Our Torah study was enriched by a day in Tel Aviv where we visited some of the projects supported by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles\’ Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership, including the Shevach Mofet School, a high school in which the majority of the students are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Financial wizard Michael Steinhardt is blunt in assessing the future of North American Jewry.
The next generation is \”mostly Jewish ignoramuses,\” Steinhardt said. \”We haven\’t convinced the general Jewish population of the value of a Jewish education.\”
In some religious Jewish circles, Thanksgiving is controversial. The holiday troubles certain Orthodox Jews not because they are unpatriotic — considering how faithful a friend America has been to Israel lately, they are probably more patriotic than ever — but because some believe that the Torah forbids participating in any non-Jewish observance.
This year the group has grown to about 40 students, having built up a community through informal and formal Judaic classes and study partnerships, Shabbatons and a Thursday night \”parsha and pizza\” group.
As the City Council begins it consideration of Redistricting Commission-drawn district maps, a conflict between Valley activists and Jewish interests seems to have been resolved. But as proposed districts are scrutinized and rescrutinized block by block, the question of whether the 5th City Council District will contain three core Orthodox neighborhoods remains open.
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.
Modern Orthodoxy should take up this challenge: to broaden the attractiveness of tradition.
Growing up in Mississippi, the granddaughter of devout Baptist sharecroppers, Delores Gray came from what she calls \”a praying background.\”
The Israeli Film Festival, now in it\’s 15th year, has, in many ways, come of age — in subject matter, directorial style and sensibility.
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