Muslims in the U.S. is better than in most Muslim countries.
Strikingly, Muslim Americans are far more satisfied with the way things are going in the country (56%) than is the general public (23%). Four years ago, Muslim Americans and the public rendered fairly similar judgments about the state of the nation (38% of Muslims vs. 32% of the general public were satisfied).

We ought to give ourselves the credit that we have earned and receive honest and frank assessments on matters that can and have impacted life and death (even if some profiling, warranted by data, occurs).

Most of us have learned to resist Islamophobia and the facile resort to stereotyping and bigotry. Religious leaders and civil rights activists have successfully imparted that message to several generations of Americans, and it seems to be sticking.

Political Correctness and Honesty—Time for a Change Read More »

Big Sunday Weekend goes beyond community service

Leave a Comment / California, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

Phil Rosenthal, creator and executive producer of the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” was leading a game of Bingo in the annex dining room at Canter’s Deli on the morning of May 5 — not a bad way to spend Big Sunday Weekend, the annual festival of community service that featured more than 150 projects this year.

In this case, the players consisted of about 60 mostly middle-aged and elderly ladies, along with a few older men. Some were residents of the Downtown Women’s Shelter, a permanent housing solution for the low-income and homeless of downtown’s Skid Row; others were members of the Hollywood retirement community Bethany Towers. Volunteers of all ages, some of them from local synagogues, were among the players as well.

As Rosenthal called out letters and digits, the players focused intently on the Bingo cards placed in front of each of them, marking numbers. Plates of Danish pastries and cups of coffee sat in front of them at the ready. At stake were jumbo chocolate bars, Burt’s Bees beauty products and, of course, “Everybody Loves Raymond” DVDs.

Before long, a woman in a pink T-shirt, a resident of the women’s shelter, yelled out those magical words: “Bingo!” 

The real magic, though, was the community-building happening at Canter’s, the bridging of the gap between folks who would not normally spend time together, as opposed to traditional community service projects that emphasize who are the haves and who are the have-nots. 

“Everybody wants to help, that’s what social connectedness is,” said David Levinson, founder of Big Sunday Weekend, which ran May 3-5 this year. Levinson also is the executive director of the nonprofit organization Big Sunday, which puts on Big Sunday Weekend as well as smaller-scale opportunities for giving back all year-round.

This year marked the 15th iteration of Big Sunday Weekend, with thousands of volunteers fanning out across the city, state and country. This was the first year that the initiative expanded outside of California, with events taking place in Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Denver, Oklahoma and Georgia.

What was conceived in the ’90s as a mitzvah day involving only one synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, now has grown into something of enormous proportions that includes community-wide efforts to paint schools, plant gardens, clean beaches and hiking trails, distribute clothes and books, beautify mental health facilities and animal rescue sites, feed the homeless and more. All events are non-religious and apolitical.

The weekend — it takes place over the course of three days and has the support of the Los Angeles’ mayor’s office — has grown to include all religions, ethnicities and ages. Moreover, a large number of volunteers are made up of corporations that send contingents of employees to pitch in at certain projects. Some even hold their own projects. TriNet, a national corporation that provides human resource consulting services to small to midsize businesses, sent more than 200 of its employees to volunteer.

Some events consisted of traditional community service projects: On Sunday, more than 150 volunteers gathered at The Jewish Federation of Greater Long Beach and West Orange County to make 1,000 sandwiches for Long Beach’s homeless community. Similarly, 500 volunteers turned out to the Islamic Institute of Orange County to conduct bake sales, clothing drives and food drives.

“I want to give back to the community in Los Angeles,” said Big Sunday volunteer Joel Miller, a 55-year-old founder of a literary talent agency from Mid-City. “I think it’s important for those of us in a position to help others to be a part of these opportunities.”

Other projects — such as the “Everybody Eats, Everybody Wins” events at Canter’s, Ocean Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown and Guelaguetza Restaurant on Olympic Boulevard — demonstrate a model of “community-building,” important to Levinson. Ditto for the Big Sunday “Adventures,” which brought communities together for activities such as horseback riding, a boat ride and trips to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. At each of these projects, volunteers took up half of the spots and the other half were reserved for homeless people, low-income seniors, battered women and others.

People coming together from different socioeconomic backgrounds to nosh, hang out and play games is, perhaps, Levinson’s idea of the perfect Big Sunday.

“These are my favorite events,” he said, watching the Bingo game at Canter’s. “Just bringing people out and showing them a good time.”

Big Sunday Weekend goes beyond community service Read More »

Moving and Shaking: Board of Rabbis SoCal president named, Sephardic Temple childhood center opens

Leave a Comment / California, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, Moving & Shaking, News /

Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe Bernhard. Photo courtesy of Adat Ari El

The Board of Rabbis of Southern California’s executive committee has elected Rabbi Jonathan Jaffe Bernhard, senior rabbi of Adat Ari El in Valley Village, as its new president. Bernhard officially began in the leadership position on April 23. He succeeds Rabbi Judith HaLevy of the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue, who concluded two years of service as Board of Rabbis president. 

“I am eager to continue the great work the Board of Rabbis has done in its 75 years, as well as forge new paths to better serve the rabbis and the broader community,” Bernhard, former vice president of the Board of Rabbis, said in a statement. 

Operating under the auspices of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Board of Rabbis is the region’s only cross-denominational rabbinic professional organization, and it counts more than 330 rabbis as members. In addition to being a place where rabbis with different backgrounds can confer on common issues, the Board of Rabbis offers professional development through seminars on topics like chaplaincy, social media and its annual pre-High Holy Days sermon seminar. 

Bernhard’s responsibilities will include leading the Board of Rabbis at a time of transition, said Board of Rabbis Interim Executive Director Jonathan Freund. “Since we are in a period of reimagining and re-envisioning the work of the Board of Rabbis and its connection with The Jewish Federation, Rabbi Bernhard will be directing and overseeing that,” he said. 

Bernhard, a member of the Conservative moment, will be honored during Adat Ari El’s 75th anniversary gala celebration in June.

From left: A new classroom at the Levy Family Early ­Childhood Center, Early Childhood Center Director Eva Wysocki and the new playground at the Levy Family Early ­Childhood Center. Photos courtesy of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel

This month, Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, one of the country’s largest congregations for the Sephardic community, received licensing to open the Levy Family Early Childhood Center, a preschool, parent-and-me program and summer camp, on its Wilshire Boulevard campus. The schools and summer camp include three state-of-the-art classrooms and an outdoor yard. Construction of the facilities began last September and wrapped in January. The school is currently accepting enrollment for all three programs: the summer camp (ages 2 to 5), which begins in June; the parent-and-me program (ages 4 months to 2 years), which begins in August; and the preschool program (ages 2 to 5), which begins in August. 

“There will be some Sephardic [students], but different people who are looking for the Judaica, the Hebrew, a kosher hot lunch … they’ll definitely find it here,” said Early Childhood Center Director Eva Wysocki, who was hired last November and previously worked at Temple Adat Shalom in Los Angeles. California Community Care Licensing, which oversees both day care and residential facilities for children and adults in the state, issued the license to the temple community on April 30.

From left: Harry Corre and Janice Kamenir-Reznik

World War II veteran Harry Corre and Jewish World Watch (JWW) co-founder and president Janice Kamenir-Reznik have been named the 2013 Jewish American Heritage Month honorees. Part of Union Bank and KCET’s Local Heroes program, the award recognizes and pays tribute to ethnic, religious and minority leaders who are making a difference and enriching the lives of others. 

Corre, who was captured by the Japanese and was part of the Bataan Death March, has committed his life to working for fellow veterans, as a patient advocate at the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center and at American Ex-Prisoners of War, a nonprofit. And with Kamenir-Reznick at the helm, JWW has raised more than $11 million to implement its mission of advocating for as well as providing relief and support to survivors of genocide and mass atrocities taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. 

May is Jewish-American Heritage Month, and KCET, the Southern and Central California public broadcast service of KCETLink, will air a video profile of each honoree. Union Bank, a commercial service bank, is the primary subsidiary of UnionBanCal Corp.

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

Moving and Shaking: Board of Rabbis SoCal president named, Sephardic Temple childhood center opens Read More »