When kids from Sinai Temple celebrate Chanukah with the members of Temple Beth Solomon (TBS) in Tarzana on Friday night, Dec. 6, they\’ll notice that the service is slower and streamlined, but that the singing is performed with every bit as much gusto as a \”Friday Night Live\” service.
There, a steady stream of vehicles arrived, disgorging clusters of teenagers at Orange County\’s Jewish Community Center. Instead of movies, sleepovers and football games, the typical high school student\’s Friday night pursuits, about 60 teens gathered to participate in the center\’s \”Teen Shabbat\” program, now in its second year.
For the past three years, in meetings that often go toward midnight, a handful of local parents, educators and community leaders have been coming together to plan Los Angeles\’ next non-Orthodox Jewish high school.
Now it has come to pass. Late last month, the Core Group, as the parents call themselves, announced the September 2002 opening of the New Community Jewish High School in the West Valley.
U.S. Orthodox Jewish leaders are outraged by an Israeli Reform leader\’s comments drawing comparisons between fervently Orthodox Jews and the Islamic fundamentalists who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Temple Emanu-El, after all, was the largest synagogue in San Francisco and the site of many memorial services of Jewish celebrities and civic leaders.
Tisha B\’Av, the day of mourning in commemoration of the destruction of the two Temples, is notable for at least two reasons. For one, it may be the only holiday that Hallmark hasn\’t designed a card for. And it seems to be the one holiday that most Jews have heard of, but few seem to know much about. As with quarks and RNA and Rothko, we can drop \”Tisha B\’Av\” into a conversation, hoping all the while that we won\’t be asked to actually explain it.
In addition to the usual bathing suits,socks and shorts, as suggested by Camp Hess Kramer on its inventory list, my daughter, Samantha, needed an orange sweat shirt with blue (preferably royal) lettering\nspelling out the words \”Leadership \’97\” on the front and her name on the back. Right away, I could foresee trouble.
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