Long Beach has had a significant and stable Jewish population for decades, so it might seem unusual for a synagogue to make major changes in the way it serves its membership and the community. In recent months, however, individuals and families in the area have been reevaluating their choices as a new option for affiliation has surfaced.
Can an alcoholic who was poisoned with his father\’s anti-Semitism use a moment of naked exposure to confront his bigotry? Can he ever hope to cleanse himself of this deeply-seated hatred or is he forever doomed?
One year after \”the storm,\” as New Orleanians refer to Hurricane Katrina, Jewish communal leaders describe the health of the community with certain expected terms — loss, trauma, devastation and challenge.
If you are willing to inflict physical pain upon yourself as a service to your god, why not treat others to the same spiritual experience? Paradoxically, they will be killed or harmed because of your love for them.
On Sunday, in the intense heat of a mid-summer day, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, carried a Sephardic Torah for one-half mile along city streets in Tarzana to a new Persian synagogue that had been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack just two days earlier. Police are still investigating the arson attempt, which burned a rear door of Beith David Education Center on Clark Street, as well as anti-Jewish graffiti left at the scene, as a hate crime.
Ceremony goes ahead for Beith David.
\”Baruch Hashem, we are very pleased with the new synagogue,\” said Avi Cohan, a local Iranian businessman who is one of the founders of the Downtown Synagogue. \”It looks just amazing with the nice chairs, and it\’s perfect for many of us who wanted a place for prayer at the end of the work day.\”
\”It\’s like a temple,\” the painter says of his artist\’s studio.
A lonely temple, that is.
\”I\’m the rabbi and congregation all in one,\” he says with a laugh.
The prophet Isaiah asks: \”What is the house which you would build for Me, and what is the place of My rest?\” (Isaiah 66:1). In the days following the Easter and Passover holidays, 41 Angelenos traveled to the Gulf Coast to translate their faith into action. We were rabbis and pastors, African Americans and Jewish Americans, high school seniors and senior adults, synagogue and church members from 12 Los Angeles congregations who rebuilt homes in Gulfport, Miss.
Minerva \”Min\” Leonard doesn\’t have time for breakfast. She\’s too busy shopping for ingredients and preparing a salad bar luncheon for 80 people at Adat Ari El Sisterhood\’s weekly Multi-Interest Day. Or making 10 lokshen kugels for her friend\’s daughter\’s bat mitzvah. Or baking \”I can\’t even begin to tell you how many\” batches of cranberry and chocolate-chip mandelbread to bestow on friends, neighbors and an appreciative Jewish Journal reporter.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.