Women of the Wall did not decide to pray on [Religious Affairs Minister Naftali] Bennett’s sun deck (“A Kotel Platform for No One?” Oct. 25). We decided to negotiate with the government on the creation of a third section at the Kotel. This section will have to accommodate our women’s-only prayer group as well as egalitarian services.
During the 30 years Ed Edelman spent serving in public office — first as a member of Los Angeles City Council and then as a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors — he consistently fought on behalf of L.A.’s least fortunate residents.
A 24-year-old esthetician, Mindy Pollak, became the first Chasidic woman to hold public office in Montreal. Pollak, a member of the Vishnitzer sect, defeated four candidates to win her race for the municipal council on Nov. 3 in the Outremont borough. She garnered about 35 percent of the vote in a district that is home to an estimated 5,000 Chasidim.\n
Ask anybody: In Los Angeles, the Corwin name is synonymous with charitable giving. And yet, Bruce Corwin, who at 73 is the family’s current patriarch and the CEO and chairman of Metropolitan Theatres Corp. — a California-based multiplex theater chain that has been in his family for four generations — doesn’t like to be called a philanthropist.
The first time Tom Leanse seriously thought about charitable giving was in the 1970s, when he was helping his parents file their tax returns. “My parents had made a $250 contribution to ADL [the Anti-Defamation League],” said Leanse, who along with his wife, Barbara, met with a reporter recently over breakfast. “That, for some reason, stuck out at me as a charity that my parents supported.”
When Lynette and Derek Brown first arrived in Los Angeles from their native South Africa 33 years ago, they had no friends in the city, no family and no jobs. The year was 1980 and the United States was in the grip of a recession. Unemployment was high, interest rates had soared, and the Browns had two young children. But these challenges didn’t deter the Modern Orthodox couple from seeking a new home here.
Traveling reminds us that the old is distinctive and the new melds together. I had never been to Thailand, or indeed to any country in Southeast Asia. As the bus rolled through the streets, nothing in the facade of the 7-Eleven convenience store or the crushed muddle of Bangkok traffic proved startling.
It started with a corned beef sandwich shipped across the world — from Los Angeles to Paris. Before Stanley Gold, president and CEO of Shamrock Holdings, concluded a trans-continental journey in Paris in spring 2013, Bet Tzedek — a local pro bono legal firm — had a plan to woo their hoped-for honoree for their upcoming gala in March at the Hyatt Century Plaza. David Bubis, Bet Tzedek’s vice president of development, knew that Gold has soft spot for corned beef.
Lorin Fife has essentially had a second career since he retired from his position as senior executive and attorney at the financial services holding company Sun America in 1998, when he was only 45.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.