Conan O’Brien first trip to Israel has so far been a love fest.
Since arriving in the country Friday to film a special episode of his TBS talk show, he has schmoozed with locals in Tel Aviv, calling them “fantastic, really funny, nice people.” And they have reciprocated the affection.
In a Facebook video shot Saturday evening in Jaffa, in south Tel Aviv, O’Brien flirts with a young blonde woman, despite the presence of her husband.
“Is this music you’re hearing right now making you fall in love with me?” he asks, referring to a droning tune in the background.
“I already did,” she replies.
But it’s not just the women.
“All the men are incredibly buff, and the women are beautiful,” O’Brien says. “A lot of men in speedos, if that’s your thing. Fortunately for me, it is.”
O’Brien also gushes about the food. He recommends shakshuka, the Middle Eastern breakfast dish of eggs poached in tomato sauce, advising, “You gotta get yourself some shakshuka, and get it today.”
He also endorses Gold Star lager, Israel’s best-selling beer, deeming it “amazing, terrific.”
Although O’Brien describes Tel Aviv as “absolutely gorgeous,” and says he went for a run along the waterfront, one thing he is not a fan of is the heat. “I’m like a vampire. When the sun comes up here, I just start shrieking and hissing,” he jokes.
With the temperature in the city reaching a humid 90 degrees over the weekend, many Israelis can relate to that criticism.
O’Brien will reportedly spend five days in Israel shooting his international special “Conan Without Borders.” In announcing the trip, he joked that he was coming “to help Jared Kushner,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and aide, who arrived in the country Wednesday to advance peace talks.
In his video Saturday, O’Brien said he would visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and employees at the new Setai hotel on the Sea of Galilee told JTA he had booked rooms there for later in the week.
Not content just to watch O’Brien’s video about them, which has been viewed more than 400,000 times, some Israelis have been posting photos of their interactions with the comedian on social media, too.
An Israeli entertainment journalist shared on Facebook photos of O’Brien taking shots Friday night with the chef at a high-end Asian restaurant. And on Saturday afternoon, O’Brien appeared to charm Israelis enjoying Shabbat on Tel Aviv’s central Rothschild Boulevard.
“Every second word cracked everyone up.. He really knows how to be a celebrity, so accessible and friendly,” one man wrote in a Facebook post that included photos of him with O’Brien. “He stops cars in the streets and starts talking to the drivers, shouting Shabbat shalom to passersby in broken Hebrew.”
Another Tel Aviv resident went so far as to give O’Brien the shirt off his back — in exchange for O’Brien’s blue button-down. The man explained that he had stepped out of his apartment to get a cup of coffee hoping no one would see him in the ripped up old army shirt, but “from here to there Conan liked the shirt.”
However, at least one Israeli may have been less than charmed. In a video O’Brien shot in a restroom on his inbound El Al flight, someone can be heard aggressively shaking and banging on the door.
Lithuanian soldiers training to fight Russian troops pitched tents on the grounds of a former concentration camp and burial ground for Jews in Kaunas.
A battalion of special forces troops camped Monday at Seventh Fort, the first of dozens of concentration camps established by Nazi Germany following its 1941 eastward invasion, the Kauno Diena news website reported Thursday. The deployment is part of a military drill.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to JTA questions about the exact nature of the deployment.
The remains of 5,000 murdered Jews are buried at the fort in mass graves that are marked by a few poles and rocks. Relatives sometimes visit the site to light candles in memory of the dead.
Privatized by the government in 2009, the Seventh Fort, a disused 18-acre bunker complex, is run by a nongovernmental organization headed by Vladimir Orlov, a 38-year-old amateur historian and military enthusiast.
His organization charges entrance fees to the grounds, where it operates summer camps for children and hosts private events. Revenues are used for the site’s preservation as an educational institution where the genocide is taught alongside Lithuanian military heritage, Orlov told JTA last year. He declined to say how much revenue the site generates and how much is spent on commemoration.
The Jewish Community of Lithuania last year said the privatization was a “huge mistake” that happened despite its stated opposition.
Like the other two Baltic states, the Lithuanian government’s concern about the expansionist policies of Russia has prompted it to update its own defense capabilities. This summer, thousands of troops trained with NATO contingents across the country.
Efraim Zuroff, a hunter of Nazis and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s point man on issues concerning Eastern Europe, condemned the deployment as showing “incredible lack of sensitivity” by the authorities at a site where Lithuanian militiamen led the wholesale slaughter of thousands of people within the space of two days in July 1941.
Zuroff, who has written extensively about Lithuania and the Seventh Fort, said the deployment raises concerns as to potential desecration of burial grounds, since the area where the bodies are buried “is not fenced off,” he added.
Between July 4-6 in 1941, local militiamen belonging to the pro-Fascist National Defence Battalion carried out the murder of 3,000 people at the Seventh Fort. That unit was a precursor of the collaborationist Security Police Battalions, which worked with the German Nazis in occupied Lithuania.
My mother’s sister and her husband met us at the airport and drove us to the Holiday Inn on Sunset Boulevard near the 405 Freeway. We already had a house in L.A., purchased a few years earlier, but you don’t move in to a new place after dark, or buy a car, or make any major decisions — it can be bad luck — so we stayed at the hotel instead.
In the morning, my aunt and uncle strode into the room — he lighthearted and ebullient as a kid on a new bicycle, she forever playing the part of the adult. The sun was out and the freeway beneath our window went on endlessly to the north and south.
The only thing wrong with the world was that Elvis had died during the night.
That was 40 years ago this past Aug. 16. My parents had planned to leave Iran for many years before the revolution. They were barely out of their 20s then, too young to really plan for their future. They had come because the present here was more appealing to them than what they had in Iran.
My aunt and uncle had been living in Pasadena for a good many years. After we moved here they became — and remain — our family’s favorite people. They introduced us to the precious few other Iranian Jews already living in Los Angeles. The women took English language classes together; they had dinner parties all the time, and invited all the families. On Saturdays, they met at Clifton’s Cafeteria in the Century Square Shopping Center in Century City and ate chicken potpie and green Jell-O. On Sunday nights, they all went to Ships Coffee Shop at Wilshire and Westwood, with a toaster at every table and coffee refills all night.
They told my parents where to buy furniture for the house, which dentist to go to. Someone recommended a cleaning lady — a statuesque Chinese woman with kabuki-type hair and makeup who insisted we call her Auntie Mary. She was allergic to dust and detergents, so she stayed in the kitchen having Persian tea and cake while the rest of us ran the vacuum cleaner and did the dishes. She finally quit when one of us forgot to called her “Auntie” one too many times.
It’s different, you see, when you leave before you have to. The vast majority of Iranians in this country, and certainly Iranian Jews, escaped the place in 1978 and thereafter. In those early years after the revolution, most of them would have liked nothing more than to safely return to their previous lives.
But for those families, like ours, who had gone looking for the gambit; who had been brave or reckless, visionary or desperate enough to take that great, terrifying leap of faith — for them every day in this new home was a test of the correctness of their decision. So we tried. We tried to get it right, to leave behind our old selves, to shed the shadow of our grandparents. Mostly, I think, we tried very hard to hold on to the optimism that had made our move possible.
My uncle, who announced the passing of Elvis, had left Iran at age 14, alone and with no money, and somehow ended up in Los Angeles. He had worked in a hamburger joint and slept in a church attic, moved up to working the ticket booth at the horse races track, and eventually become a banker. He had married my aunt on their third date, and bought a house sight unseen, at night, only to find the next morning that the roof was missing. He palled around with B-movie stars and had his own booth at Perino’s and a fancy new Cadillac with a permanent Barry Manilow/Neil Diamond soundtrack. Every third sentence he uttered was a variation of, “Don’t worry about it; it’ll work out.”
You have to have grown up in an old world to understand the potency and strangeness of those words. It’s a common saying here, but for my parents and the other pre-revolution settlers in Los Angeles who came from a culture where worry was a given, sorrow was hereditary and every misstep would follow you to the grave, a carefree mind and the ability to believe that things will indeed work out were extraordinary concepts.
For a while there, before life’s inevitable disappointments evoked the old habits, I think we got it right. That hollowness you feel in your chest and stomach as the plane lifts off and begins to ascend, that lightheadedness of the first few seconds of awakening from a beautiful dream before reality sets in — I believe my parents did get a good taste of that dizzying euphoria of weightlessness in those first few years after the death of Elvis. I know they managed to give their children some of that native commodity of this new world, that confidence that the present can be better, the grass can be greener, if only you dare follow that highway beneath your window.
GINA NAHAI’s most recent novel is “The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.”
Join a special women’s Shabbat service focusing on forgiveness. The morning will include “The Art of Forgiveness,” a short play created by Jewish Women’s Theatre, featuring Jewish women (portrayed by professional actors) who reveal their secrets of forgiving. The service will be led by Rabbi Toba August and cantorial soloist Cindy Paley, with musical accompaniment by Joy Krauthammer, Melanie Fine, Robin Winston, Sharon Alexander and Ruth Belonsky. Presented by Lev Eisha, a Santa Monica-based community of Jewish women engaged in prayer, study and spiritual growth, and Jewish Women’s Theatre. 9:30 a.m. Kiddush lunch follows. Free. Beth Shir Shalom, 1827 California Ave., Santa Monica. leveisha.org; jewishwomenstheatre.org.
TUES | SEPT 5
“HOW DO WE KEEP OUR IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES SAFE?”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will provide opening remarks for this program, organized by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The conversation, moderated by Dan Schnur, the director of the Los Angeles Region of AJC, will focus on building trust between law enforcement officials and the communities they serve as the United States faces major immigration policy changes. Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund President Tom Saenz will be among the panelists. 6:30 pm. Free; RSVP required by Sept. 2 at ajcladirector@ajc.org. Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Erika J. Glazer Family Campus, 3663 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 282-8080. www.ajclosangeles.org.
WED | SEPT 6
“UNITED FOR JUSTICE”
Learn about the fight against discrimination in our criminal justice system at “United for Justice,” moderated by Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. Panelists include Loyola Law School professors Yxta Maya Murray, Priscilla Ocen and Kathleen Kim, and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Civil Rights National Counsel Lauren Jones. Presented by ADL’s Latino Jewish Roundtable and Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent. RSVP required. 6:30 p.m. Free. Loyola Law School, 919 Albany St., Los Angeles. (310) 446-4228. la.adl.org.
“ISRAELINESS”
Is “Israeliness” a strategic asset for the American-Jewish future? Hear a panel discussion on the topic featuring Rabbi David Wolpe, Israeli American Council Chairman Adam Milstein and Jewish Journal President David Suissa. 7 p.m. $10; $15 at the door. IAC Shepher Community Center, 6530 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. (818) 451-1201. israeliamerican.org/israeliness.
THURS | SEPT 7
KOSHA DILLZ
Rami Matan Even-Esh of Los Angeles, better known as rapper Kosha Dillz, takes the stage to kick off his #keepitkosha tour. His freestyle and multilingual raps in Hebrew, Spanish and English engage diverse crowds and unite the community. 8:30 p.m.; Kosha Dillz takes the stage at 10:30 p.m. $10. The Hi Hat, 5043 York Blvd., Los Angeles. hihat.la.
COOKBOOK AUTHOR JOAN NATHAN
Have lunch with multiple James Beard Award winner Joan Nathan, who has made it her mission to uncover the forgotten recipes of the Jewish Diaspora. In her latest book, “King Solomon’s Table,” Nathan draws on her decades of travels to provide unique and diverse Jewish recipes. Books will be available for purchase. A Q-and-A and book signing will follow the program. Noon. $35; $30 for members. Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County, 1 Federation Way, Irvine. (949) 435-3400. jccoc.org.
STEVE SOBOROFF
Steve Soboroff, vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, will discuss policing, philanthropy, prisons and politics over breakfast. 7:30 a.m. $35 in advance, $40 at the door; for members, $25 in advance, $30 at the door. El Caballero Country Club, 18300 Tarzana Drive, Tarzana. (818) 774-3332. theexecutives.org.
“TASTE OF MELTON” JEWISH LEARNING CLASS
The Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning invites you to discover a world-class curriculum created by scholars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Exploring the texts of Jewish tradition helps students gain a greater understanding of what it means to be Jewish. The interactive, pluralistic classroom is designed for adults at all levels of knowledge and background. 9:30 a.m. Free. Temple Judea, 5429 Lindley Ave., Tarzana.
I’ve been sober 11-plus years because of a higher power and a daily regimen focused on recovery. And still, there is no guarantee I will remain sober. Scary, right? But it’s the truth. I relapsed after 10-plus years of sobriety.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are no concrete solutions to the drug problem, but our schools need to be more aware of what’s going on and become more involved in helping, instead of doing nothing.
Stuart Feldman via email
Why Some Jews Still Support Trump
I remember being told in cheder in Newark, N.J., by teachers who had numbers tattooed on their arms that some Jews had supported Hitler.
How can any rational Jew support a political leader who fails to condemn (and don’t tell me that he did condemn them, when his spontaneous remarks showed his true feelings, which his later prepared comments tried to hide) neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan?
Daniel Fink, Beverly Hills
Ben-Gurion Was Right About Reparations
Shmuel Rosner wrote that “David Ben-Gurion cast aside morality as prime minister when he decided to accept reparations from Germany. … To his fierce opponent Menachem Begin, this was the beginning of absolution for the Germans” (“Israel’s Response to Charlottesville: On Morality, Leadership and Unity,” Aug. 25).
History has vindicated Ben-Gurion. Germany has rejoined the family of nations, denounced its Nazi past, raised two generations with democratic and humanistic values, supported Israel and its own growing Jewish community. And if the first reparations were the beginning of absolution, 65 years later we can be certain Germany has sought no such absolution — it is committed to remembering the Holocaust, including denouncing Nazis and neo-Nazis — but it has demonstrated the power and possibility of repentance.
Ben-Gurion’s decision was not only pragmatic, nor even desperate, but visionary and brilliant — the truest form of morality.
Rosner owes Ben-Gurion’s memory an apology. As he often did, Begin fiercely expressed Jewish anger but offered no way forward.
As to the rest of his argument, if I understand Rosner correctly, the morally courageous prime minister of Israel is right to remain closed-mouth in the face of neo-Nazism as long as it is good for Israel.
So much for Zionism being a bulwark against anti-Semitism.
I await the prime minister’s new campaign ad for Donald Trump: He’s bad for Jews, but he’s good for Israel.
Michael Berenbaum, Director of Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University
Constitutional Rights Cover Us All
I agree with President Donald Trump that there was wrong on both sides and, as much as some hate the beliefs of the far right and, I equally, the far left, both sides have the right in this great country to march and express their views without being attacked. As the Supreme Court has ruled over and over: Hate speech is protected speech. Unfortunately, it seems to me the Journal has forgotten that the laws that allow it to print its brand of “fake” news also protect Nazis and the KKK. If we infringe on one group’s rights, we eventually infringe on all.
David Mayer, Los Angeles
One group to the left of me. The other group on the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle: a Jew.
On a typical Friday morning, Yaniv Cohen makes several stops in his extensive round of grocery shopping. He begins at Costco in Van Nuys, then visits Cambridge Farms in Valley Village before moving on to Pistachio and Super Sal Market in Encino.
Then he goes home and starts preparing for the 80-plus guests he has invited for Shabbat dinner. The 35-year-old will hardly know most of his guests. Some he invited only that morning, when he met them in the fruit aisles at Costco or while perusing the sunflower seeds and almonds at Pistachio.
“If I hear people talk in Hebrew, I start talking to them and invite them over to my house for Shabbat dinner,” Cohen said. “I also publish my dinners on my Facebook page and on the pages of Jewish communities in the Unites States as well as Israel and South America. I love having people over for Shabbat, and I hope that one day I’ll host Shabbat dinner for a thousand people.”
Cohen was born in Haifa and immigrated to the United States 12 years ago. He became obsessed with sharing Shabbat hospitality in 2008, while living in Maryland.
“A friend [showed] me the beauty of Kabbalat Shabbat and how fun it is to have guests over and teach them the meaning of this Jewish tradition, and so it started then,” he said. “I used to meet people in the mall, the street, the supermarket, and after a two-minute conversation, I’d already invited them over for Shabbat dinner.”
In time, Cohen’s periodic dinners became more and more elaborate, with dozens of participants. Nine months ago, shortly after he purchased his 2,700-square-foot house in North Hollywood, his Friday night gatherings became a regular thing with guests coming for dinner and sometimes staying overnight.
“Before I had purchased my house, I used to live in a guest house not far from here, and although I was invited to Shabbat dinners, I always came back to a dark and quiet home and was pretty lonely,” he said. “So, when I saw this house in North Hollywood and saw how spacious the living room is, I immediately thought that it would be the perfect place to host, and I put an offer on it.”
While he enjoys meeting new people and sharing Shabbat with them, he admits he has an ulterior motive, as well. Cohen, who takes Friday off from his air-duct and carpet cleaning company to get ready for his guests, is a bachelor seeking a wife, and he wouldn’t mind meeting her at one of his dinners. In fact, a couple who met at one of his dinner parties are planning a September wedding in Israel.
“It’s amazing how many connections are being made between total strangers in my home — and not only love connections,” Cohen said. “People found jobs, apartments for rent, play dates for their children. I feel blessed that I’m able to do this mitzvah. Sometimes, I see women who are divorced or widowed and they come over with their children who had never experienced a real Kabbalat Shabbat, with all the blessings, the cup of wine and the songs, and they enjoy it so much. It gives them a sense of belonging, of a family.”
Cohen estimates it costs between $800 and $1,000 to host guests each Friday night. He gets some financial help from friends and a GoFundMe page on the web, and some of the food is donated by Pacific Kosher Grill in North Hollywood.
When guests arrive at his home, Cohen greets each of them with a warm hug. They find long tables covered with white tablecloths, set up perfectly with plates and utensils. Among his guests have been new immigrants, tourists from Israel, bachelors and bachelorettes, families with young children, single moms and some regulars. With the help of a few friends, Cohen serves chicken, fish and Israeli salads, with cake for dessert, along with cookies, fruits and a variety of nuts.
In August, he broke a personal record for one night with 125 guests who accepted his persistent invitations.
Cohen’s generosity extends beyond the Friday night dinner.
Observant Jews who don’t drive on Shabbat and live too far to walk home often spend Friday night at Cohen’s house. He lets them sleep in guest rooms and in a recreational vehicle he bought especially for this purpose, where six people can sleep comfortably.
“I bought bunk beds, closed the patio and purchased a sofa bed,” he said. “If needed, I also give my own bedroom and move to sleep on the patio myself.”
After most dinners, Cohen does the cleanup mostly by himself, finishing around 3 a.m. He gets a few hours of sleep before waking his guests at 8 a.m. and inviting them to walk with him to services at Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic Congregation in North Hollywood.
Guests who don’t wish to accompany him to services can stay at his home and wait for his return around noon, when Cohen serves a lunch of cholent that, per tradition, he prepares the night before, with the help of a neighbor.
His seemingly boundless giving amazes his guests.
“I came with my daughter to one of his Shabbat dinners after hearing about him from friends,” said Rachel Dror, 45. “It was pretty incredible. I’m a divorced mother and we don’t exactly celebrate Friday night with the Kiddush because it’s different doing it alone and doing it with a group of people. Yaniv made us feel immediately welcomed and at home. The food was fantastic, as was the company.”
Liron Abutbul, 25, came to Cohen’s dinner with a friend whom Cohen had met at the Super Sal Market. “It was such an experience to celebrate the Shabbat with dozens of people,” Abutbul said. “We didn’t know anyone there and we felt at home. I arrived in Los Angeles a year ago. I don’t have a family here. And Yaniv made me feel like I have a home to go to. He is a very unique guy.”
Jonathan Levin, 33, decided to check out Cohen because friends couldn’t stop talking about the dinners.
“I called Yaniv, who was only too happy for me to come over. Actually, he kind of pressured me to come and bring friends with me if I like,” Levin said. “I went to his house one Friday in August and it felt like a holiday. I don’t know how he manages to do it, but there was plenty of food and enough room for everybody to sit around the table. He is a pretty cool guy.”
Many of Cohen’s guests stay until the Havdalah ceremony that ends Shabbat. But no matter when they leave, Cohen makes sure no one goes home hungry.
”I never know how many guests will show up each time, but, miraculously, the food is always enough for everybody,” he said. “I feel blessed that I can do this. I’m already thinking about breaking some walls, enlarging the living room, so I can have even more people over.” n
Hollywood writer, producer and director Judd Apatow organized an evening of comedy called “Judd Apatow and Friends” in support of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Aug. 24 at Largo at the Coronet in Beverly Grove.
Apatow (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up”) was joined by comedians Natasha Leggero (“Chelsea Lately”), Wayne Federman (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Neal Brennan (“Chappelle’s Show”) andJerrod Carmichael (“The Carmichael Show”).
Apatow said he was inspired to organize the performance in response to the Aug. 11-12 white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., that included anti-Semitic chants, acts of intimidation against local Jews, neo-Nazi demonstrations and the death of woman who was a counterprotester.
Apatow, who is Jewish, publicized the event on Twitter, where he has been active in criticizing the administration of President Donald Trump.
During the event, Apatow “touched on several ADL areas of concern, including anti-Semitism, women’s rights, racism and immigration reform,” the ADL said in a statement.
ADL Regional Director Amanda Susskind also spoke at the event anddiscussed “ADL’s role in monitoring and exposing extremist and hate groups, and protecting civil rights in America,” the ADL said.
The sold-out event raised $8,700 in support of the ADL, which fights anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in the United States.
In addition, in a current online campaign, Apatow has pledged to match contributions of up to $10,000 to the ADL’s national office.
Whitney Kirk and Lindsey Arnold were participants on the September 2016 Honeymoon Israel Los Angeles trip. Photo courtesy of Honeymoon Israel
Honeymoon Israel, a national Jewish organization that subsidizes newly married couples with at least one Jewish partner to take part in group trips to Israel, recently received a $1.5 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation. Some of the grant money will help pay for Honeymoon Israel’s overall operations, while part will go toward the $600,000 invested in its local branch, said Michael D. Wise, co-CEO of Honeymoon Israel.
The 2-year-old organization works to help new couples build connections to local Jewish communities and encourages them to experience a deeper sense of Judaism by visiting Israel with other local couples.
“Seeing, touching and feeling Israel together as a newly married interfaith couple was a profound experience,” Diana and Karen Lovati, a couple from Los Angeles, said in a statement.
Whitney Kirk and her wife, Lindsey Arnold, of Playa del Rey, took Honeymoon Israel’s third trip, which left from Los Angeles in September 2016.
“Honeymoon Israel allowed my wife and me the opportunity to visit and experience the wonders of Israel as a couple, without the fear of being judged as a married, interfaith, lesbian couple,” Kirk said. “Before Honeymoon Israel, we were looking for a local Jewish community, and a year later, not only do we still stay in touch and spend time with the couples and staff we met on the trip, but our community continues to grow through couple-hosted events.”
In a statement, Barry Finestone, president and CEO of the Jim Joseph Foundation, said the future looks bright for Honeymoon Israel, which continues to grow and expand to more cities.
“The foundation is excited,” Finestone said, “to engage even more couples from a range of backgrounds in this powerful experience.”
— Julie Bien, Contributing Writer
The Valley Jewish Community Center boys 16-and-under soccer team won the gold medal at the 2017 JCC Maccabi Games. Photo courtesy of Lori Larcara
The Valley Jewish Community Center’s boys soccer team for players age 16 and under took the gold medal at the 2017 JCC Maccabi Games in Albany, N.Y., which were held Aug. 6-11.
The team dedicated its victory to the memory of Dr. David Fett, whose son played on the team eight years ago. Fett, an ophthalmologist who also was a supporter of the Valley JCC, died a few days before the tournament began.
Lori Larcara, mother of Jake Larcara, one of the Valley JCC players, said the team was proud to be playing in Fett’s honor.
“They never lost sight of their goal and the task at hand,” she said. “More importantly, they never forgot that this tournament was for them and Dr. Fett.”
The other team members were Amit Bitton, Ori Bitton, Tal Bitton, Yoav Cohen, Evan Davila, Edan Klier, Mikey Levy, David Luner, Dor Moskowitz, Benjamin Newman and Harel Spivak. The team was coached by Oren Diamant.
Larcara credited the support that all of the Valley JCC’s soccer teams have received from Shay Diamant, Philip Benditson and Kobi Koren, who has been coaching local JCC Maccabi teams for 25 years.
“These gentlemen volunteer their time, compassion and commitment and bring in donations of approximately $20,000 to help cover costs and offer financial aid,” Larcara said in an email.
The JCC Maccabi Games, held each summer in North America, also had competitions in Birmingham, Ala., from July 30 to Aug. 4, and Miami, from Aug. 6-11.
Pesach (Paul) Nisenbaum and his wife, Lida Baker, were among several people from Los Angeles who made aliyah to Israel in August thanks to the nonprofit Nefesh B’Nefesh organization. Photo courtesy of Pesach (Paul) Nisenbaum
Several people from Los Angeles made aliyah to Israel in August thanks to the nonprofit Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) organization.
Founded in 2001, NBN works with numerous agencies — including the Jewish Agency for Israel, Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Immigration Absorption, and the Jewish National Fund-USA — to facilitate emigration from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In 2016, the organization surpassed bringing its 50,000th oleh (immigrant) to Israel.
Los Angeles-area residents who made aliyah in August included Pesach (Paul) Nisenbaum and his wife, Lida Baker; Carey Fried,Sara Chana Morrow, Rivka Grob, Yehuda Frischman and Robin Silver-Zwiren.
Nisenbaum, 66, a retired special education teacher, said the recent death of his mother, Faye Franks Nisenbaum Gelb, led him to decide it was the right time to fulfill a longtime dream of immigrating to Israel.
“We have been to Israel many times, over decades,” he said in an email. “I have been waiting to make aliyah for decades.”
Marty Adelstein, CEO of Tomorrow Studios and an advisory board member of Creative Community for Peace Photo courtesy of Creative Community for Peace
Marty Adelstein, CEO of Tomorrow Studios, has joined the advisory board of the Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), the organization announced on Aug. 21.
CCFP is composed of prominent members of the entertainment industry who promote the arts as a means to achieve peace, support artistic freedom and counter the cultural boycott of Israel. In August, the organization supported British rock band Radiohead’s decision to perform in Israel, despite the protests of some musicians, including former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, who called on Radiohead to cancel its performance.
Adelstein’s career spans 25 years as an agent, manager and feature film and television producer. Other entertainment industry professionals involved in CCFP include Adam Berkowitz, co-head of the television department at Creative Artists Agency; Jody Gerson, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group; and Rick Krim, West Coast president of Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
“[Their] success and wide-ranging relationships will help us in our mission to promote the arts as a means to peace, defend artistic freedom, and counter the attempted cultural boycott of Israel,” CCFP said in a statement.
Moving & Shaking highlights events, honors and simchas. Got a tip? Email ryant@jewishjournal.com.
Organizers of the March for Racial Justice in Washington, D.C., are using a Yom Kippur mea culpa as a way to build stronger ties with the Jewish community across the country — including Los Angeles.
The original announcement that the civil rights march through the nation’s capital would take place on Sept. 30, Yom Kippur day, was met with a backlash from Jews who felt the timing excluded them.
“Anyone else think that’s absurd?” Jewish television star Mayim Bialik (“The Big Bang Theory”) wrote in a Facebook post Aug. 13. “I mean, it automatically excludes a distinct portion of people who historically have stood up for racial equality in enormous ways.”
Following the recent white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., the increased interest in civil rights actions brought criticism of the Yom Kippur conflict to a fever pitch, according to March for Racial Justice organizer Dorcas Davis. After speaking with Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and Rabbi Scott Perlo of the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, the organizers issued a statement that apologized for the conflict and promised to accommodate the Jewish community.
“Choosing this date, we now know, was a grave and hurtful oversight on our part,” the organizers wrote in an Aug. 16 statement. “It was unintentional and we are sorry for this pain as well as for the time it has taken for us to respond. Our mistake highlights the need for our communities to form stronger relationships.”
Bialik said she was satisfied by the statement, even though the date of the march will not change.
“They made a very gracious apology and we have to accept that,” she told the Journal on Aug. 17.
However, she added, “It hits close to home when Jews are in any way excluded, deliberately or not deliberately. It’s very painful.”
Davis said the organizers were unaware of the timing or significance of Yom Kippur when they planned the march, which was set for the anniversary of a mass lynching of African Americans in Arkansas. Once they learned about Yom Kippur and its traditions and meaning, they began looking for ways to be inclusive of Jews who would be unable to attend the march, she said.
After sundown on Sept. 30, the organizers will host a break-fast event, she said. Additional marches will be held in several cities on Oct. 1, including New York. The date of the Los Angeles march had not be determined as of Aug. 29.
“The whole reason we came up with the march was because of the pain we’re in,” Davis told the Journal, referring to police shootings such as that of Philando Castile in Minnesota in July 2016. “So to cause that pain, or reopen wounds in that way for people, was not something that we felt good about.”
She said the conversations with Jewish leaders led to a positive result.
“It wasn’t just, ‘Let’s figure this Yom Kippur situation out.’ It was like we found allies — straight-up allies,” she said. “For us as organizers, the feeling was like, Wow, once you do honor someone and say, like, ‘Hey, we messed up and we’re sorry,’ and you come with that humility, it opens doors, because they’re human beings, too.”
Jacobs, a prominent Conservative rabbi and leader in Jewish social justice movements, said she readily accepted the organizers’ apology.
“As a community, we can’t expect that individuals will necessarily understand the significance of Yom Kippur,” she said.
Jacobs said she hopes to use the scheduling conflict and its aftermath as a means to deepen relationships between Jews and other ethnic and racial communities.
“Especially when white supremacists are attacking Jews and people of color and immigrants, we need to stand together, knowing that sometimes we’re going to screw up, sometimes we’re going to offend each other,” Jacobs said. “The most important thing is to keep talking and try to do better.”
It’s when you’re all around a dinner table. / Sitting. / And talking and laughing. / When nobody has their phone on. / When dinner starts at 6:00 and continues until 2:00 because no one has anywhere else to be. / No bars to stop at or social appointments to fulfill. / When the entire community knows that no matter how funny the rumor or how juicy the grapes on the grapevine, gossip is not ‘cool.’ / It’s when you find that you really, truly, honest-to-God care about what the people around you have to say. / When conversations couple God and sex and nonsense and jokes that are only funny to us. / When I don’t feel afraid to screw up a joke. / Nor dumb when my ‘facts’ are… incorrect. / When silence isn’t awkward. / When I don’t care who I sit next to. / Or how my hair looks. / Or what time it is. / When I don’t feel compelled to check my phone or check my e-mail or check the score. / When time takes a backseat to space. A sacred space defined by comforts sculpted by living, breathing, actually human people who have somehow intertwined their self-interests and can all find happiness by just being together. / I am happy when I’m not constantly asking myself if I’m happy. / When it no longer matters that I left my laundry in. / Or that yesterday was the last day on the return policy. / Or that I’m so screwed, so unprepared, so ahhhhhhhhhh… if I don’t get my homework / bills / application done / paid / sent. / When silent smiles aren’t awkward. / When I can put my arm around you and not feel rejected if you don’t put your arm around me. / When my mind is free and I’m rowdy. Banging on tables. Dancing in circles. Not afraid to be off key. / Na. Na. Na. Na. Na. Na. Na. Na. / Ahhhhh. / Just breath. / And join us…
Andrew Lustig is a traveling, Jewish Spoken Word artist, performer, and teacher.
