A woman in a peach-colored sweatsuit sits in a sunlit hallway at the Silverado Senior Living Center in Calabasas. Once she was a professor at a California State University campus, teaching English literature. Now, because of the effects of Alzheimer\’s disease, she barely has a word to share, only a bemused smile for people she thinks she recognizes.
Bob Dole. General Norman Schwarzkopf. Harry Belafonte. Robert Goulet. The willingness of such well-known figures to make public their battle with prostate cancer has brought visibility to an issue that until the last few years, lacked the attention, funding and research interest befitting a disease that will strike more than 180,000 men in the United States this year.
Amidst a blizzard of Christmas specials, the commercial networks are giving short shrift to Chanukah, so it\’s up to public television and radio stations to pick up the slack. KCET (PBS, Channel 28) is putting the emphasis on the culinary delights of Chanukah with the following programs:
Skate Roc \’n Jam, an event held Nov. 5 at the Hollywood Los Feliz JCC, drew about 100 skateboarding enthusiasts who tried their luck on newly built ramps and rails borrowed from Oasis in Hollywood; listened to music by the group Custom; talked shop with DV8, a skateboarding shop in Eagle Rock; and basically allowed one and all a place to jam.
The enthusiasm that greeted the nomination of Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Demo-cratic vice-presidential candidate was fully shared by Errol Fine.
The Israeli prime minister crams in meetings, a pressconference and a gala dinner before shuttling off to London.
\”The Last Night of Ballyhoo\” arrived at the Cañon Theatre in Beverly Hills last month with impeccable credentials.
To many American Jews in their 20s, 30s and 40s, Zionism, the ancient dream of a Jewish homeland that spawned a political movement and the birth of Israel almost 50 years ago, is little more than a footnote in a Sunday-school textbook. Pursuing their own professional and personal goals in this country seems a lot more important than worrying about a tiny Jewish state on the other side of the world. And, besides, Israel doesn\’t seem to need as much financial or political support these days.
The People of the Book is the Los Angeles area\’s first attempt at a Jewish book festival
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