When the 2013 JCC Maccabi Games and ArtsFest kicks off Aug. 4 in Orange County, it is expected to attract more than 2,300 Jewish teens from around the world, making it the second-largest iteration of the annual events ever.
Most Jews and Muslims rarely talk — really talk — to one another. This is as true in the United States as elsewhere, a stark reality despite our nation’s vast diversity and the ability of so many different peoples to coexist. It is true also in Los Angeles, a city of strong ethnic identities, long drives and even longer cultural memories.
Being an alter-kacker — Yiddish for someone who’s an “old fart” — is relative. Many of the species, stereotypically, while away summer days at the beach cabana, sporting white shorts and knee-high dark-checkered socks, playing cards with the boys and grumbling about surgeries or high blood pressure medication.
Controller Ron Galperin is City Hall’s new numbers guy, hoping to bring the era of Big Data to the creaking bureaucracy. His plan is to use computers to analyze huge amounts of information as is now done by police departments, baseball teams, other businesses and, infamously, the National Security Agency.
I was alone in a small town in central Cuba, and I had lost the only person I knew. The town was Santo Domingo, and it had taken a full morning of driving to get there. It’s a sleepy, slow-moving place, where American cars from the 1950s share the road with horse-drawn carts — and many of those carts act as taxis.
“Come on! Come on, everyone, we’re here to make mispachah [family].” That was the rallying cry in the crowded courtyard of Wilshire Boulevard Temple on the night of July 20, as well-dressed young women skilled at walking in heels circled boys in button-downs, looking for a man who would make their mothers (and grandmothers) proud.
Los Angeles Jews are often viewed by outsiders as a rootless people, constantly on the move, caged in their cars and with relationships that are both ephemeral and superficial.
Marie Kaufman’s life has been an ongoing struggle to remain connected to Judaism.
Here’s something to help get you through a Southern California summer: an ice cream soda in a chocolate-covered mug.
The Saban Free Clinic, a medical clinic for the underserved, honored Chris Silbermann, founding partner of talent agency ICM Partners, during its 18th annual Golf Classic last month.
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