\”Homelessness is curable and we must cure it,\” Leo Baeck Senior Rabbi Kenneth Chasen said in his welcoming remarks. \”Jews know too well the experience of being strangers and outsiders. We have lived in countless places where there were no homes for us.\”
On Thursday, July 6, at 9 a.m., Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime supporter of Israel, was interrupted twice in attempts to place a call to Eli Moyal, mayor of the Israeli city of Sderot.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa\’s first state-of-the-city speech is likely to put bone and muscle on his school takeover pitch which, up till now, nearly a year into his term, has been theoretical and short on specifics. If Villaraigosa delivers what people all over town have been waiting for, a slew of interest groups will know where they stand and will begin to respond accordingly.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa\’s first state-of-the-city speech is likely to put bone and muscle on his school takeover pitch which, up till now, nearly a year into his term, has been theoretical and short on specifics. If Villaraigosa delivers what people all over town have been waiting for, a slew of interest groups will know where they stand and will begin to respond accordingly.
You didn\’t see many Jews amid the sea of Mexican and American flags during the recent pro-immigrant rallies that filled city streets, but Jews and Jewish groups, in largely liberal Los Angeles, have been advocating on behalf of immigrants, mostly outside the view of television cameras.
Can Los Angeles\’ schools be fixed by a man who loves to be loved, who with his union allies opposed education reform and whose wife is an educator with no presence in the fight for reform?
\”Mayor Villaraigosa said many times during his campaign that he would lead a trip to Israel,\” Weiss said in a phone interview. \”He feels a strong connection to Israel.\”
The still-simmering flap over forged endorsements for Mayor James Hahn is the classic scandal that didn\’t have to be. A little more than a week ago, this incident grew from niche story — something that only Jewish Journal readers might notice — to the week\’s hottest local political fracas, with widespread coverage in newspapers and on radio and TV.
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