Last month, Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi appeared at Sephardic Temple to discuss how Sderot, an Israeli city located less than one mile from Israel’s border with Gaza, was impacted by the Oct. 7 attacks.
“For us, the seventh of October was a very dark day,” Davidi said, addressing a crowd of approximately 150 people at the Westwood synagogue.
On Oct. 7, Sderot was the “first place terrorists came to kill people,” he said. “The biggest challenge was we did not have any time. Nobody called us. Nobody prepared us and said, ‘Mayor, 10 minutes from now, someone will come.’”
Dorel Abramovitz, director of development at The Sderot Foundation, moderated the discussion with Davidi, titled “From the Frontlines of October 7.”
Held June 9, the event occurred just four days before Israel’s strike on Iran. Jewish National Fund-USA (JNF-USA) — which has long supported the development of Israel’s southern communities — organized the gathering.
“Jewish National Fund-USA has had a long and successful partnership with the City of Sderot for over 20 years — building resilience centers, a bomb-proof indoor playground, and providing trauma care and community support,” JNF-USA Greater Los Angeles Director Janice Levy said. “Through these efforts, Jewish National Fund-USA has played a pivotal role in strengthening Sderot’s community, ensuring that its residents receive the support needed to heal, grow, and thrive.”
Additional attendees included Levy’s husband, Avi Levy, who serves as the executive director at Sephardic Temple, and Neuriel Shore, executive director at Brothers for Life, which supports wounded IDF soldiers.
The event began with a video presentation featuring footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Sderot. The clips showed Hamas terrorists taking over the city’s police station, as six Sderot police officers sought refuge on the station’s roof. Four of the six officers lived through the ordeal.
After the moderated discussion with Davidi, speakers informed the crowd of giving opportunities to support the Sderot Foundation, which implements resilience, employment, informal education, culture and community welfare programs, along with special projects, toward the goal of enhancing the lives of Sderot’s approximately 30,000 residents.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, recently participated in an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
During the somber but moving procession, Cooper—joined by survivors, descendants of survivors and U.S. officials—returned a replica of the “Mauthausen Flag,” a symbol of freedom during liberation, to the camp.
The original makeshift American flag, now housed at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, was hand-sewn by concentration camp prisoners using SS laundry and Nazi banners in anticipation of the American troops’ arrival. The inmates sewed 56 stars onto their American flag, not knowing the exact number.
Cooper called it “a flag sewn in faith,” representing hope in the darkest place.
The event took place on May 11, marking the May 5, 1945 liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp.
“On this historic day, the Museum of Tolerance does more than remember; it recommits,” Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Jim Berk said. “To protecting truth. To defending dignity. And to ensuring that the words ‘Never Again’ are not simply whispered at memorials, but upheld through action, education, and unwavering vigilance.”
“What Do I Do with All This Heritage?” the record-breaking, first-ever theater show about Asian American Jews, made its East Coast debut in May after last year’s hit California run.
The show played to enthusiastic crowds at Temple Israel of Boston, with support from Combined Jewish Philanthropies, on May 15, and on May 18 at New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.
A groundbreaking collaboration between The Braid, the go-to Jewish story company, and The LUNAR Collective, a national organization by and for Asian American Jews, this joyful theatrical experience is now seeking new communities to visit next, according to those involved with the production.
The community gathered last Thursday for the start to the 20th annual Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival at the gala opening night in Beverly Hills at the Saban Theater.
The festival’s kickoff featured the Los Angeles premiere of “Midas Man,” the story of the Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Epstein, who was Jewish, signed the Beatles when they were playing dingy clubs in Liverpool. Believing in their talent, he oversaw their career, transforming them into chart-topping sensations and cultural pioneers. The biopic captures Epstein’s professional successes as well as his personal struggles as a gay man living in England at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
Jay Leno, who plays Ed Sullivan in the film, made a rare red-carpet appearance at the Saban for the premiere.
Before the screening, those gathered in the Saban’s art deco lobby posed in front of a backdrop designed like the Beatles’ iconic “Abbey Road” cover. After the screening, a panel featured the film’s director, Joe Stephenson; actor Johna Lees; the film’s writer, Brigit Grant; and Beatles historian Martin Lewis, discussing the yearslong effort of making the film.
The evening ended with Lees, a musician, offering a stirring performance of the Beatles’ “Now and Then”—dubbed “the last Beatles song.”
