Laura has never spoken a word, but she can coo, laugh, sigh and cry. At her best, she has taken steps with the help of a walker. She has a thin body with a smallish, sweet face framed by dark-brown hair. She gets 24-hour home care, with three rotating nurses monitoring her breathing and other vital signs.\n\nOh yeah, and she loves to smile.
This is the second year The Jewish Journal has compiled a list of our \”Top Ten Mensches.\” Let other magazines slobber over the 50 Sexiest or the 400 Richest or the 20 Most Influential. Rich, sexy and powerful are easy. Mensch is hard.
Leaders on both sides are optimistic. They see Olmert\’s moves as part of a new and wider American plan for Israeli-Palestinian accommodation.
Looking forward, Harran dreams of establishing a visiting scholars\’ program at the university and growing the Holocaust library\’s small collection, although raising the needed money might prove difficult, she said, given her distaste for fundraising.
Abbas\’ call Saturday for early elections in the Palestinian Authority triggered fierce street fighting between Fatah and Hamas, which won the last election in January. Despite a hastily arranged cease-fire Monday, the two factions remain on the brink of civil war.
\”Why is the world so silent — why are Jews so silent about the plight of Jews being held captive in Iran?\” Elana Tehrani, an Iranian-born Jewish woman now living in Los Angeles asked a crowd during a speech at the Nessah Cultural Center in Beverly Hills.
Internet dating — everyone does it, and everyone complains about it. Why? The guys think the girls lie, and the girls think the guys lie. And the truth is: everybody lies.
Honestly, I\’m glad that the recent vote of the Conservative movement has opened the door a bit toward acceptance of gay and lesbian Jews. Now that this teshuvah, or legal interpretation, was one of two that received a majority vote, I know that this helps some of my gay \”friends and family\” squeeze sideways through the now partially open door. I nevertheless remain sad and disappointed that the door has only opened a little, and the idea that it is a qualified acceptance is troubling to me.
Music was Daniel Pearl\’s avocation, but journalism was his profession. In pursuit of a story on Al Qaeda\’s financial ties, the then-38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter was kidnapped in early 2002 in Pakistan and beheaded by Islamic extremists.
Daniel, a 24-year-old UCLA student, has gotten under my skin. I met him a month ago when I followed Rabbi Yossi Carron on his rounds through Men\’s Central Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles.
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