This is not democracy. The California legislature stole our democracy while we slept. All districts in California are now rigged this way. That\’s why, in California in the fall of 2004, not a single state legislative or Congressional seat changed party hands.
If there\’s one thing in marketing that piques interest, it\’s the element of surprise. For synagogues, however, this is easier said than done, because so much of a prayer service is based on repetition. And repetition itself has an emotional benefit: It makes us feel safe and comfortable.
As we stand at the dawn of the 21st century, a perhaps even more fundamental issue divides the American body politic. From stem cells, abortion and human cloning to the Schiavo case and physician-assisted suicides, the question of life has become this generation\’s great ideological battle ground.
It fit somehow that this recent Saturday service for converts to Judaism took place in a synagogue library. Because this gathering, at Temple Beth Am near Beverly Hills, was both an exercise in worship and in teaching. Maybe it even fit that this was a children\’s library, because many of the 40 adults who sat in folding chairs are young in relation to their Judaism.
This program, called Judaism by Choice, is \”a way of educating the people while they\’re in the service itself, teaching it while they\’re doing the service … the terms of the synagogue, the geography of the service,\” said Rabbi Neal Weinberg, the program\’s creator.
As a Jewish woman and Harvard-educated lawyer who practiced law in Los Angeles, Sandra Froman admits that, at least on paper, she doesn\’t seem a natural choice to lead the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The Hotel Edelweiss in St. Moritz and the Hotel Metropol in Arosa are Jewish sanctuaries for observant tourists, offering everything from kosher dining and space for simchas to daily religious services and snow-melt mikvahs.
\”No one likes to do it,\” said parent Andrea Daniels, who compares it to dating. \”It\’s like buying a house,\” said Bea Prentice, director of the Early Childhood Center at Adat Shalom synagogue in West Los Angeles. \”There are so many options to think about.\”
Israel\’s long-term political interests could be best served if Barghouti is out of jail. Faced with similar choices in the past, Israel has always preferred pragmatic calculations over the subtleties of justice.
The boulevard in the 1920s was the natural place for the institutions and their members to relocate. They saw that, in the future, downtown\’s narrow, congested streets would no longer be the center of the community. Los Angeles was turning into a driving city, and Wilshire became the nation\’s first Automobile Age thoroughfare. Religious establishments that wished to be part of the exciting future moved to Wilshire Boulevard.
Business at Eitan Salman\’s music store has fallen 80 percent over the last decade, but it\’s not altogether a bad thing: Mizrahi music has grown so popular in Israel that it no longer is the exclusive domain of mom-and-pop shops like Salman\’s but is sold even at Israel\’s Tower Records outlets.
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