Sokatch is the founding executive director of Los Angeles-based Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), a nondenominational group dedicated, in his words, to \”connecting Jews to the critical social justice issues facing our city, such as criminal and economic justice and interfaith dialogue.\”
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni — all have spoken in Los Angeles recently on the need to confront the Iranian threat immediately and forcefully.\n\nBut I\’m wary.
Briefs
On November\’s ballot, tucked among the local measures affecting only Los Angeles, is curious Measure R, a plan by the Los Angeles City Council to provide each of the 15 council members an extra $570,000 in pay.
All sermons, whether Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, are there to promote something \”good.\” But how do they get there?
One year after \”the storm,\” as New Orleanians refer to Hurricane Katrina, Jewish communal leaders describe the health of the community with certain expected terms — loss, trauma, devastation and challenge.
Many Reform Jews express their connection with the divine through social action and tikkun olam, fixing God\’s world. While all of these are also part of my own life as a Jew, it is study that nourishes my rationalist-traditionalist soul and links me to another realm.
Proponents of gay marriage were \”pursuing a deliberate plan of litigation and political pressure which will not only redefine marriage, but will follow from that to threaten the first freedom enshrined in the First Amendment — religious liberty,\” said Nathan Diament, the director of the Washington office of the Orthodox Union.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.