Last year on the seventh of Av, my cousin, Ayelet, was traveling on bus No. 189 from B\’nei B\’rak to Emanuel with her 10-month-old twin daughters, her 2-year-old son and her mother.
For the past two and a half years, I have been the facilitator of a Yiddish reading class at Santa Monica Emeritus College. We are currently completing the reading in the Sholom Aleichem\’s classic, "Motl, Peyse dem Khazn\’s" ("Motl, Peyse the Cantor\’s Son").
Janet Nabatian tried to answer her cellphone at the busy Santa Monica Farmers\’ Market July 16 at about 1:30 p.m., but the reception was so weak that she had to walk a few steps away from her mother and 7-month-old son to get better reception.
Nabatian, 32, was at the market with her child and 63-year-old mother to buy food for Shabbat. The phone call from her sister in Washington, D.C., saved her life.
Moments later, Nabatian turned her head and saw a speeding red Buick smash into her mother and the baby carriage. Nabatian stared in shock as she saw her mother, Molok Ghoulian, roll over on the ground and her son, Brandon David Esfahani, tossed into the air.
Ghoulian was killed on the spot. The baby was rushed to Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and later transferred to UCLA Medical Center, where he died a day later from brain injuries.
Ghoulian and Brandon, members of the Persian Jewish community, were two of the 10 people killed by 86-year-old driver George Russell Weller, who lost control of his car. As of press time, Santa Monica Police had not decided on what action to take in the case.
Last week at the Santa Monica Farmers\’ Market, I got a taste of what it is like to be an Israeli. Going about the ordinary tasks of life one moment, standing next to a corpse the next.
A poster of Moshe Dayan hung in my childhood bedroom. Growing up in the light of the Six-Day War, I adored this new Jewish hero — tough, cocky, a Jew without fear.
His face peered out this week from every television set in the United States. It was impossible to escape him. It was impossible to stop looking at him. My heart ached, a real heartache. This time, I couldn\’t stop the tears.
Even I\’m allowed. So what if I\’m a cynical journalist who, in a career spanning over 30 years, covered wars, earthquakes, terrorist attacks and grieving families? I always tried to block emotions and hide behind my mask of professionalism.
Last Saturday morning, the mask broke.
For a man who was rational, and with whom one could discuss cause and effect and the logic of doing things one way (the non-inflammatory way) as opposed to another, it always amazed me how he would invariably choose the wrong path.
Typically an outspoken political activist, Rabbi Avi Weiss struggles for the right words when it comes to talking about Ground Zero.
What follows is an edited version of a speech that Judea Pearl, the father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, delivered upon accepting an award on his son\’s behalf from the Los Angeles Press Club on June 22, 2002.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, memories of the tragedy are still fresh in the minds of many Jews.
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