Tel Aviv — There is barely a line at Counter 15 of Israeli passport control, but still an older guy manages to try and cut me, even though his wife clearly sees that I\’ve been there first. He pretends his line was for my counter, although it\’s clearly diagonal, for the empty Counter 16.
Hilla Hayo, 16, was not a victim of the Dolphinarium attack in Tel Aviv on June 1, 2001 — but she could have been. The teenager, who, along with four classmates, spent 10 days at New Community Jewish High School in West Hills this October as part of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation\’s Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership, canceled her plans at the last minute the night of the explosion. She and her pal were planning to go to Pacha, the Dolphinarium\’s neighboring club whose patrons were also struck when the bomb was detonated.
\”My best friend got sick and we decided not to go,\” remembered Hayo.
In our studies at Beth Chayim Chadashim\’s (BCC) Queer Jewish Think Tank, we are not throwing out the halacha, nor are we bending and twisting the texts to suit our own devices (\”A Conservative Challenge,\” Jan. 17).
The bombs that ripped through crowds of Israelis and foreign workers in Tel Aviv this weekend may have saved Yasser Arafat from making some tough decisions.
Internal and external pressures have been building on Arafat to allow comprehensive reforms of the Palestinian Authority — reforms that effectively would undermine the PA president\’s grip on power.
But after Sunday\’s deadly attack by the Al-Aksa Brigade, a terrorist group from Arafat\’s own Fatah movement, Israel refused to allow Palestinian officials to attend a conference on PA reform in London or congregate in Ramallah to consider a draft of a Palestinian constitution.
Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that there is no need for Palestinian officials to travel abroad to conferences when they have the power at home to end terrorist attacks, but don\’t use it.
Unintentionally, however, the Israeli moves may have allowed Arafat to dodge a political bullet, at least temporarily.
If RockFour comes bearing an agenda, it is decidedly more in tune with the Beach Boys\’ Brian Wilson than with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
When the Jewish actor-comedian wanted to do something to help brighten the lives of Israeli children wounded in suicide bombings, he contacted his friend Stephen Berman, president and COO of JAKKS Pacific toy company.
The collaborative effort resulted in a donation and shipment of more than 500 toys to hospitals in Tel Aviv, each with a personal note from Sandler included. However, while the celebrity\’s name was probably the most recognizable to the children, it was the lesser-acclaimed Berman whose massive donation made the whole thing possible.
It was Yuval Lotam\’s first time in many years at a rally. \”I always mean to go, but somehow I never get moving in time,\” he said sheepishly.
A Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles reception welcomed 18 students participating in a cultural exchange sponsored by the Federation\’s Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership. Fourteen students from Tel Aviv\’s A.D. Gordon School and four students from their paired partner, Northridge\’s Abraham Heschel Day School, gathered to reflect on their experience as the Israeli students — all ages 13 and 14 — wrapped up their 10-day visit to Los Angeles.
Smith and Rabin were part of an 11-member group from Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles that had a student exchange with counterparts from Tel Aviv\’s Zeitlin High School.
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