It\’s amazing what can happen in a year\’s time. Months ago, The Journal spotlighted Lily Rachel Kaufman, a 31-year-old jewelry designer making a splash in the fashion world with her Brighton Way showroom in Beverly Hills.
Back in October, 60 UCLA students learned that over winter break they would be going on the trip of a lifetime. They had been chosen from among hundreds of applicants to take part, virtually for free, in UCLA Hillel\’s Birthright Israel contingent. The Birthright program brings thousands of Jewish students to Israel for 10-day tours that encourage them to discover their own Jewish identity. The 1999 trip had received glowing reviews. But in December 2000, one-third of the UCLA slots were suddenly up for grabs.
Like other children of intermarriage, Joshua Boettiger struggled with the issue of religious identity, but he said that his clearest connection to Judaism surfaced during his junior year in college, which he spent in Damascus, Syria.
My daughter turned 4 weeks old today. She has never heard of the State of Israel, the book of Deuteronomy, Albert Einstein, Shawn Green, Joe Lieberman, the Holocaust, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, the Western Wall, God, or, I suspect, her father.
There are some pretty big indicators that Ohr Eliyahu Academy, one of the city\’s youngest day schools, has secured a solid foothold in the Los Angeles Jewish educational landscape.
There is nothing tentative or half-way about MarkC. \”Moshe\” Hardie.
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