A longtime Jewish organizational professional and fundraiser, Hyman last year launched the Center for Entrepreneurial Jewish Philanthropy (CEJP) to support and advise philanthropists who are considering major gifts to Jewish and Israel-related causes.
\”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.\”
The 200 closely knit families of Burbank\’s Temple Beth Emet, heeding the precept that all Jews are responsible for one another, are accustomed to providing aid and comfort quietly and inconspicuously. But the congregation has been galvanized to very public action by news that the mother of fellow congregant Roni Razankova\’s mother, a citizen of Macedonia, has contracted liver cancer and needs urgent medical attention in the United States.
In Los Angeles, as in other American cities where Jews have moved out en masse from their old neighborhoods, they not only left dwellings behind, they also left behind synagogues, social centers, stores and street corners that connected them to a certain time in their lives and to a particular era in their collective past.
Corporate, private and organizational donors underwrite the day, including Temple Israel. The budget this year is $450,000. The city\’s participation will include providing security, busing and street closures. Additional donors are both welcomed and needed, Levinson said.
Major Jewish organizations have raised more than $30 million to house, feed, educate and relocate thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Rabbi David Wolpe has removed himself from consideration for the job of leading the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York. Wolpe, of Sinai Temple in Westwood, had been widely considered a front-runner for chancellor at JTS, the central institution in Conservative Judaism.
This year, traditional Christmas Day volunteering is being spread out across December. The shul\’s ATID young adult leadership group\’s annual Dec. 25 Mitzvah Day is being merged with templewide volunteering on Dec. 18, the formal start of Sinai\’s yearlong centennial anniversary.
One thing that pleases Harmatz about being the grand marshal is riding in a convertible. In fact, last year when it rained on the parade, someone suggested they put up the top, but Harmatz wanted it left down.
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