About twenty years ago, I had this realization: Most Jews wait until the High Holy Days to start their annual process of soul searching. The famous “Days of Awe” between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are traditionally seen as the key time for this personal work of repentance and personal growth.

Ah, yes, but people often forget that there is also the work of … preparation.

For that, we have 29 other “days of awe” that lead up to the High Holy Days — the month of Elul. These are also crucial days.They help us rise gradually  to the sacred Big Days. Each day of Elul offers an opportunity to search our hearts and prepare ourselves for discovery and personal growth.

So, just like that, I decided to create “Jewels of Elul.”

The idea was to reach out to people across the globe who would share short inspirational insights. For each of the 29 days, people would receive a different “jewel” of inspiration.

The idea was to reach out to people across the globe who would share short inspirational insights. For each of the 29 days, people would receive a different “jewel” of inspiration.

The first thing that surprised me is how willing people were to participate.  Over 20 years, we’ve been blessed to attract names like President Barack Obama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Rev Cecil ‘Chip’ Murray, and even Lady Gaga.

Voices as diverse as Kirk Douglas, Ruth Messinger, Pastor Rick Warren, Sarah Silverman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Yossi Klein Halevi, Abby Stein, Frank Luntz, Idan Raichel, Anat Hoffman, Quincy Jones and Norman Lear have offered contributions.

And of course, we’ve had Rabbis! More than 50 of them, too numerous to name without offending anyone.  But here’s the other thing that surprised me: It is often the lesser-known contributors who have the most powerful things to say.

Each year honors a different theme. The theme for this year is “On Their Shoulders.” Twenty-nine contributors are sharing something about people or ideas that helped them grow and evolve. 

Here are a few glimpses from some of this year’s contributors:

1. “I stand on the shoulders of regular people who bring hope to a world that at times can feel hopeless.” Rabbi Sherre Hirsch

2. “Create the pieces of your life as if they — and you — are here for eternity.” Dr. David Elcott

3. “Never underestimate how meaningful a small act can be.” Ophira Eisenberg

4. “My path as a cantor ended quickly, but my connection to Cantor Kliger remains steadfast, and is a powerful reminder of the most precious gift we are given – to always have a beautiful line of support waiting in the wings.” Beanie Feldstein

5. “In my own life, Jewish women imbue my spirit with their merit. Blair, adventuring across the icy wilderness. Shoshanna, of the righteous fight against fundamentalism. The learned women like Rabbanit Michelle, who illuminate Judaism past and present with such wisdom. And to Janet, my mother. The first Eishes Chayil I knew. I see you; I thank you. I’m standing on your shoulders.” Miriam Anzovin

6. “I thank God every day for giving me such ancestors whose gifts are beyond my reach, whose achievements are beyond my grasp, on whose shoulders I stand and glimpse eternity.” Danny Maseng

7. “I always felt I was an ally in the fight for equality, but I’ve learned that’s not enough. It’s not enough to say ‘I am not a racist,’ what we have to say is, ‘I am an anti-racist.’ Marta Kauffman 

May these and other jewels be a spiritual runway to the Holy Days. May it give us a chance to look back, look in, and look forward. 

It is by telling and listening to stories and inspirational gems that we remember how we got here, and who we are. 

These are the jewels that keep us human and prepare us for the humility we need to grow and repair.

To order your copy of Jewels of Elul, visit jewelsofelul.com.

Craig Taubman is the producer of Jewels of Elul, an annual collection of short stories, anecdotes and introspections for the High Holy Days. He is the founder of the Pico Union Project.

When talent manager George Shapiro died earlier this year, he was 91 years young. He had managed many performers, including Jerry Seinfeld. George and his partner, Howard West, were savvy businessmen that had a keen eye for talent and did very well.  So, a few of his friends, about 500 of them, gathered for his celebration send-off at Paramount Studios. Some of the biggest names in comedy from the past 70 years were there.

Emceeing the night was the very funny Pat Hazell. George’s three children, Danny, Carrie, and Stefanie spoke but not before taking a shot of Don Julio and toasting their dad. They spoke from their hearts and to our hearts and bullseyed it.  Also speaking were Danny DeVito, Kevin Nealon, Sarah Silverman, and Jeff Garland. 

Next were Dick Van Dyke (96 years old), Mel Brooks (96 years old), and Norman Lear (100 years old). Climbing up and down the stage steps by themselves, they did what they do best: they killed.  Following them was Jerry Seinfeld, a mere child at 68. 

About 10 people spoke before Brooks. They all spoke about how George was the sweetest and most generous man they had ever met. Mel then got up and said something like, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t like him that much. He was not nice. When we went out to dinner, he was nasty to all the servers.” Huge laughs. 

Kevin Nealon said that after George died, he was very sad and for weeks, he was depressed. Not so much because George had died but because he realized that if George could die, we are all going to die. He was so funny, I told him he should release his eulogies on Spotify. 

Phil Rosenthal, creator of “Everyone Loves Raymond” and now the star of the Netflix show, “Somebody Feed Phil,” said, “George told me he loved me multiple times each time we met.” Phil then gave a shout-out to his wife, “You hear that, Monica?”  Seinfeld also spoke from the heart about how he wasn’t sad because he knew that George would always be with him. 

Like most send-offs for comedians or people in the comedy business, it was part roast and part celebration.  I’ve been to Rodney Dangerfield’s, Bob Saget’s and Gary Shandling’s celebrations, and all were through-the-roof funny. I mean funny where you are falling off your chair.  But what came through that evening for George was a story about a good man with a big heart. In many ways, a healer. A story about an ex-Bronx kid who was not afraid to tell you that he loved you. A story about a man who mentored many people. A story about a man who loved being in show business. He said show business is two words. Show/Business. Without the business, you don’t have the show.

Listening to all that was said about George was like being at a hesped for a great rabbi. The evening was about the goodness that emanated from this man. 

Listening to all that was said about George was like being at a hesped for a great rabbi. The evening was about the goodness that emanated from this man. During dinner, once everyone had spoken, I told Seinfeld that after hearing all of this about George, I want to be a better person.  In a business that is not necessarily known for decency and kindness, George was an anomaly.  George was an example of what one man can do to change the world and make it a better place for all of us. I know this to be a fact. I knew George well. 

Even in death, George continues to inspire people to become nicer, happier and funnier.  Instead of in-person, he now does it through the people whose souls were touched by him. The people that saw George a day or so before he passed said that George was not unhappy about this part of his journey coming to an end. He said he knew he was just moving on to his next experience.  I can only hope I feel that way when my time comes.

George was a happy man and lived a great life.  Plus, he had the phone numbers of the funniest people that ever lived and could call them anytime he wanted to.  So, what’s so sad?   Nothing.  And I think George would agree that if everyone added just one extra “I love you” each day, it would be a better world for all.

Mark Schiff is a comedian, actor and writer, and host of the ‘You Don’t Know Schiff’ podcast.

August 31, 1997 was a very dark day. In fact, it can be likened to my generation’s version of asking, “Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?” That last day of August was the day that Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a horrific car accident in Paris. 

In hindsight, it was amazing that one didn’t need to be British to feel tremendous shock and sadness over the death of a member of the British royal family. There was a reason that Diana was lovingly called “The People’s Princess”; she was beloved by millions worldwide. It’s safe to say she was the most famous woman in the world. And the fact that she died so young, at the age of 36, leaving behind two sons, William (15) and Harry (12), made her death even harder to digest. 

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death, and I remember where I was that day: lazily wasting away another long Saturday at home after finishing the eighth grade a few months earlier in June. That summer, I was struggling. I didn’t want to leave my beloved middle school and my graduating class of 80 friends and enter the overwhelming jungle of high school (complete with 2,000 students), so I clung to anyone and anything that offered me a sense of familiarity and comfort. Simply put, I was experiencing too much change in my own life and my tolerance for big changes in the greater world was pathetically low.

But that summer had already been marred by a horrible shock: Legendary Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace was assassinated in July when a gunman named Andrew Cunanan shot him in the head at point-blank range (Cunanan had previously gone on a killing spree, murdering four other men). Over 2,000 people attended his funeral at Milan Cathedral, including Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Elton John and Diana, Princess of Wales.

By the time I watched countless hours of television coverage of Diana’s death the following month, I was a different adolescent: marred by anxiety, sadness and a certain resignation to the idea that I had no control over my fate. 

By the time I watched countless hours of television coverage of Diana’s death the following month, I was a different adolescent: marred by anxiety, sadness and a certain resignation to the idea that I had no control over my fate. 

That’s because the deaths of Gianni Versace and Princess Diana were a blow to my entire belief system, however immature and flawed, that famous and powerful people who make an impact on the world are somehow spared from violent death. Or, at the least, that they’re immune to being shot in the head outside their Miami home (Versace) or killed when a Mercedes-Benz, driven at 70 mph in a 30 mph zone, collides miserably with a highway pillar in Paris’s Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Incidentally, Diana was still alive after the crash (her driver, Henri Paul, and her boyfriend, Emad “Dodi” Fayed, were pronounced dead at the scene, and Diane succumbed to internal bleeding a few hours later at a Paris hospital). 

Twenty-two years later, in 2019, a top British forensic pathologist, Dr. Richard Shepherd, claimed that Diana would have survived the crash if she had been wearing a seatbelt, writing in his book, “Unnatural Causes,” that had Diana “been restrained, she would probably have appeared in public two days later with a black eye, perhaps a bit breathless from the fractured ribs and with a broken arm in a sling.” The only person to survive the accident was Trevor Rees-Jones, Diana’s British bodyguard, who had been wearing a seatbelt. 

As a budding teenager who was already prone to fatalistic anxiety, I couldn’t comprehend the close timing of it all — that six weeks after sitting in solemn silence at Versace’s funeral, Diana herself would be dead. And Elton John would honor them at both of their funerals. Poor man.

And then, nearly two years to the day after Versace’s death (July 15), Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, who had also attended his funeral, perished in a July 16 plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, along with her husband John F. Kennedy, Jr. and her sister Lauren. 

It was unbelievable, and I drove myself crazy wondering how it could be possible that, like Diana, Bessette had sat at Versace’s funeral without knowing that she herself would perish soon thereafter. 

The day Diana died was also the day that many in my generation of adolescents first sympathized with a young person who had lost a mother. Still, handsome, strawberry-blonde-haired princes weren’t supposed to walk behind their young mother’s caskets, as William and Harry had done — for all the world to see, no less (2.5 billion people watched Diana’s funeral procession on television). In 2017, Harry told Newsweek, “My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”

No, in 1997, those of us who weren’t yet born in 1963 and hadn’t watched the 1963 televised coverage of President Kennedy’s funeral weren’t ready for the sight of young, handsome princes, now motherless, walking behind a casket of a fallen princess. It was too much. 

And then, there was the collective public disgust over the culpability of the paparazzi, who had chased down that Mercedes-Benz in order to snap a few photos of Diana and Dodi out and about in Paris. While it’s true that the driver, Paul, had been driving under the influence of alcohol (French authorities confirmed this the Monday after the accident), we were all reminded of the inhumane consequences of treating human beings solely as subjects of tabloid photographs.

After Diana’s death, one particular thought haunted me for a long time: I wondered if whether after the Mercedes crashed, there were paparazzi who, instead of rushing to help the victims, immediately flashed photographs of the wreckage. As it turned out, that’s exactly what happened. 

One of those motorcycle-bound paparazzi who chased down Diana that night, Stephane Darmon, confirmed this to The Guardian in 2008. He said, “I did not see the car anymore because the light [of the flashes] was so bright. It was continuous.”

But Prince Harry summed up the inhumanity best in a 2021 Apple TV+ documentary, “The Me You Can’t See,” when he said, “I was so angry with what happened to her — and the fact that there was no justice at all. Nothing came from that. The same people that chased her into the tunnel, photographed her dying on the backseat of that car.”

And sadly, that kind of selective blindness not only remains today, but has almost become the norm. How many times have we read news stories of bystanders, whether in a New York subway tunnel or on a Los Angeles street, who, instead of even attempting to help victims of violence, have pulled out their smartphones and simply begun filming?

Yes, Diana herself became the most famous woman in the world thanks to the power of the lens, and the camera loved her. But the disregard for humanity that added an extra sting to her death was anathema to every ounce of kindness and compassion the woman valued and practiced. 

I watched her September 6, 1997 funeral seated next to my mother, and when she began to sob at the sight of William and Harry walking in solemn procession, I hugged my mother and stroked her hair. After that day, my eyes were irreversibly open wide.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning weekly columnist and an LA-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @TabbyRefael

The latest Los Angeles Times/UC-Berkeley poll has some good news and some bad news for mayoral hopeful Rick Caruso. 

There are still roughly two months remaining before Election Day, and Caruso’s team demonstrated convincingly this past spring that is more than enough time for tens of millions of dollars to dramatically change the course of a campaign. More importantly, Angelenos are still fixated on Caruso’s two key issues of crime and homelessness, and the opportunity still exists for the businessman-turned-candidate to use both issues to his advantage in his race against frontrunner Karen Bass in the weeks ahead.

But the poll shows that while a potential path to victory for Caruso is clear, it is also steeply uphill. The first public survey of the general election campaign showed Bass with a formidable 12-point lead over Caruso among registered voters, which is certainly not an insurmountable margin but does put the real estate magnate at a decided disadvantage as the race heats up.

Even more challenging for Caruso are additional results that the Times buried deep inside their story about the poll. While Bass maintains a healthy 43-31 advantage among all voters, the survey also separated out those voters who are most likely to cast ballots. This more reliable indicator shows Bass’ lead expanding to more than twenty points, a daunting margin of 53-32 percent. 

Caruso may still be able to turn the race in his favor through sheer force of unprecedented spending. The billionaire spent more on his primary campaign than any mayoral candidate in the city’s history had done in a primary and general election campaign combined. That cash outlay was enough to catapult him from low single digits in early polling to a second place primary finish and a spot in the general election runoff. But he still finished seven points behind Bass in the primary, and third and fourth place finishers Kevin de Leon and Gina Viola are well to the left of Bass politically so their supporters would be less likely to opt for the centrist Caruso in November. Which means that much of Caruso’s spending will be directed toward convincing the most progressive voters that Bass is not worthy of their support and that they don’t need to bother to vote at all.

The most important voters for Caruso are those who may be able to be persuaded that Bass is not strong enough to successfully thwart the city’s crime and homelessness issues. 

But the most important component of a Caruso comeback will be among voters closer to the political center who may be able to be persuaded that Bass is not strong enough to successfully thwart the city’s crime and homelessness issues. The only top-tier issue on which voters preferred Caruso to Bass is crime and public safety: Caruso’s team will be merciless in their efforts to portray Bass as a career politician who simply doesn’t know how to fight back effectively on these issues. 

From the beginning, Caruso’s gamble is that crime and homelessness have made Los Angeles voters more willing to stray from political orthodoxy to make their city safe again. But Angelenos are not conservative: most are progressives who are frightened by violent crime and exhausted by rampant homelessness. They may be willing to embrace more extreme tactics to confront these challenges, but they must also be reassured that they can be more aggressive while still being essentially good people. That’s a much more nuanced message than a more frontal “tough on crime” approach and will be more challenging for Caruso to deliver than the old-school lock-‘em-up missives that elected Dick Riordan almost thirty years ago. But Caruso’s religious and philanthropic history gives him the credibility to articulate that type of message. The question is when we’ll hear it.

But Caruso’s campaign has been almost silent throughout the summer, perhaps believing that voters would not be paying much attention until after Labor Day. So it’s more than likely that their advertising onslaught will begin in the next several days. Bass’ past political successes have mostly come from behind-the-scenes negotiations rather than high-profile and highly emotional public engagement. We’re about to find out if she can adjust to this type of environment and withstand the barrage that is coming her way.

Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www/lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.