I forgot how diverse Los Angeles is until I rode the train—I see people from all over the world. When the train is full, I people watch. But when I get a seat, I watch movies. Today I watched Big Hero 6, my son’s favorite movie.
Aviation Blvd to Hoxie Avenue
#myLAcommute is a project of Zócalo Public Square
#myLAcommute Today I watched my son’s favorite movie Read More »
Clothes, they say, make the man. But occasionally, a lack thereof may make the man as well.
Example: Lenny Kravitz’s man parts — revealed to the world Monday when the rocker’s leather pants split during a concert in Stockholm and much talked about online since then — says quite a bit about Lenny Kravitz. And however slight his work may have seemed around 25 years ago, the 51-year-old Kravitz — an enduring artist whose oeuvre always seems slightly out-of-sync with whatever is popular at the moment — is a significant figure who deserves a closer look.
Read the rest at The Washington Post.
Lenny Kravitz had a wardrobe malfunction Read More »
President Barack Obama and pro-Israel leaders exchanged concerns about how each side distorts the other’s arguments in the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, and how the distortions are creating divisions in the Jewish community.
The meeting Tuesday evening at the White House between Obama and an array of Jewish leaders lasted more than two hours.
Participants said it was civil and friendly — Obama got a round of “happy birthdays” when he walked in the room — but that the president forcefully expressed his frustrations with how the deal has been presented in the Jewish community. In contrast with previous meetings, they said, much of the discussion focused on the effect the debate was having on American Jews, as opposed to the details of the agreement.
Pro-Israel officials confronted Obama about the impression they said he leaves that his opponents are “warmongers” and his suggestions that there is something untoward about their lobbying.
According to participants, Obama was especially frustrated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for not allowing activists who flew in last week to lobby the extended encounter he offered with his top officials (their presentation was limited by AIPAC to 30 minutes).
Obama met the Jewish leaders as deal opponents and supporters are waging a battle for the hearts and minds of Democrats in Congress, who are the key to success or failure of a resolution of disapproval in a legislative window that closes toward the end of September. Democratic lawmakers are facing intensive lobbying and a barrage of ads from both sides. AIPAC is leading the effort to kill the deal.
“He asked people in the room, state your positions, argue them as you wish, but at least represent the facts objectively,” said Robert Wexler, a former congressman from Florida who now directs the Center for Middle East Progress. “Don’t misrepresent what the agreement provides.”
Six other people in the room, among them officials who favored and opposed the deal and had yet to come to a decision, related accounts similar to Wexler, the first Jewish lawmaker in Congress to endorse Obama’s presidential run in 2007 and a backer of the backer. Five asked not to be identified. Also in the room were Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.
In the first 30 minutes of the meeting, Obama picked through the sanctions relief for nuclear restriction deal reached last month between Iran and six major powers and argued that it cut off Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon.
Obama displayed a familiarity with the arguments among opponents of the deal, even having read the talking points memo that AIPAC distributed to more than 600 activists who flew in last week, according to Greg Rosenbaum, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council and the only other participant besides Wexler to speak on the record.
Among the frustrations Obama expressed, Wexler said, was that some materials distributed by pro-Israel groups suggest sanctions relief will kick in straight away, and not after Iran has met the deal’s requirements to roll back uranium and plutonium enrichment. (It’s not clear if that was one of the AIPAC talking points.)
Wexler summed up Obama’s message: “The debate is too important for the promotion of inaccuracies and misleading misrepresentations.”
Obama was especially frustrated that AIPAC allowed his top officials just 30 minutes to explain their side of the deal last week in an encounter that included no questions from the audience.
AIPAC officials have said that the White House requested the meeting at the last minute with Denis McDonough, his chief of staff; Wendy Sherman, the top U.S. negotiator at the Iran talks; and Adam Szubin, Obama’s top sanctions enforcement official. More than 30 minutes would have impinged on lobbying appointments, the officials said.
Obama, who had directed his staff to ask AIPAC for the meeting, said he was ready to give AIPAC four hours after the activists finished their meetings.
The two AIPAC lay leaders at the White House meeting were Michael Kassen and Lee Rosenberg, both past presidents. Obama expressed disappointment that some of the organizations attacking the plan were led by friends, an apparent reference to Rosenberg, who was a fundraiser for Obama.
An AIPAC spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Deal opponents at the meeting complained that they had been depicted as warmongers because Obama insists that the only alternative to his plan is war. Obama said that there were among the plan’s critics those who favored war, but acknowledged that was not true of all of the opponents. Nonetheless, he said, he would continue to point out that the likely outcome of the plan’s failure was war.
The deal critics also criticized Obama for saying in a conference call with liberal groups last week that his opponents were funded by billionaires. Obama noted that an AIPAC affiliate was ready to spend between $20 million and $40 million to kill the deal, and he saw nothing wrong with pointing that out to his followers.
Much of the conversation focused on the split the deal is generating in the Jewish community, which Obama said concerned him, said Rosenbaum, whose Jewish Democratic group backs the Iran deal.
According to Rosenbaum, the president said that “he felt that if we continue to make this personal and substitute attacks for the deal pro or con, we weaken the Jewish community and the long-term U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Another participant said Obama acknowledged anxieties among some pro-Israel leaders about making public profound differences with Israel, but said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adamant opposition to the deal left him little choice.
Among the other groups represented were J Street and Ameinu, liberal Middle East policy groups that back the deal, and representatives of an array of groups that have yet to pronounce, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League and representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements. The Orthodox Union, which opposes the deal, was also present, as was the World Jewish Congress, which has been strongly skeptical of the deal. There were regional leaders present as well.
In response to a theoretical physicist’s article regarding developments in cosmology and the then current debate about whether the universe had a finite age or was in a steady state without beginning or end, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, “>revealing correspondence. The correspondence was prompted by Schneerson’s deep concern over what he considered to be widespread misconceptions about science and his perceived urgent need to correct those misunderstandings. In this correspondence, Schneerson demonstrated an expected devotion to the text of the “>Halakhah, that is, traditional Jewish legal principles expressed in accepted writings like the “>New Atheists. One of the more prominent members of this group is “>Sam Harris, concedes that humankind cannot live by reason alone and acknowledges with favor “spiritual” and “mystical” experiences. (See The End of Faith (W. W. Norton, 2004) at 43.) But he, like Dawkins, criticizes “faith,” defined as the kind of unreasoned life orientation toward “certain historical and metaphysical propositions” that has motivated many for millennia. He compares this kind of faith not just to ignorance, but to mental illness and violent fanaticism. (See Id. at 64-65, 80-107, 131.)
Is there a third way, one less rigid and that disparages neither science nor faith? Another approach, often articulated by “faithful” scientists, attempts to bridge the divide by arguing that science is, at its core, no different than faith.
The late physicist and astronomer “>Nobel prize in 1964 for his part in the development of lasers and subsequently was one of the discovers of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. He was also a devout Christian. Townes thought that religion and science were two methods which could be used to understand the universe and, moreover, were complimentary. More specifically, he claimed that “>Paul Davies, another physicist and director of the “>Daniel Sarewitz, one of Davies’ colleagues at ASU, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist “>dissected the argument that science and religion both rest on faith. Quoting Princeton philosopher “>Little Orphan Annie may tell us that we can bet our bottom dollar that “>“hereditary information in humans and almost all other organisms.” The stories told by the analyses of both corroborate each other and lead to confidence in the shared conclusion: modern humans, Homo sapiens, did not emerge fully formed within the last six thousand years. Rather, our order of mammals, characterized by placentas, opposable thumbs and relatively large brains, begat a smaller family of ape like creatures, Hominidae, which have such distinguishing features as thirty-two teeth and extended parenting. About seven million years ago, give or take, that family generated two branches. One led ultimately to chimpanzees and bonobos, the other to a group collectively called homonims. Perhaps five million more years passed until the emergence of the genus Homo. Our species, Homo sapiens, appeared about 200-300,000 years ago. (See Coyne, Why Evolution is True (Penguin Books 2010) at 4, 8, 190-212.)
The process by which science attempts to determine truth is called the scientific method. It consists of a series of discrete, though interrelated, steps that loop back at one or more points so that the idea at issue is constantly refined and, if possible, falsified or verified.
The process can be summarized as follows:
1. Observe phenomenon
2. Ask questions
3. Develop a hypothesis
4. Predict an outcome
5. Test the hypothesis
6. Gather data
7. Evaluate results
8. Falsify, modify or confirm hypothesis
9. Share conclusions
Once we understand the nature of the scientific method, it is clear how different religion’s approach is to the resolution of perceived puzzles. Religion may begin with observations, but then its methodology departs from the scientific framework. Religion may, for instance, tell a story about how one person’s walking staff miraculously turned into a snake or generated sprouts, blossoms and fruit (see Ex. 7:10-12, Nos. 17:16-23), and you can choose to accept those stories as historical facts, unique and sacred, or as literary devices, but certainly the text contains no prediction that the outcomes would ever be the same if the incidents were repeated and no attempted replication is ever attempted.
Astrophysicist “>Hayden Planetarium and popular science communicator, likes to say, essentially, that “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” It’s a “>is not truth, but a process for attempting to find truth.
And, as Tyson also surely knows, the scientific method has its limits. Sometimes our tools and techniques are not sufficient or are not used correctly and rigorously enough to measure natural phenomena accurately or completely. The geocentric model of the universe advanced by Ptolemy appeared to work reasonably well for centuries to explain the movement of planets and stars, and even successfully to predict events like eclipses. But it was a flawed model, and ultimately replaced by the Copernican view, which itself was refined by, among others, “>Newton who utilized calculus and “>here.) What this teaches us, however, is not that the scientific method is not to be trusted as much as that over time science tends to self-correct.
And to be fair, though Messrs. Dawkins and Harris and Coyne might not agree, religion can and sometimes does too. Judaism today is surely not the Judaism of the Temple periods, when the biblical stories were collected, redacted and canonized. Nor is it the Judaism of the Talmudic period, when oral conversations about a myriad of topics were reduced to writing and became precedential and even binding. Similarly, Judaism transitioned through its medieval and modern periods.
Today, some Jews may still follow Rabbi Schneerson in his belief in the literal truth of the biblical creation story, but not the majority.
Today most understand that the story was not meant to assert a scientific truth as much as an allegorical one, that it was not meant to describe the origins of the cosmos as much as set the stage for a social and historical drama.
In short, Jewish thought has evolved from the biblical perspective on everything from the grand question of the origin of the universe to the less cosmic but very serious issues of abortion and same sex marriage.[See, e.g., “>here.) And it has done so not by hierarchical decree, because for two thousand years Jews have not had a High Priest or an accepted religious governing structure. Rather, Jews have developed their Judaism organically and for the last several centuries in the context of a European “>Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, accept that science and religion both “seek to decode mysteries,” but do so with different techniques and for different purposes, that they are “different intellectual enterprises,” one about “explanation” and the other about “interpretation.” For them, the “Bible is not proto-science, pseudo-science or myth masquerading as science.” (See Sacks, The Great Partnership (Schocken 2011), at 284-85.) Consequently, for the overwhelming majority of Jews there is no need to rationalize the non-rational or to engage in contortions to conflate ancient stories and modern science. (See, e.g., “>here and “>here.) For now, let’s be grateful for a little clarity on the nature of religious faith and scientific confidence.
(A version of this essay appeared previously at Faith in Religion, Confidence in Science Read More »
The Salinas Valley is world famous for producing healthful foods, but people here struggle with severe health challenges. As a physician seeing patients in exam rooms, I found it enormously difficult to help people—even those harvesting lettuce—to eat in healthy ways.
I decided to try a new approach—educating people before they develop serious health problems. That has meant offering five-week-long classes to groups of people in migrant education offices, school districts, low-income housing sites, senior centers, Head Starts, offices for CalWorks (the State’s aid program for needy families), and a farm labor camp.
We’re seeing such strong results—we’ve reached more than 400 people eager to prevent diabetes in the Salinas Valley—that we’re planning to offer more classes, in more places.
These classes are the product of my nearly 40 years of work here. I moved to Monterey County in 1976, from New York via Delano in the San Joaquin Valley, to work for the United Farm Workers. In 1980, I launched a career in health care, first as a nurse’s aide and then a nurse before I went to medical school and became a doctor. I returned to Salinas to do my residency training at Natividad Medical Center.
I love the Salinas area. Its physical beauty is striking, and it enjoys a rich diversity of cultures. Monterey County is more than half Latino—from recently arrived, indigenous language-speaking Oaxacan immigrants to U.S.-born Latinos—and includes communities like Seaside and Marina, with African-American, Vietnamese, Korean, Asian and Pacific Islander, and other populations, making the area feel like a microcosm of California. It’s been gratifying to see the local power structure change to represent the diversity of the communities. Salinas is a city, but it’s not so big as to be overwhelming. As John Steinbeck wrote in 1955, there’s “Always Something to Do in Salinas.”
In some ways, Salinas is quite healthy. The most recent major health assessment by the Monterey County Health Department found some good news: decreased smoking rates, big declines in deaths from stroke and heart disease, and decreased overall mortality rates from diabetes. But the assessment also found large health disparities between Latinos and non-Hispanic whites covering everything from cancer screening to teen pregnancy to diabetes mortality and obesity.
These disparities had long bothered me personally, because I saw them in the exam room. I’ve devoted my career to public sector health care; my hospital, Natividad Medical Center, is one of just 21 public health care systems in the state. As a family physician, it was frustrating to realize that my curative work was often too little, too late. I was seeing obesity and diabetes at younger and younger ages; it was becoming an epidemic here, and Monterey County already had higher rates of diabetes than the state average. It was clear that people, particularly in the Latino population, needed earlier intervention and more robust education about their health.
So I decided five years ago to make the transition from seeing individual patients to focusing on public health, via Natividad’s foundation.
At first, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to work on prevention. I discovered quickly that for all the talk about prevention, there wasn’t much funding for it. One of the first things that got knocked out of the bill that became the Affordable Care Act was a sizeable part of prevention funding. And usually funders want to see quick results; that’s hard with prevention programs, since the outcome, if it’s good, is something that didn’t happen.
I started with a vision of a health promotion center. But I soon focused on a crucial aspect of health promotion: the prevention of diabetes. I had been struck by groundbreaking research from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed how simple measures—like walking 30 minutes a day and losing only 5 to 7 percent of body weight—could prevent diabetes in people with pre-diabetes. Indeed, measures like this outperformed a widely used diabetes medication.
I also knew we had to get out to communities, to communicate with people in familiar groups and settings. Our local community foundation—the Community Foundation for Monterey County—backed a program that we called “Five Steps to Prevent Diabetes,” and in fall 2012, we began the classes. They run once a week for two hours at a time, for a total of five weeks, at convenient times. During the harvesting season, scheduling can be tricky, so we try to offer many during the winter off-season. We also offer classes right after work, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Each class has a different topic—diet, physical activity, portions, diabetes—and we give homework that consists of exercises such as keeping a calendar of how many of cups of fruit and vegetables one eats in a day. People then share their progress—and obstacles—with the class and offer insights and solutions to each other, a strategy we’ve found to be especially powerful. We conduct the classes in English or Spanish, and we don’t use Power Points. Instead, we get people up and moving; they create model plates of food, they stretch resistance bands, and they jump rope. Seniors can participate in modified physical activities, such as chair exercises.
The idea is to teach easy and affordable strategies that people can use at home. We conduct testing of the participants before and after to evaluate progress. (We use validated United States Department of Agriculture and University of California, Davis questionnaires that are linguistically and literacy-appropriate). Starting with the first year of the class, we’ve seen significant improvement on most (and for the last two years, all) of the 13 measures we use, which include daily quantities of vegetables and fruits eaten and other behavior changes.
Over three years, we’ve modified the curriculum slightly to make concepts simpler, navigating some literacy challenges along the way. And we’ve seen—particularly in the case of a mother in our classes whose five-year-old child weighed over 100 pounds—how getting a whole family to improve its health together is crucial to making progress. (The mother reported the child was doing better, in conjunction with appropriate medical care.)
It’s important to recognize that change takes time. A young mother whose husband was diagnosed with diabetes reported that it took a year to make changes in the family diet that stuck. Eventually, though, the whole family was eating more healthfully, even eating tacos with lettuce-leaf wraps instead of tortillas.
I’ve been struck by just how avidly people want this information. Obesity and diabetes, which are often connected, have touched so many in this area that people are truly frightened by them. All of our class participants know someone with diabetes, and several report having family members with diabetes-caused amputations, blindness, neuropathy, and death. Families want what is best for their children and as a result are hugely motivated to keep the next generation healthy.
We just received funding for a fourth year for “Five Steps to Prevent Diabetes” from the community foundation, so we’re reaching out to new partners and trying to take the classes to other parts of the county and the Salinas Valley, such as King City. We’d also like to offer more in the indigenous languages that many workers in Monterey County speak; Natividad Medical Foundation has as project to teach indigenous language speakers to become interpreters who can work in health care, the courts, at the DMV, or in other settings.
We’re also learning how to encourage people to eat more of what is grown here. Part of the problem is price, since locally grown artichokes, berries, and exotic vegetables are often expensive. And many Salinas residents, because they’re familiar with agriculture, are very conscious about pesticides. In our classes at various food banks, food bank staff members told us that when they would send people home with free local produce, the recipients would sometimes throw it out if the fruits or vegetables were unfamiliar to them.
We discovered that many people don’t know what to do with some of the produce they and their neighbors help grow; they’re not used to having it in their diets in their countries of origin. But if you give them recipes or provide a cooking demonstration, they’re likely to use the produce. We conduct simple food demonstrations and give participants recipe cards.
We’ve been inspired to hear our participants’ reports. One Head Start mother from King City started her own vegetable and fruit garden. Several women at a labor camp in Soledad started a walking group, circling the expansive agricultural fields together at dusk. Another participant switched from white rice to brown rice or quinoa. Another substituted nopales for tortillas. Several tried recipes for baking instead of frying enchiladas or chicken. Others added more tomatoes, onions, and peppers to soups to increase their young children’s vegetable consumption. People love recipes for good local food; they know the goal is healthy living.
In the Salinas Valley, investment in prevention is paying off. And we’re confident that an even broader community health is attainable here.
Dana Kent is a family physician working in Salinas, California, with the Natividad Medical Foundation, which supports Natividad Medical Center. This essay is part of Salinas: California's Richest Poor City, a special project of Zócalo Public Square and the California Wellness Foundation.
Diabetes in Salinas: Why won’t a city world-famous for agriculture eat its vegetables? Read More »
Twenty U.S. citizens who won more than $1.5 billion in court judgments against Iran for its support of militant attacks sued the U.S. government on Wednesday to try and prevent it from lifting sanctions on Tehran under an international nuclear deal.
The lawsuit in federal court in New York said that unfreezing Iranian funds would rob the victims of the attacks in Israel and the Gaza Strip of “their last remaining opportunity to pressure Iran to satisfy their judgments.”
The plaintiffs, who have not yet received any money, include victims of several attacks between 1995 and 2006 carried out by groups backed by Iran – Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. The lawsuit names the U.S. State Department and the Treasury Department as defendants.
The White House declined to comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for the Department of Justice did not immediately comment.
The U.S.-led July 14 accord between Iran and six world powers would lift some of the harshest economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for a verification program intended to restrict Iran's nuclear program.
Congress has until Sept. 17 to approve or reject the pact. President Barack Obama delivered a speech on Wednesday defending the deal and urging lawmakers to vote in its favor, despite fierce opposition from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wednesday's lawsuit was brought by some of the same lawyers who in February won a $218 million jury verdict against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for victims of militant attacks in Israel.
The Palestinian groups are appealing. A lawyer for the groups said in court in July that the judgment, which is automatically tripled under federal law, could “be the end of the Palestinian Authority.”
The U.S. government has said it may weigh in on the case and would decide by Aug. 10.
Victims of attacks sue U.S. to keep Iran sanctions in place Read More »
Perhaps the most unwanted guests in the world are Disease, Death, and Other Losses. According to some researchers, that is one of several metaphors that people use to cope with the inevitable. An unwelcome guest does not sound like a very palatable way to deal with disease, but that metaphor makes some patients consider how to live with it without letting it usurp all his or her joys. Put that guest in the smallest and ugliest and most remote room in the house!
For most people, the two most common metaphors for coping with death are: heading into battle or going on a journey. Your first reaction to those may be that the second one is so much better. I used to think so, too, because I had read online about how negative a military image is, especially because if death “wins” then the patient is defeated. I think too for members of a Jewish caring committee or a chevrah kadisha (burial society whose work includes comforting the mourners), we think in terms of being gentle to the sick and bereaved. Going on a journey also fits in with our concept of a loving God Who will welcome us with an embrace when we return to our “eternal home.” I know many times as a hospice chaplain I used that image when a patient or relative asked me to pray from the heart. It comforts many to think that many people are sharing the same journey at the same time.
But the researchers were quick to nix such an idea. Dr. Zsófia Demjén tells us to make no mistake about it when she says, “No single metaphor is objectively superior to another; different metaphors may be more or less appropriate for different people, or for the same person at different times. When people describe their experiences or when others describe these for them, it is crucial that there are a variety of options so that vulnerable people don’t have unsuitable framings imposed on them.” [From her article, So, what’s the downside of the journey? If you think about it, it is certainly involuntary. For some, this lack of control spells frustration and fear. I remember reading about a version of the journey where a griever felt like she was on an endless and scary carnival ride. Maybe for her, feeling engaged in a battle might have made her feel more in charge. She could have seen herself engaged in a fight against depression or other negative symptoms of grieving that could have given more point to her struggle. The lesson for us is not to judge metaphors, but find out what they are or if none, suggest what may be a helpful image at a given time.
As I went over Dr. Demjen’s article, I thought about the image I used for my own imaginary death in my hospice career memoir, Rabbi and board certified Chaplain Karen B. Kaplan is author of Encountering the Edge: What People Told Me Before They Died (Pen-L Publishing, 2014) a series of true anecdotes capped with the deeper reasons she chose her vocation. For more details including reviews, you can go to the publisher’s page or to amazon.com. Comments to the author are welcome by email or via her blog, Offbeat Compassion. Just days before this post came to press, the author announced the release of the audio version of
UPCOMING GAMLIEL INSTITUTE COURSES
Starting in October:
Chevrah Kadisha: History, Origins, & Evolution (HOE). Tuesdays, 12 online sessions (orientation session Monday October 12th, classes Tuesdays from October 13th to December 29th, 8-9:30 pm EST/5-6:30 pm PST. An examination of the modern Chevrah Kadisha from 1626 in Prague, through history and geography, as imported to Europe and the rest of the world, and brought to the US; with a specific contemporary focus on North America, and how the Chevrah has developed and changed over time up to the present. Studies include text study, and emphasize history, sociology, politics, government, and many other factors.
Winter 2016:
During the coming Winter semester, the Gamliel Insitute will be offering two courses. Chevrah Kadisha: Taharah & Shmirah (T&S), and Chevrah Kadisha: Ritual, Practices, & Liturgy [Other than Taharah] (RPL). These courses will begin in January, and will each run for 12 sessions. More information to come, or visit the Gamliel Institute section of the Kavod v’Nichum website.
NEW CLASS TIMES OPTION:
We are considering offering courses mid-day (East Coast time) as a convenience to those who have scheduling issues with the evening times now in use (including those overseas in Israel and other places). This is anticipated to be the same online format and material as the courses that have been offered in past, but at a time that works better for some than the evening (Eastern Standard).
If you are interested in this option, please be in touch to let us know by November 1st: we need to assess the level of interest as we determine whether to offer this option – Contact us for more information about scholarships or any other questions. You can “>jewish-funerals.org/gamreg.
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The Jewish Journal held a debate on the Iran nuclear deal on Aug. 2, 2015.
Speakers
Mel Levine / Former U.S. Representative
Dalia Dassa Kaye / Iran Expert, RAND
Omri Ceren / The Israel Project
Moderator
David Suissa / TRIBE Media Corp. & Jewish Journal President
Sponsored by The Jewish Federation, Beth Jacob and the Jewish Journal
Iran: What Now? A Panel Discussion on the Nuclear Deal Read More »
Rosalyn Abrams died June 27 at 98. Survived by grandchildren Nadia (Jamie) Yuen, Damien Yuen. Groman Eden
Sarah Matza Amira died June 27 at 95. Survived by daughters Genette A. (Kenneth) Simon, Marlene Betty (Larry) Hoffman, Rhonda Joyce Saldias; 4 grandchildren. Groman Eden
Edgar Berman died June 27 at 87. Survived by nieces Susan (Jon) Glick, Reva Lynn (Alan) Carley; nephew Jerry (Linda); 1 great-nephew; 2 grand-nieces; many cousins. Groman Eden
Pauline Brown died July 4 at 94. Survived by daughters Arlene (Ken) Mars, Ellen (David) Weitz; son Jeff (Ellen); 7 grandchildren; 5 great-grandchildren. Groman Eden
Steve Cohen died July 4 at 53. Survived by mother Frances; father Irving; sister Patti (David) Samuels; brother Jay. Mount Sinai
Bernard Lawrence Cohn died July 3 at 78. Survived by wife Jacqueline; sons David (Greta), John (Matheus); 2 grandchildren; sister Marian (Richard) May; nieces and nephews. Groman Eden
Beatrice A. Davis died June 28 at 90. Survived by sons Harvey (Ava) Small, Matthew (Sharon) Small, Alan (Jessica); 5 grandchildren; 6 great-grandchildren; sister Muriel (Irving) Bellow. Mount Sinai
Taffiney Lynn Goldberg died June 26 at 61. Survived by husband Jeffrey; daughter Rebecca; sister Michelle (Eddie) Dorf. Groman Eden
Sarra Grush died July 2 at 77. Survived by sister Bronya Dorfman; nephew Nathan (Lora) Dorfman. Mount Sinai
Marvin James Handel died June 27 at 93. Survived by daughter Sheri (Richard) Beck; son Alan; sister Marion; 1 cousin. Groman Eden
Myrtle Kitson died July 6 at 98. Survived by sisters Selda Milton, Rhoda Brand. Hillside
Renee Annette Lamkay died July 1 at 76. Survived by partner Leslie Tuchman; brothers Victor (Hector Viera), Eddie (Arthur Novell) Lamkay. Mount Sinai
Miriam “Mickey” Lesner died July 4 at 87. Survived by husband Julius; sons Howard (Michal), Todd; daughters Gail (Bruce) Bockman, Stephanie (Paul) Bolger; 6 grandchildren; 4 great grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Sheldon Dennis Levine died June 30 at 81. Survived by son Stephen (Carol); daughter Rhonda (David) Magat; 4 grandchildren; sister Dawne (Jerome) Ratzan. Groman Eden
Judith Maccabee died July 5 at 65. Survived by sister Halaine (Joseph) Rose; brother Dan (Donna). Mount Sinai
Elaine Marks died June 29 at 69. Survived by son Jeremy; former husband Ron (Susan). Mount Sinai
Kenneth “Kenny” Wayne Miller died June 26 at 74. Survived by wife Bobbie; son Jonathan (Michelle); daughters Johanna (Michael) Raichelson Rebecca; 2 grandchildren; brother Barry (Andi). Groman Eden
Judith Munitz died July 3 at 76. Survived by husband Richard; daughter Risa (Don) Gruberger; son Benjamin (Nicole) Maor; 5 grandchildren; sister Sheila Shuman. Mount Sinai
Rita Musnicki died July 1 at 90. Survived by nephew Asher Rol; niece Yaffa Rozin. Mount Sinai
Rosalyn Reiss Nivett died July 2 at 86. Survived by daughter Stephanie Reif. Hillside
Allan Orner died June 29 at 87. Survived by daughters Arline (Roger) Schreiber, Francine (Joel) Davidson; 4 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Peter Portanova died June 26 at 85. Survived by daughters Jaye-Jo (Bruce Cooperman), Jo-Ann; son Steven (Janet); 7 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Lindsey Rickles died July 1 at 27. Survived by father David; mother Bonnie; brothers Jordan (Yukari Matsuyama), Aaron (Anne Huber); grandmother Adele Kabat; fiancé Tim Thompson. Hillside
Raymond Rubenstein died July 3 at 84. Survived by cousins Myron Roberts, Deborah Wilson; life companion Dawn Nielsen. Mount Sinai
Sylvain Saba died June 30 at 86. Survived by wife Antoinette; daughter Lydia; son Albert (Matie); 5 grandchildren. Hillside
Arthur Stone died on July 2 at 77. Survived by wife Adrienne Louise; sons Brad (Shelly Steinberg), Gregory (Megan Green); daughter Angela; 5 grandchildren; brother Robert (Louise). Mount Sinai
Bernard Tohl died July 3 at 95. Survived by wife Janet; sons Jeffrey (Ellen), Richard (Stacy), David (Nancy); 7 grandchildren. Hillside
Barbara Vickman died June 24 at 97. Survived by daughters Janet (Mark) Wagner, Nancy Lee Ellis; son Lawrence; 4 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Gertrude Weiner died June 30 at 93. Survived by daughters Susan (Mark) Spitz, Leslie Baker; son Stephen (Jenny); 8 grandchildren; 6 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Avraham Wernik died June 19 at 46. Survived by wife Kimberly; daughters Zohar, Dvir; stepsons Eli Heyman; Aaron Heyman; father Joe; mother Miriam; sister Idit. Mount Sinai
Obituaries: Week of August 7, 2015 Read More »
The mother of the man who stabbed six marchers at the annual Jerusalem gay pride parade regrets her son’s actions, she told the family of the teenager killed in the attack.
“We think it’s really a great tragedy, we regret it very much and pray for the recovery of the wounded,” Rivka Schlissel told family members of Shira Banki, 16, who died of her wounds three days after the July 30 attack, during a meeting Tuesday at Walla!, the news website reported.
Yishai Schlissel, a Charedi Orthodox man from Modiin Ilit in the West Bank, remains in police custody after being deemed psychologically fit to be incarcerated. Schlissel had been released from prison three weeks earlier after serving 10 years for a similar attack at Jerusalem’s 2005 gay pride parade.
On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered Schlissel to undergo a second psychiatric evaluation to determine his fitness for trial.
Schlissel’s family and members of his haredi community remain under investigation by the Jerusalem District Police, who are working to discover whether others knew of his intention to attack parade marchers, according to Walla. Investigators also are checking calls made to and from his cellphone in the days leading up to the attack.
Mother of gay pride parade stabber speaks to teen victim’s family Read More »