Jewish community centers in several states reported receiving ultimately discredited bomb threats on Monday. None of the threats targeted Jewish organizations or institutions in Los Angeles.

“There have been no threats here in Los Angeles,” Ivan Wolkind, chief operating and financial officer at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which operates the Community Security Initiative for the Jewish community in Los Angeles, said in a phone interview on Monday. “And what we always say is, we try not to do anything reactively as a result of an event happening somewhere else, or an event happening anywhere.”

The threats occurred in Florida, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina and Delaware, the ADL statement says.

“Law enforcement are investigating the incident, which may have originated from the same phone number. So far, no explosives have been found,” the ADL statement says.

Haaretz, an Israel-based daily newspaper, reported that the calls were both prerecorded and live.

The ADL statement says the threats “may have originated from the same phone number.”

The ADL said in a statement the threats did “not appear to be credible.” Nevertheless, Wolkind described threats made through phone calls as an effective way of causing disruption to local Jewish communities.   

“For sure what we can all see—if there is a phone-in threat, it for sure causes disruption and worry to a Jewish institute,” he said. “We have no way of knowing who phoned these in and why.”

The Community Security Initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles provides resources to local Jewish organizations related to security measures.

With the support of a more than $4 million matching grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, along with financial assistance from the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is developing the Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative as part of an extensive outreach effort to Jewish teens who otherwise would not be involved in Jewish life. 

“The goal is to engage 2,000 to 3,000 local Jewish teens in meaningful Jewish experiences,” Josh Miller, senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation, said in a phone interview.

The L.A. grant, which was announced last February, represents a ramped-up effort by the Jim Joseph Foundation to fund youth organizations. According to the foundation’s website, it has awarded more than $37.3 million in seven communities for community-based Jewish teen education initiatives.

Miller said the foundation hopes to help Jewish teens explore “what it means to be Jewish today, and what it means to be Jewish in the future.”

Many share Miller’s enthusiasm. Ben Schillmoeller, 25, the program coordinator at the Shalom Institute, was among approximately 30 people representing various nonprofit organizations who attended a Nov. 2-3 retreat held at American Jewish University’s Brandeis-Bardin Campus in Simi Valley, which focused on developing ways of engaging youth. The Federation organized the retreat.

After a morning spent brainstorming under the guidance of a representative of Upstart, a San Francisco Bay Area-based consulting service, Schillmoeller told the Journal he believes outdoor trips are one way to make teenagers excited about being Jewish.  

“Teens don’t really get the chance to go out and see the wilderness as much as they used to,” Schillmoeller said in an interview. 

Ronnie Conn, assistant executive director at the Westside JCC, said he thinks expanding the popular Maccabi Games program for youth is also important for teen engagement.

Although the majority of teen programs are still being developed, one is already underway: Federation launched a community internship program for high school students last summer as part of the initiative. Twenty-seven teenagers worked at various Jewish organizations across Los Angeles, including at the Jewish Journal, in internships that not only offered work experience for their résumés, but also were intended to help engage them in Jewish life. The program will continue next year.

Representatives of BBYO, formerly B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Camp JCA Shalom, Moving Traditions, JQ International, Shalom Institute, Stephen S. Wise Temple Freedom School, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles and the Westside Jewish Community Center are among the first organizations included in this effort. The Federation will have worked with more than 20 organizations by the time the entire initiative concludes in nearly five years. 

“We were looking for diversity,” Shari Davis, director of Jewish education and engagement at Federation, told the Journal. “We were looking for diversity of organizations.”

Each of the organizations will receive between $25,000 and $50,000 from the Jim Joseph Foundation matching grant, according to Jessica Green, director of the L.A. Jewish Teen Initiative.

“The ultimate goal of everything we are doing is to engage as many under-engaged teenagers in some form of Jewish life [as possible],” she said. “And we are doing this from a variety of different tactics. One is expanding the programmatic landscape for teens. … Another is working with teen educators, ensuring they are as highly resourced and trained as possible to meet the diverse needs of teens themselves, and the third is nurturing the L.A. ecosystem, attempting to bridge existing gaps that exist in a city as geographically wide and culturally diverse as this is.”

Shira Rosenblatt, senior vice president of Jewish education and engagement at Federation, said the initiative hopes to counteract the drop-off in Jewish engagement that so often follows a teen’s b’nai mitzvah experience. 

“Many of them see the bar and bat mitzvah as an opportunity for a perfect exit out, and we lose them,” she said. “And we really do believe that a connection to Jewish life — in the broader sense, a connection to community — can offer resources and insights and support for teens in a way that can be tremendously beneficial to them.” 

The funds also are being used to train leaders in Jewish organizations to become more effective teen educators and to engage the teens themselves to become participants in the conversations about Jewish life. 

Conn, for his part, said that the mere convening of Jewish leaders is important for the larger effort of engaging youth.

“It is creating in L.A. a network like we have never seen, in terms of how we can better serve teens across the city.”

Following public outcry in response to a community-wide call-to-action email sent July 21 by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, on Aug. 6 Federation Board Chair Leslie E. Bider and President and CEO Jay Sanderson sent a second email with the subject line “An Acknowledgement and a reaffirmation [full text at the bottom of the story].” Stating that the Iran Agreement is “complex, ” this email acknowledged a variety of opinions within the Jewish community on the deal, in contrast to the first email, which asked recipients to lobby Congress, saying “it is imperative that our elected officials hear our voice.” 

“The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles respects the diversity of opinion among serious and committed members of our community, including among our own Board members,” the Aug. 6 email states.  “We are committed to fostering civil discourse based upon mutual respect and a willingness to listen to all sides to better understand and appreciate these difficult and complex issues.”

The email also stated, “Our Federation reaffirms our role as the convener of the community.” 
  
In an interview immediately following the email’s release, Bider declined to explain why the Federation had released this second statement .

“I believe these statements speak for themselves, and I believe the statement’s complete,” Bider said. “It states what it states.” Sanderson was not immediately available for comment.

The second email is 125 words in length, compared to the more than 300 words of the earlier statement. Bider defended its brevity: “My name is at the bottom of it. If I wanted it longer I would’ve made it longer. If I wanted it shorter would’ve made it shorter,” he said. He added that the statement was “agreed upon by the board of directors, and we have a role as a convener in the community, and we’re gong to work with the community.”

The response to the proposed deal has included letters published in the Journal from two lists of rabbis, one list strongly condemning the proposed deal and another supporting it. Many influential community members said it was not the role of Federation, as an umbrella organization, to take a stand on the issue. 

Richard Sandler, a member of Federation’s executive committee and the incoming chair of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), defended Federation’s July 21 missive [full text below], saying members of the L.A. Federation’s communications staff drafted the letter that the executive committee (which has 20 members) submitted comments on. Fourteen members of the executive committee approved the final version, making the L.A. the third major American city where a Federation explicitly opposed the deal, joining Miami and Boston. Jewish Federations in Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix and South Palm Beach, Fla., later also issued similar statements opposing the deal.

The Iran agreement requires Iran to commit to not building a nuclear weapon for a period of 10-15 years and to submit to inspections in exchange for the lifting of sanctions by several countries, including the United States. A group of nations, known as P5+1, reached the agreement with Iran in Vienna, Austria last month. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been among the most outspoken opponents to the deal, which he views a bad deal for Israel and for the rest of the world. A recent Jewish Journal poll reported that a majority of American Jews supports the agreement.

Aug 6. statement: 

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the “Iran Agreement”) is a complex and much discussed document which is causing emotionally charged debate in Congress and throughout the United States, including in our own Jewish community. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles respects the diversity of opinion among serious and committed members of our community, including among our own Board members.  We are committed to fostering civil discourse based upon mutual respect and a willingness to listen to all sides to better understand and appreciate these difficult and complex issues.  Our Federation reaffirms our role as the convener of the community.  Over the coming weeks, we will be working with our synagogues and communal partners to help facilitate discussion and debate as we move forward.

Leslie E. Bider, Chairman of the Board and Jay Sanderson, President & CEO

July 21 statement: 

As you know, this summer Congress will be reviewing the Iran nuclear agreement and it is imperative that our elected officials hear our voice. Below is our statement on this matter of national security. Please contact your member of Congress today — the time is now.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles joins with Jewish communities across the country in urging Congress to oppose the joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s Nuclear Program, signed on July 14, 2015.

The proposed agreement with Iran is not a partisan issue; it impacts the security of the United States, the stability of the Middle East, the future of the State of Israel and the safety of every Jewish family and community around the world. This Iran deal threatens the mission of our Federation as we exist to assure the continuity of the Jewish people, support a secure State of Israel, care for Jews in need here and abroad and mobilize on issues of concern.

Our Federation wants a diplomatic solution that ends Iran’s nuclear program. We recognize the efforts of the Administration to reach such an agreement. We regret and are gravely concerned that the proposed agreement allows Iran to remain a threshold nuclear state, does not allow for “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, and offers immediate rather than gradual sanctions relief without requiring Iran to address the military dimensions of its nuclear program.

The proposed agreement releases Iran from arms embargos in five years and ballistic missile sanctions in eight years. Iran’s past behavior gives us reason to be concerned that these deadly weapons will be shared with terrorists including Hamas and Hezbollah and will hasten the creation of an Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.

As Americans and Jews who yearn for peace and are invested in the future of our children and grandchildren, we must voice our concerns about an agreement that will destabilize a fragile region. We encourage members of our community to raise their voices in opposition to this agreement by contacting their elected representatives to urge them to oppose this deal.

Congress has until September 18th to review the agreement. That means that by acting promptly, you can start the Jewish New Year knowing you made your voice heard when it counted.

Thank you,

Leslie E. Bider, Chairman of the Board and Jay Sanderson, President & CEO

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles released a statement July 21 expressing strong opposition to the recent nuclear agreement reached in Vienna on July 14 between Iran and the United States, European powers and China, also known as the P5+1.

“We encourage members of our community to raise their voices in opposition to this agreement by contacting their elected representatives to urge them to oppose this deal,” Federation’s statement said.

The email sent out by Federation came four days after two other major Jewish Federations — in Boston and Miami — urged Congress to reject the agreement and asked community members to urge their elected representatives to scuttle the bill. Congress has until mid-September to vote on the nuclear agreement. 

If the agreement is approved, the U.S. would join the United Nations and European Union in lifting nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in return for a temporary curb on that nation’s nuclear weapons program. If it is rejected, Obama would almost certainly veto the bill, which would then require a two-thirds majority in Congress to override the veto. If Congress reached that two-thirds majority, then all U.S. sanctions against Iran would remain in place even though the U.N. and E.U. ones would be lifted.

The L.A. Federation’s public opposition to the nuclear agreement particularly stood out given that it rarely takes such explicit stands on major issues. Federation president and CEO Jay Sanderson said during a telephone call just before he boarded a flight on July 21 that this is the first time he remembers Federation taking a public stand on such a major issue since his tenure began in 2010.

“This is a very unique time,” Sanderson said. “After reading it several times and talking to leadership, we felt like it was important for our Federation to make a statement about how we feel about this, its impact on the United States of America and its potential negative impact on the State of Israel.”

The email sent out was five paragraphs long and urged Congress “to oppose the joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s Nuclear Program.” 

The Federation’s statement also said that while it wants a “diplomatic solution” to Iran’s nuclear program, the terms of the deal “will hasten the creation of an Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.”

“The proposed agreement allows Iran to remain a threshold nuclear state, does not allow for ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, and offers immediate rather than gradual sanctions relief without requiring Iran to address the military dimensions of its nuclear program,” the statement read. “The proposed agreement releases Iran from arms embargos in five years and ballistic missile sanctions in eight years.”

On July 14, after the agreement’s announcement by the P5+1 and Iran, the Jewish Federations of North America released a statement that neither endorsed nor opposed the agreement but instead urged Congress “to give this accord its utmost scrutiny.”

Sanderson said the L.A. Federation decided to publicly oppose the agreement after he and other officials had time to read the bill and consult with outside experts, including local politicians, whom Sanderson declined to name.

“We’ve been concerned and monitoring the situation for a very long time and spending time talking to our local Congress people and to other people involved in this process,” Sanderson said. “We only did this now when we felt this was an important moment for our community.”

Asked how he thinks a congressional vote (and veto override) to reject the nuclear agreement with Iran would impact the political landscape, Sanderson responded, “I’m not in a position to comment on what if Congress takes this agreement down and what happens afterward.

“No matter what happens, we felt it was important to make a strong statement at this critical time,” Sanderson continued. “It’s important to sometimes stand up.”

On Tuesday, a New York-based Birthright Israel alumni group sent an email to all of its members urging them to lobby Congress to reject the nuclear arms agreement between Iran and the United States.

The email, however, does not speak for the national and global Birthright Israel organization, according to the latter’s president.

[POLL: Do you support the Iran nuclear deal?]

The rejection appeal was spelled out in a mass email to the membership, using the logo of the Birthright Israel Foundation, which appealed to members to “Help the State of Israel by contacting your congressman and senator and requesting that they reject this deal and override President Obama’s veto of their decision.”

The non-profit Birthright Israel Foundation underwrites the program of sending young Jewish adults from the United States and around the globe for 10-day organized trips to Israel to strengthen Jewish identity, communities and ties to Israel.

Rebecca Sugar, executive director of The Alumni Community, said that the appeal had been emailed to some 35,000 former participants of Birthright Israel, residing primarily in New York City, but also in parts of New Jersey and Connecticut.

Sugar said that she was very happy with the decision to launch the appeal to Congress and hoped that other Jewish organizations would follow suit. “This is an existential moment for Israel and we should all care about that,” she said.

She noted that the alumni group had not consulted with the Birthright Israel Foundation or its leadership before launching and publicizing the appeal to influence Congress.

There is no similar alumni group anywhere else in the United States, and Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, confirmed that no such group exists in the Los Angeles area.

He estimated that 35,000 to 40,000 former Birthright Israel participants reside in Los Angeles County.

David Fisher, president of the Birthright Israel Foundation, headquartered in New York, confirmed that he had received no advance notice of the action by the alumni group, which he described as a separate organization, with no ties to the foundation.

Asked whether the alumni group’s initiative might be interpreted as an intervention by his non-profit organization in a highly emotional political issue, Fisher declined comment.

Rabbi Evan Goodman, executive director of UC Santa Barbara’s Hillel, was concerned when annual funding allocations from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles were cut year after year, beginning in 2011. But he wasn’t surprised.

After all, officials from the two organizations had come to a new funding agreement in 2011 after Federation announced a new policy that limited allocations to groups within the borders of Los Angeles County. Santa Barbara Hillel, which is 104 miles from Federation’s headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard, sits 70 miles outside the Los Angeles County line. 

So Hillel and the L.A. Federation, its largest single donor until recently, according to Goodman, agreed that through 2014, the final year of their relationship, Federation would gradually reduce its annual support in order to give Hillel time to find other donors to fill the impending gap.

Santa Barbara Hillel’s budget has ranged from $535,000 in the 2010-2011 school year to $687,000 in the 2014-2015 school year. In 2010, Federation gave Hillel $150,000 but gradually reduced that amount year after year until 2014, when it gave $35,000. Goodman said that most of the funding was for general expenses and operations, but that from year to year some of it was tied to specific grants and programs.

“It was over a 50-year relationship that was terminated at that point,” Goodman said. “It’s still a challenge for us to replace the unrestricted dollars that were coming to us from L.A. Federation.”

So far, Goodman and Hillel have managed, thanks, in part, to a major grant, not from The Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara (which gives about $20,000 per year to Hillel), but from a Jewish Federation 3,000 miles away, in Boston. The Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP) serves not only that metropolis’ Jewish community, but also pro-Israel campus programs in New England and across the country, including at the University of Florida, the University of Maryland, The Ohio State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and now UCSB.

Its campus initiative, known as IACT (Inspired, Active, Committed, Transformed), aims to capitalize on Taglit-Birthright programs. It recruits students who are less involved in the campus Jewish community for Birthright trips, and then follows up with them regularly upon their return to inspire them to increase their engagement in Jewish and pro-Israel activities.

“[We are] trying to engage the non-low-hanging fruit, those the least likely to walk in the doors of a Hillel,” said Cheryl Aronson, CJP’s vice president.

CJP launched IACT in 2007 at three schools in the greater Boston area, only to expand the program to 12 more schools across New England, and then five schools nationwide. Aronson said CJP plans to launch the program at seven more colleges in the near future. 

“Birthright is a gift, and we have the opportunity to take advantage of it,” Aronson said. “UC Santa Barbara is a great site for us because there are so many students who are marginally affiliated.”

Goodman said that CJP’s grant for IACT to Hillel for the 2014-2015 academic year came to about $100,000, which includes the cost of UCSB’s on-campus IACT coordinator, Rafi Schraer, 25, an alumnus of San Diego State University and a former engagement coordinator with the Hillel at the University of Vermont. Goodman said Hillel’s goal for the upcoming Birthright trip in the summer is to sign up 120 UCSB students, 80 percent of whom IACT will aim to regularly engage in Jewish and Israel programming following their return.

But, while Goodman envisions Hillel’s relationship with CJP as being an ongoing and productive one, he remains concerned about the impact that the loss of funding from the L.A. Federation will have on a Hillel that he said reaches about 900 Jewish students per year on a campus that has among the highest percentage of Jewish students of any school in the University of California system.

“[The] IACT program allows us to delve deeply into one area of tremendous interest for us, and that is Israel and Birthright,” Goodman said. “Our biggest issue is asking ourselves the question, can we continue to provide the services we provide at the level we’re providing for the students who are here with this loss of funding?”

He said that in past discussions with Federation about their ongoing relationship, he made the case that large numbers of young Jews from Los Angeles attend UCSB, benefit and grow from their experience at Hillel, and then return to Los Angeles. Goodman estimates that about half of UCSB’s Jewish population is from Los Angeles.

Jay Sanderson, L.A. Federation’s president and CEO, said he felt it “didn’t make sense” that the organization was spending time on Hillel in Santa Barbara, when Hillel 818 — which serves CSU Northridge, Pierce College and Los Angeles Valley College — could use more attention.

“There’s a limited amount of things we do,” Sanderson said. 

Asked to respond to Goodman’s point that many L.A.-area students attend UCSB, benefit from the Hillel, and then return to L.A. (some of them going on to work in Jewish professional life), Sanderson said that the same logic could be applied to universities even farther away from Los Angeles. 

“The truth is there’s a large number of Jewish students [from Los Angeles] that go to the University of Michigan,” Sanderson said. He added that Santa Barbara Hillel could use the Jewish Federations in both Santa Barbara and Ventura.

“Their funding is a small portion of our needs,” Goodman said referring to the Federation in Santa Barbara, and noting his gratitude for the decades-long relationship between Santa Barbara Hillel and the L.A. Federation. He added, though, “Santa Barbara’s Federation does not have the capacity to fund at that level.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara’s executive director, Michael Rassler, said in a Feb. 24 interview that Santa Barbara Hillel is Federation’s largest single grant recipient in Santa Barbara and that Federation boosted its support to Hillel by 10 percent this year, to $22,000. He made clear, though, that the Santa Barbara Federation is neither capable of closing the gap left by L.A. Federation’s absence nor of matching the support offered by CJP.

“Our Federation is not like the L.A. or the Boston Federation,” Rassler said. “Our total budget is approximately $1.2 million.” 

Santa Barbara’s entire population of about 90,000 is significantly smaller than the Jewish communities in Los Angeles and Boston.

Despite Santa Barbara Hillel’s newly challenging financial environment, Goodman remains optimistic that Hillel will be able to provide what it has in the past for its students — such as weekly Shabbat dinners to more than 100 people — even if its reliable source of core funding is no longer there.

“We’re confident that as long as we get the word out, that we can find people who care passionately about what we’re doing,” he said.

On Sept. 3, 2014, Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, met with the board of Hillel 818 at the home of a Hillel board member and gave an ultimatum:

Fire yourselves and allow Federation and Hillel International to help select new board members and a new director or Federation won’t fund Hillel 818 for the upcoming school year.

As Hillel 818’s largest single donor, Federation annually supplied about $215,000 of Hillel 818’s nearly $300,000 budget, according to Tal Gozani, senior vice president for young adult engagement at Federation. To lose that would be financially crippling for a Hillel that serves Jewish students at CSUN, Pierce College and Valley College — a four-year university and two two-year community colleges, with an estimated combined population of 8,000 Jewish students.

One month earlier, on July 31, Hillel 818’s director Judy Alban had resigned only a few months after being promoted by her board from the post of interim director. She left when she learned the reason Federation wasn’t approving any of her grant requests was because Federation officials disapproved of her promotion and had decided they wouldn’t give Hillel 818 any more money until she departed.

Faced with the prospect of Hillel 818 losing its biggest donor just before the start of a new school year, Alban resigned, and, despite the hesitation of some board members to go along with Federation’s plan, the board agreed to dissolve in September, with Federation allowing only a few members to join the new board. 

Among those who remained on the board after the turnover is Jody Myers, a Jewish studies professor at CSUN and coordinator of the Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program. She confirmed in a phone interview what Alban told the Journal via email, that Hillel 818’s transformation — which began with Alban’s resignation and reached another milestone last week with the hiring of a new director — was orchestrated by Federation and assisted by Hillel International. 

Myers said she saw no good reason for Federation to force out Alban, who she said collaborated well with key groups at CSUN, including the university’s administration, the Associated Students group (which controls much of CSUN’s funding for student groups), and Chabad. “She was honest, hardworking, and liked and respected by students,” Myers said. “She raised funds; she sought advice from experts. There was no misbehavior. There were no mismanaged funds. There was no crisis.”

But Sanderson said in an interview on Jan. 22 that Hillel 818 was mismanaged, couldn’t support itself financially and was not serving nearly enough of the approximately 8,000 Jews from the combined colleges in the Valley.

“For many, many, many years, those students did not get adequate support,” Sanderson said. “There’s not one person who can tell you that that was an effectively run Hillel.”

Hillel 818’s annual budget has been about $300,000, according to Rabbi David Komerofsky, who served as Hillel 818’s interim director during the six-month transition. He believes it should be three times as much.

The bottom line from Sanderson and Federation was, according to Myers, that “the board was told ‘you need to fire yourselves.’ And so we did. We didn’t have a choice.”

Myers said Sanderson warned at the Sept. 3 meeting that Federation would establish its own alternative leadership if Hillel 818’s board didn’t disband.

“[We were told] by Jay Sanderson that Hillel 818 will be shown more generosity by Federation in the future if you do this,” Myers said. But even after the summer turnover, Hillel didn’t receive any money from Federation until December, when it got $60,000, and then another $60,000 in January, in addition to the $30,000 that Federation paid Hillel International for Komerofsky’s services and travel expenses. Hillel 818 had to run only on whatever was already available in the meantime. “We had money left over, because Judy Alban actually raised some money and ran a very tight ship,” Myers said.

Komerofsky, who lives in San Antonio and is Hillel International’s associate vice president for advancement, has traveled to Los Angeles about once every two weeks since September. On Jan. 22 Hillel 818 announced David Katz as the new executive director. Katz is finishing his tenure as the assistant director of the University of Pittsburgh Hillel. Komerofsky will continue in a part-time role until Katz arrives in April.

“This past semester has been difficult without a permanent on-site executive director; there wasn’t the kind of stability for success,” Komerofsky said. “There were events and activities, but they were not reaching enough people.”

According to students who work at Hillel 818, since the beginning of the spring semester at CSUN, attendance already has markedly increased, with at least 30 students attending most events, significantly more than the average attendance at fall semester events, perhaps a promising sign of things to come.

Emma Collosi, a CSUN senior and a student representative on Hillel 818’s board, said she was surprised when she was informed last summer of Alban’s departure, but believes Federation’s involvement will ultimately help the organization. “I feel like we’re bouncing back from the loss of Judy, and we’re coming back stronger.”

But for the first half of the school year, the story was different. Hillel 818 was staffed only by an Israel fellow, a few interns and 23-year-old program director Kevin Gobuty, who had come to Hillel 818 in January 2014 and was thrust into the position of de facto day-to-day director after only a few months on the job. Gobuty declined to comment for this story.

He resigned on Jan. 21, the day before Katz was introduced as the organization’s new executive director. Katz previously served as assistant director at the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillel, where he also worked with Jewish students at two other universities in Pittsburgh, a similar dynamic to what he’ll face in trying to engage Jewish students from the affiliated commuter schools across the San Fernando Valley.

Rob Goldberg, Hillel International’s vice president, said that Hillel International had worked “hand in glove” with the L.A. Federation since early 2013 in planning the transformation of Hillel 818. “It’s been an extraordinary model of cooperation between Federation and Hillel in terms of how we strengthen Jewish life on campus,” Goldberg said in a phone interview.

Although Hillel International has helped transform other campus Hillels, including those at Cornell, Pennsylvania State and Tulane universities, Goldberg said that in-depth cooperation with a local Jewish Federation is less common.

“This one at 818 went faster than almost any that I’ve seen or been a part of,” Goldberg said. “I think it’s because of the model. Jay [Sanderson] and [Hillel International CEO] Eric [Fingerhut] were in sync.”

In the last semester, though, without a director and with acting staff, Hillel 818’s programming at CSUN was far below normal levels. 

“The whole leadership change, in general, put a lot of stress on the staff, and it wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been,” said Zohar Achiasaf, a sophomore and an intern at Hillel 818. She said that, over the last several months, Federation has worked on-site at CSUN through Megan Kanofsky, Federation's campus activities coordinator. Kanofsky attended many events and helped by collaborating with students and staff.

Myers characterized the previous semester as a “crisis” created by the leadership gap that Federation imposed on Hillel 818.

“All sorts of things have not been happening, even though we get Federation help and Hillel International help,” Myers said, listing a number of items that had fallen through in the fall semester. There was supposed to be a Birthright trip in January, but that didn’t happen; Shabbat dinners were less frequent than normal; the website and server were down for weeks at a time; and the Facebook page was rarely updated.

Goldberg said that Hillels in transition often experience a temporary slowdown in terms of programming, but that he prefers to take the “long view.”

“The long view is let’s strengthen the infrastructure, let’s get the right personnel, let’s make sure there’s financial stability, let’s put together a group of volunteer leaders to serve as a board who will help advance the organization,” he said. “The program will follow. It all really rests on having a great director.”

Sanderson said he took what he called an uncharacteristic “personal interest” in overseeing the changes at Hillel 818, discussing with Hillel International’s Fingerhut throughout the process how to move forward. He said, however, that “the board of directors at Hillel 818 chose to reconstitute itself and recognized that they did not have appropriate professional leadership.” 

“I feel like the leadership needed to come from the top,” Sanderson said of his involvement.

Sanderson said Hillel 818’s previous leadership “did not understand the needs” of its students. He did not explicitly name Alban, but rather cited “personnel doing the job” as not succeeding in reaching Jewish students at three commuter schools. Alban said she did not recall ever speaking with or meeting Sanderson.

“We have partnerships with organizations, and we’re responsible for donor money, and we’re responsible for the community,” Sanderson said. “So we don’t invest in places where we question how the organization is being run.”

“Hillel 818 has been underfunded,” Komerofsky said. “It’s kind of a cycle that you can’t reach enough students because there’s not enough money to hire the staff to be able to reach them, and then, conversely, there’s not that compelling story to talk about how you’re able to reach so many students — that raises more dollars.”

“We’re trying to get Hillel 818 off of that treadmill.”

Myers said some of Hillel 818’s troubles in raising enough money to support a larger program stem from the fact that CSUN is a commuter school, and the majority of its students do not come from wealthy families.

“People give to the Hillels where their kids are students,” she said. “Well, CSUN has a student population whose parents typically do not have those excess funds.” And with that handicap, she said, Federation’s policy of “not sufficiently” supporting “core” operating expenses, like salaries and overhead, only makes things harder.

The ideal, Myers said, would be for Hillel 818 to be able to raise more money from parents of current students and from alumni, but she said that, at least this year, that’s not a feasible way to raise the money it needs.

Sanderson said Hillel 818 should rely more on alumni and less on Federation, and he hopes that, in 20 years, the group will have developed the types of relationships it needs with alumni.

Myers, though, countered that building an alumni donor base is made difficult when there isn’t money to pay for employees whose primary job is to fundraise.

“Who’s going to pay for the fundraiser or for the person in the office to reach alumni? Who’s going to do that? That’s an operational expense,” Myers said. 

Until about four years ago, local Hillels were funded by the Los Angeles Hillel Council (LAHC), a now-defunct group that gave Hillels core, lump-sum donations — as opposed to grants for specific programs, in large part through Federation support. 

Between 2008 and 2010, every dollar of Federation’s $2.7 million in campus funding went to LAHC. That dissolution overlapped with a major transition in how Federation funds Jewish groups, a transition process completed by the beginning of the 2014-15 academic year that now requires groups to apply for grants for specific programs in line with Federation’s goals. 

Although the new grant policy creates a method for innovative and new programs to find capital, Myers said that it nevertheless makes it difficult to fund good programs that don’t need change, as well as to raise money for more staff that could, for example, focus on fundraising.

Myers emphasized that she looks forward to working with Katz, the new executive director, and to “seeing more generosity” from Federation, which she said Sanderson promised in September. 

Still, what she’s seen since summer 2014 concerns her: “Does the Federation know enough to engineer our specific campus programs? It’s the job of the new director and the Hillel 818 Board to do that, with the support of the community.”

And while she’s hopeful about Hillel 818’s potential for future growth, she regards this past fall semester as a sort of lost one, and one that didn’t serve the needs of Jewish students at Hillel 818’s three main campuses.

“I feel really badly for our students,” Myers said. “I think they deserve more.”

*****

For the record: 

–A previous version of this story implied that David Komerofsky's trips to L.A. ended upon the hiring of Hillel 818's new executive director, David Katz. Komerofsky will in fact be continuing in a part-time role as interim director until Katz begins in April.

-Hillel 818's significant increase in program attendance is since the beginning of spring semester in mid-January, not since the beginning of fall semester.

-Kevin Gobuty started at Hillel 818 in Jan. 2014, not Jan. 2013.

Seventeen yahrzeit candles were displayed on the bimah at Sinai Temple on Jan. 14, where about 300 people gathered to pay homage to lives lost too soon. Each wick represented a victim of the recent attacks in Paris.

“Living in Los Angeles, it’s sometimes easy to forget that we’re part of a greater Jewish people,” Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which organized the event, said in a later interview with the Journal.

But he said the previous week’s events in France — the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and subsequent killings at a kosher supermarket — evoked a sense of “global responsibility” in Jews around the world and that “a memorial service felt like the right response.” 

The intimate service began with opening remarks by Les Bider, Federation board chair. 

“We feel responsible for every Jew, from Los Angeles to Paris to Tel Aviv,” he said.

Immediately following the attacks, Sanderson said he and fellow community leaders started a dialogue with the Jews of Paris. In collaboration with the Jewish Agency for Israel and other Federations across the country, the L.A. Federation helped donate approximately $100,000 to Jewish Parisian institutions.

“It was assessed that the immediate need was to ensure that every Jewish institution [in Paris] was safe and secure,” Sanderson told the Journal.

Bider’s speech was followed by the American and French national anthems, performed by Cantor Tifani Coyot of Temple Isaiah. Axel Cruau, consul general of France in Los Angeles, and David Siegel, consul general of Israel in Los Angeles, also took the stage.

The French diplomat said the best answer to terrorism is staying united and true to our values, and he saluted recent remarks made by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

“He spoke the truth,” Cruau said. “He said that France was at war — not at war with religion, not at war with Islam, but at war with terrorists, jihadists and radicalists of Islam.”

Siegel’ focused on acts of darkness and light. 

“It is a dark day when the simple act of going to work in a magazine, attending a Jewish day school, or shopping at a grocery store becomes an act of courage,” he said. 

But amid this darkness, he continued, there were extraordinary heroes: the French security personnel who rescued hostages; Yohan Cohen, a young Jew who was killed while trying to grab a terrorist’s gun; and Lassana Bathily, a 24-year-old Muslim from Mali, who saved Jews by hiding them in the supermarket freezer.

Continuing the theme, Sinai Rabbi David Wolpe recited the 23rd Psalm. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” After the recitation, Wolpe said, “The most important word in this beautiful psalm is ‘walk.’ … We do not stay there; we grieve, we mourn, but we don’t give up.”

He continued, “Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not be afraid because to be afraid is to give into the darkness and our tradition and our faith.”

Sanderson led the candle-lighting ceremony, calling out the names of elected officials and community leaders to light the yahrzeit candles. One by one, individuals, including Los Angeles Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Assemblyman Richard Bloom, L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz and Temple Akiba Rabbi Zach Shapiro, walked onto the stage. The room fell silent, filled only with the sound of a lighter catching flame.

After all the candles were lit, Clara-Lisa Kabbaz, school president of Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles, read the names of the 17 victims. Rabbi Sarah Hronsky of Temple Beth Hillel, Rabbi Morley T. Feinstein of University Synagogue and Rabbi Eli Herscher of Stephen Wise Temple also took part in the service. Cantor Emeritus Joseph Gole of Sinai Temple sang “Hatikvah” and “Oseh Shalom” with the audience as his choir.

Sitting in that audience was Danielle Salusky, a congregant of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades. Born and raised in Paris, she reminisced after the memorial service about her personal connection to the tragedy, which took the lives of two cartoonists she knew.

“I grew up with this magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris and I’ve known them since 1968,” she said. “I knew [Jean] Cabu and [Georges] Wolinski, the two oldest cartoonists from the magazine, and it’s terrible and it’s horrible.”

Salusky and her husband were in Paris not long ago, visiting family. 

“We came back from Paris Monday night and this happened Wednesday morning, and I wanted to go home and I wanted to be there with everybody. I’ve been crying for the whole week,” she said. 

Emotional and silent, she finally added, “So we’re here.”

At the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly (GA), held this year in National Harbor, Md., Nov. 9-11, thousands of Jewish professional and lay leaders filled a conference center and hotel to listen to famous and powerful Jews, including two Supreme Court justices and the Israeli prime minister (via telecast), sit through breakout sessions and, most important, network with one another and share ideas that have been tested at Jewish Federations across the country.

Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles President and CEO Jay Sanderson came here this year with seven staff members and 17 lay leaders; for him, this year’s GA caps a year in which the L.A. Federation’s leadership predicts it will reach its fundraising goal of $50 million and its outreach goal of 20,000 donors by Jan. 1.

In two interviews with the Journal during the GA, Sanderson spoke with his usual candor about what the GA does and doesn’t offer, about the L.A. Federation’s successes and shortfalls in 2014, and his frustration at the inability of Israeli Americans in Los Angeles and the local Federation to create a partnership that will help further integrate Israeli Americans into the local Jewish community.

Jewish Journal: What do you see as the goal of the GA?

Jay Sanderson: This is the one time that the Federation system can tell its story to national and international lay and professional leaders.

JJ: What’s the story?

JS: There’s no organization in the world like the Federation system. There just isn’t. There hasn’t been. You’re talking about billions and billions of dollars. You’re talking about the establishment of the State of Israel, the rescuing of Soviet Jews, of Ethiopian Jews. That’s done through the Federation collective.

JJ: Is Federation losing relevance as Jews become increasingly disengaged from Jewish communal life?

JS: There are more Jews involved in Federation in L.A. today than there were 10 years ago. OK? That’s factually correct, not anecdotal — based on number of donors and number of people in leadership, and meaningful leadership. Those are things you can measure, and we have a dramatic, and growing, increase in engagement and involvement. 

Now that doesn’t mean that the vast majority of Jews are not — in your generation for sure — are not disengaged; they are disengaged from institutional life, not Federation life. They are disengaged from synagogues, they are disengaged from the Anti-Defamation League and [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] — they are disengaged. We have a majority of Jews disengaged in institutional organizational Jewish life. That is a communal challenge, that’s the Pew [Research Center] report. 

I can say in Los Angeles that we are focused on addressing that. I’d say most organizations say it, but we have strategies to do it. So the GA is — right now you’re going to meet mostly the people who drank the Kool-Aid, some of the people who make the Kool-Aid, some of the people who bathe in the Kool-Aid. You’re not going to see a lot of people here who think there’s too much sugar in Kool-Aid.

JJ: Changing topics: 2014 is almost done. What’s a goal L.A. Federation has accomplished that you’re proud of, and what’s an area where you came up short?

JS: One accomplishment was we wanted to make the Federation a better place to work. We’ve started all these programs for people to feel more engaged, and we’ve given a lot of people opportunities to do other things. So there’s been a lot of people that work at the Federation that are moving into new opportunities within the building. 

JJ: Where have you come up short in 2014?

JS: NuRoots, our initiative for young adults, is behind — timing-wise — where it should be. I thought we’d be further along in NuRoots. We launched the fellows program, we had four engagement fellows working in the community, building micro-communities in four geographic locations, and we are moving in other directions. But I think we are six to nine months [behind] where I thought we would be now. It’s gone slower than I had hoped in terms of development of the project. 

I wish we were further along in our relationship with the Israeli-American community in Los Angeles. We’ve had a lot of fits and starts trying to work with the [Israeli-American Council], and they are growing nationally and they are very successful, but I feel like there’s not the kind of partnership with the Jewish community that I was hoping for when I started this job. I think some of it is cultural challenges between the two institutions, and I don’t think it’s a big enough priority.

JJ: For either side?

JS: Maybe for either side. I think it needs to be a bigger priority for both sides.

Sitting in a circle in coastal northern Israel, listening to a group of 46 American and Israeli Jews share their coming-out stories — stories of anxiety and relief, shame and pride, heartbreak and celebration — I realized that this trip was going to be different. 

It was my seventh time staffing a Birthright Israel trip, and this was a group of lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, queer and ally (LGBTQA) young adults, supported and organized by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ L.A. Way Birthright Israel Experience initiative and in partnership with JQ International, an organization dedicated to creating opportunities and visibility for LGBTQA Jews in Los Angeles.

I had agreed to staff this particular trip because I view myself as an ally to the LGBTQ community. I believed I would learn something new by seeing Israel through an LGBTQ lens, and I wanted to support a group of people who, I imagined, hadn’t always felt they’d had a seat at the proverbial Jewish table.

We started the trip like any other, with the craziness of reviewing Birthright Israel rules and jamming in dozens of site visits per day. Save for the fact that we didn’t divide rooms by gender, and we allowed more flexible and sensitive rooming guidelines, I didn’t initially think there was anything different about this trip. I assumed that just like other trips, at the end of 10 days, the participants would say their tearful goodbyes; some of their lives would be changed and many would resume as normal; and most of them would save a warm place for Israel in their hearts.

But when we visited Yad Vashem, I began to understand how special this group was. As we toured the facility, we became acutely aware that the majority of our group members would have been doubly persecuted during the Holocaust. In fact, as members of the LGBTQ community they would have been marginalized, vilified, brutalized and murdered even before the Jews. In Hitler’s world, and that of the Nazi fascists, they would have been the first to go. Also, this group was all too aware of what murder, suicide and violence look like today. More than any other group I’ve staffed, this group could relate to being hated simply because of who they are.

That evening, we decided to welcome Shabbat at the Western Wall. As we headed to the main pavilion, I began to worry that maybe they wouldn’t like this place. That regardless of the energy around the Western Wall, perhaps the politics surrounding it, the severe gender divides — women right, men left — would be too much of a shock and would jar them out of the utopia of egalitarianism we had created on our trip. I wanted to protect my participants, possibly to help them maintain the generous and inclusive image of the Israel they had experienced thus far. I didn’t want them to think that they might not have a place at every table in the global Jewish community; I wanted this trip to show them something beautiful that they never could have imagined. We had strived to create a haven of inclusion — would it all go to waste once we stood before one of the most significant sites for the Jewish people?

As we approached, I saw a huge group of soldiers singing Shabbat songs together on the plaza — men and women, all in uniform. I wish we could do that, too, I thought to myself. 

At that moment, the ring of soldiers opened up to welcome us. We flooded into the circle, joining hands with dozens of young Israelis, weaving into their group. In an instant, we formed a circle of more than a hundred young people, holding hands, singing songs, dancing and jumping, and shouting for joy in front of the Western Wall. From all corners of the world, all religious backgrounds, all sexual orientations and gender identities, we were living the dream of the Jewish people. It was truly a holy Shabbat experience.

More than any other trip I have staffed, this group understood the dichotomies of victimhood and victory, persecution and celebration, sorrow and joy, shame and pride that have so long shaped and defined the Jewish people. The collective Jewish narrative mirrored so many of their personal narratives, and to experience that realization with them has become one of the great privileges of my life.

Returning from our miraculous 10 days together, I have realized that the true value of Birthright Israel is to help young Jews from around the world and from all different backgrounds connect their stories to the Jewish story. It is an opportunity for them to sit at a Shabbat dinner table and be welcomed for exactly who they are — often for the first time in their lives. It is a moment of discovery — of the self and of community — of joining hands with their brothers and sisters from around the world, and of connecting to the shared pain and joy of our people.

Annie Lascoe is West Coast regional director for Masa Israel Journey, an organization that connects young adults with study, internship and volunteer opportunities in Israel.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Operations-Valley Bureau hosted the first-ever Jewish Community Forum on June 18 as part of an ongoing series of dialogues between the department and minority communities.

More than 100 city officials and members of the Jewish community attended the forum at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana. Many questions centered around traffic safety, but officials also fielded more community-specific queries about security and holidays. Capt. Steve Carmona of the North Hollywood Area Station said the department steps up security around temples on the Sabbath and makes an effort to educate patrol officers about Jewish holidays. 

“We really like to give that to the officers so that they know and respect and understand the issues during those days,” he said. “We like to build that relationship.”  

Ivan Wolkind, Federation chief operations and financial officer, said the Jewish community needs to be mindful of the potential for hate crimes and acts of terrorism. One way of doing so, he said, is through Federation’s Community Security Initiative, which provides community members with a real-time alert system and offers free safety and security training to Jewish organizations.

“We as a community are, more and more, investing our own energy, our own time, and realizing that it’s our responsibility to look after our security as a community and as individuals,” he said. “We cannot do that without the partnership of LAPD.”

L.A. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield noted that the public security issue was dramatically shaped by the 1999 shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, in which a white supremacist opened fire at the complex.

“You can’t have lived through that experience here in the Valley and not have it always on your mind that the security issue is not just an academic issue,” Blumenfield said. “It’s very real.” 

A 2012 report by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations found that 89 percent of religious hate crimes were committed against Jews, representing a 12 percent increase from the previous year.

Paul Cohen, commander of Jewish War Veterans Post 603 (San Fernando Valley), said he was pleased with the department’s promise to send officers to the post for safety talks. At the forum, Cmdr. Jon Peters promised to attend the meetings if no other officers were available.

LAPD chief of police Charlie Beck, L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer and Israel’s Consul General in Los Angeles David Siegel all spoke at the forum.

Jackie Burg, who lives in Valley Village, said she was appreciative of LAPD’s efforts to build a relationship with Jewish residents. “What I really like is that they’re reaching out to the Jewish community so that there can be cultural sensitivity,” Burg said. “They let us know that our voices can be heard and that we can make them be heard.”

 — Nuria Mathog, Contributing Writer

Eric Kingsley has been elected regional board chair of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

“There will always be ignorance and evil in the world, but the ADL allows us to know that when those people emerge, the ADL will be there to condemn the conduct, comfort the victims and use the event to educate the rest of society,” Kingsley said in a statement.

Kingsley, 42, is a graduate of the ADL young professionals community leadership program (Glass Leadership Institute) and a member of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.

Kingsley is a founding partner at Encino law firm Kingsley & Kingsley, where he focuses on employment issues, and a graduate of Loyola Law School and UC Santa Barbara. The election was announced during the ADL Pacific Southwest Region’s annual meeting on June 10. He is succeeding Seth Gerber.

From left: Casey Federman, Tim Prather, Jason Alexander and David Schwartz at the Tower Cancer Research Center’s Cancer Free Generation poker night. Photo by Tiffany Rose/Getty Images for Tower Cancer Research Foundation

The Tower Cancer Research Foundation’s (TCRF) inaugural Cancer Free Generation poker tournament and casino night took place June 7 at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, and the evening drew hundreds of Jewish leaders, celebrities and others.

Actor Jason Alexander was among those who participated in the fundraiser, which raised more than $150,000 in support of cancer research. The “Seinfeld” star joined television, sports and film stars at the poker tables.

Jewish community supporters who turned out included Casey Federman, a Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles donor and president of Cancer Free Generation, the young leadership division of TCRF that organized the event.

Also present was Beit T’Shuvah Board of Directors’ chairperson emeritus Nancy Mishkin, who is the chairman of the board at TCRF, a Beverly Hills-based nonprofit. The foundation, according to its website, “provides grants for clinical trials, innovative research, caring patient support and community education to promote more effective treatments for cancer and blood disorders.” 

From left: Journalist Richard Stellar, Emmy-nominated composer Sharon Farber and Holocaust survivor/actor Curt Lowens at “An International Evening of Music and Remembrance,” honoring Lowens. Photo by Anjani Lynn White

Seated onstage at Beverly Hills Temple of the Arts at the Saban Theatre, Curt Lowens appeared before an audience of more than 1,000. As he spoke about his experience as a Holocaust survivor, his voice cut through the room with unexpected power. 

“I look up to the heavens, and I wonder why,” he said. As he raised his gaze upward, the orchestra transformed his sorrow into the smooth, crisp notes of bows drawn gracefully across strings.

Lowens is known for his achievements as an actor; he has appeared in more than 100 television shows and movies, including “General Hospital.” But the June 13 commemorative program celebrated his off-screen accomplishments: In addition to living through one of the worst tragedies in human history, he was involved in a Dutch group that rescued some 150 Jewish children, and he saved two American Army Corps fliers whose plane had been shot down.

The highlight of the evening was the Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of “Bestemming: Concerto for Cello, Orchestra and Narration.” The concerto was written by Emmy-nominated composer Sharon Farber. For Farber, the piece, whose title means “destination” in Dutch, had extra significance — her great-grandfather, a cantor from a Greek community, was among the victims of the Holocaust. “This is for the ghosts of my extended family,” she said.

The concerto’s four movements — “Shattered,” “Escape,” “Resistance” and “Triumph” — traced Lowens’ path from a child watching the Nazi regime destroy his community to a man reflecting upon a great human tragedy. Lowens narrated each section with words written by Farber, Richard Stellar and Beth Wernick. 

Lowens received two additional honors on this night. Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz declared June 13, 2014, “Curt Lowens Day,” while Ken Howard, president of SAG-AFTRA, issued a special proclamation honoring Lowens for his courage and humanity. 

Actor Bill Smitrovich, the event’s master of ceremonies, at one point asked the Holocaust survivors in attendance to stand and be recognized; about a dozen rose to their feet, to tremendous applause. 

Dignitaries from Israel, Germany and the Netherlands shared their thoughts on moving forward in the wake of the Holocaust at the ceremony, which was co-sponsored by numerous local organizations, including Temple of the Arts and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Carolyn Ben Natan of Israel’s Consulate participated, and Bernd Fischer, German consul general in Los Angeles, said he felt great sadness and shame at the role his country played in the Shoah. 

“I represent Germany, and in the name of my country, the generation of my father and my grandfather committed unspeakable crimes or were bystanders and let this happen,” he said. “However, I also have feelings of gratitude and hope.”

— Nuria Mathog, Contributing Writer

Moving and Shaking highlights events, honors and simchas. Got a tip? Email ryant@jewishjournal.com.

Some of Southern California’s largest Jewish organizations plan to stay away from the Beverly Hills Hotel, suspending future events at the landmark venue owned by the state-run Brunei Investment Agency.

Their boycott was spurred by recent Sharia additions to the tiny Muslim country’s penal code, including the threat of execution of homosexuals, adulterers and anyone who insults the Quran or Muhammad.

The pink stucco luxury hotel is owned by the Dorchester Collection, a luxury hotel operator that belongs to Brunei’s government, and is therefore an asset of Hassanai Bolkiah, the sultan and absolute ruler of the tiny, oil-rich, South Asian country. Dorchester also owns the Hotel Bel-Air, a smaller luxury hotel in nearby Bel-Air.

At the same time, one Jewish organization, the Beverly Hills Jewish Community, announced that it will continue its relationship with the hotel. The Orthodox synagogue has held Shabbat and holiday services in the hotel for the past 15 years.

A popular location for high-end dinners, fundraisers and galas, the Sunset Boulevard hotel last week faced protests and announcements that it will be shunned by many local nonprofits and associations as well as celebrities.

Jay Sanderson, president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los 

Angeles, told the Journal on May 7 that the Federation will not plan any events there.

“The values of the owner of that hotel and the country in which he has power goes against everything we believe in as Jews and as Americans,” Sanderson said, adding, though, that he is not calling for a general boycott. “It’s one of these situations where, right now, given the public stand, I think it would be very difficult for any community organization to do an event there.”

Kehillat Israel, a Reconstructionist Pacific Palisades synagogue, has relocated a large May 20 event that would have been at the Beverly Hills Hotel to the Beverly Wilshire. Mike Lurey, Kehillat Israel’s president, wrote in an email to the congregation that the event had to be moved “if we are to be true to the values upon which our synagogue was founded,” even at the risk of losing the synagogue’s nearly $100,000 deposit. 

Protesters outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel on May 5. Photo by Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

“That is a small price to pay for the importance of taking a firm stand against such atrocities,” Lurey wrote.

Aviva Family and Children’s Services already has announced that it also will change  the venue of its May 31 gala from the Beverly Hills Hotel to the Beverly Wilshire, posting on its website that it made the decision “in light of recent reports concerning the decision to adopt Sharia Law by the property’s owner.” 

The Jewish Free Loan Association announced that its June 11 gala will move from the Beverly Hills Hotel to the Luxe Hotel, just a few miles west on Sunset Boulevard.

Dorchester CEO Christopher Cowdray said in a statement that widespread event cancellations would hurt the Beverly Hills Hotel’s 650 employees, saying that the hotel has already lost $2 million in canceled events and alleging its employees could lose about $8 million in gratuities from functions held at the hotel.

“We question why the Beverly Hills Hotel is being singled out,” Cowdray’s statement said, pointing out that many Muslim governments that impose Sharia have interests in American brands.

Although the sultan announced the new legislation in October 2013, its first stage was implemented on May 1, introducing fines and jail terms for offenses such as pregnancy outside marriage and failure to attend Friday prayers. The second phase, which will be rolled out in one year, will impose whipping and amputations for theft and alcohol consumption by Brunei’s Muslim citizens.

By 2016, Brunei’s citizens could be subject to execution for adultery and for insulting the Quran or Muhammad. Although 80 percent of Brunei’s 400,000 citizens are Muslim, many of the sultan’s decrees will also apply to the country’s substantial Christian and Buddhist minorities, in particular a prohibition against proselytization.

In the neighboring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, strict Islamic law also governs many elements of society, but Brunei is the only South Asian country to have adopted the criminal element of Sharia.

Beverly Hills Hotel employees during a public hearing where the Beverly Hills City Council voted on a resolution to pressure the government of Brunei to divest the hotel in Beverly Hills on May 6. Photo by David McNew/Reuters

Bolkiah, 67, has been Brunei’s absolute ruler since 1967. Head of an oil-rich country that is also the world’s fourth-largest exporter of natural gas, he was named by Forbes in 2007 the world’s wealthiest royal, worth $22 billion. He is, all at once, Brunei’s prime minister, defense minister, finance minister and head of religion.

A British protectorate until 1984, Brunei joins a long list of Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, that impose brutal punishments such as amputations for theft and execution for adultery and homosexuality. 

Brunei’s embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.

Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno was among recent protesters in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and his presence helped the issue go viral. Hollywood stars Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Osbourne had previously announced on Twitter that they would not stay at either of the sultan’s local properties until his new laws are repealed. Then, last weekend, the Feminist Majority Foundation canceled its planned May 5 annual event at the hotel, instead leading a protest across the street, holding the event later that evening at the Hammer Museum.

Leno’s wife, Mavis, chairs that foundation’s campaign for Afghan women, who have suffered for years at the hands of the Taliban. Appearing alongside protesters on May 12, Jay Leno said, according to the Los Angeles Times, “We get so upset when a team owner says something inappropriate,” referring to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. “Here are people being killed, stoned to death … it’s just a matter of priorities.”

Activist Dolores Huerta, left, protesting Brunei's new strict Sharia law penal code outside the Beverly Hills Hotel on May 5. Photo by Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

Feminist Majority Foundation Executive Vice President Katherine Spillar told the Journal in an interview on May 8 that she does not support a general boycott of the hotel, and said the sultan’s Los Angeles properties are just the current target in the group’s broader fight against anti-female laws in nations such as Brunei, Afghanistan and Iran. She termed the new laws in Brunei as “Taliban-like,” rather than as Sharia.

“We don’t have an issue with the hotel,” Spillar said. “We have an issue with the Sultan of Brunei.” Although the Feminist Majority Foundation won’t be holding any events at the hotel in the foreseeable future, Spillar expressed her gratitude to the hotel for refunding the group’s $70,000 non-refundable deposit for the event.

Jewish groups that have canceled their events told the Journal they are still in discussion with Beverly Hills Hotel about refunds.

Unite Here Local 11, a hospitality workers union that has butted heads for years with the formerly unionized Beverly Hills Hotel, also participated in the picketing. Shortly after its purchase by the sultan in the late 1980s, the hotel closed down and renovated, reopening in 1995, with a non-unionized staff.

Charlie Carnow, a research analyst with the union, said that, in addition to raising awareness about laws forbidding homosexuality and condoning marital rape, Local 11 has previously raised red flags surrounding the sultan’s relationship with Iran, his refusal to recognize Israel and his support of Iran’s nuclear program.

“We are calling for a boycott of both properties,” Carnow said of the Dorchester Collection’s two local hotels. “The best way forward is for these hotels to be sold so they can be returned to be properties that people feel comfortable going to.”

The Beverly Hills Hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei. Photo by Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

On May 6, the Beverly Hills City Council passed a legally non-binding resolution urging Brunei’s government to “divest itself of the Beverly Hills Hotel and any other properties it may own in Beverly Hills.” Hotel staff attended the meeting in uniform and opposed the council’s resolution, highlighting how a boycott of the hotel could hurt their livelihoods.

One local Jewish organization, the Beverly Hills Jewish Community, a congregation led by Rabbi Yossi Cunin, a Chabad rabbi, plans to continue its weekly Shabbat services inside the hotel, which they have held there for more than a decade.

“Never will you feel uncomfortable in that hotel as a practicing Jew,” Cunin said. “They do a terrific job for travelers all over the world who come to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel who are shomer Shabbos. 

“We have had our shul there for more than 10 years,” Cunin continued, “and have had nothing but respect and cooperation from the hotel.”

Federation’s Sanderson also conceded that the situation is not simple when considering the local impact.

“It’s not so black-and-white when you have our neighbors who work in the hotel,” Sanderson said. “It’s a business in Beverly Hills, and it employs people. It’s a very complicated problem.”

On the morning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due in Los Angeles for the beginning of a three-day trip to California, Israel's Foreign Ministry labor union went on strike to protest its wages, shifting management of Netanyahu’s trip, at the last minute, from the local consulate to the Prime Minister’s office.

But that didn’t stop the Israeli leader from attending the March 4 premiere of “Israel: The Royal Tour,” the latest in the PBS television series hosted by CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg, in which heads of state give Greenberg a tour of their country.

The premiere was held at Paramount Studios and was hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

In the hour-long show, [Related: CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg discusses “Israel: The Royal Tour” before the show's premiere Mar. 4 in Los Angeles.