As he danced with a group of Chabadniks, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) swung his body around in circles so jubilantly that his kippah fell off. When one of the others placed it back on Sherman’s head, the congressman grinned.
For Amanda Prosin, Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Sherman Oaks was her Jewish home when she was growing up. She went there for summer camp, learned about Jewish holidays and made lasting relationships. For her, it made Judaism, well, fun.
Four Angelenos are among the 50 American Jews selected by the Forward newspaper for its annual list of newsmakers, which was published on the New York-based newspaper’s Web site on Nov. 12.
California voters turned out in low numbers on Tuesday for a primary that could pave the way for a shakeup of the state\’s congressional delegation following election rule changes and an overhaul of the state\’s political district boundaries.
At 11: 30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 14, Jennifer Niman pulled out of her driveway on Leghorn Avenue in Sherman Oaks. Talking on her cell phone, the longtime San Fernando Valley resident was heading to her job as a real estate agent at Prudential California Realty.
Rep. Brad Sherman doesn’t intend to follow Rep. Henry Waxman’s advice to give up his San Fernando Valley congressional race against Rep. Howard Berman.
Over the past two months, political observers have been keeping close watch on draft maps being released by California’s new, citizen-led redistricting panel. Though Jewish leaders haven’t been actively lobbying the Citizens Redistricting Commission on behalf of the community (see sidebar)…
Laurie Saidiner grew up in the same Sherman Oaks house in which she is now raising her children. But the family that fills this home with Legos and books and the scent of Shabbat dinner today is somewhat different from her childhood family. Laurie, 50, is married to Nina Jacobs, 55, and together they are raising Hannah, 11, and Avi, 7, whom Laurie conceived with the help of a sperm donor. April marks the couple’s 22-year anniversary. This is how the Saidiner-Jacobs family celebrates Shabbat, in their own special way.
“I know why you’re here, and I want to address it, but I think it’s a tempest in a teapot,” Brad Sherman, the Democratic Congressman from Sherman Oaks said Wednesday evening at a town hall at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills. The meeting was called to focus on U.S.-Israel relations.
Since opening in December 1958, Congregation Beth Meier has been a quiet, unassuming little staple of Jewish life near the corner of Moorpark Street and Colfax Avenue. The shul — its name honors not Schimmel, but Mishnah writer Rabbi Meier Ba\’al Ha\’Ness — has about 150 families. While Beth Meier\’s exterior replicates the Tomb of Rachel, its brown, wooden interior intentionally was designed to resemble the Little Brown Church in the Valley, the Sherman Oaks church where Ronald and Nancy Reagan were married. Only on the High Holidays was Beth Meier\’s cozy sanctuary traded for the larger Studio City Theater on Ventura Boulevard, now a Bookstar.
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