Rob Eshman

What’s the Status of Jerusalem Under International Law?

Published on March 17, 2010

One Man’s Passover

Published on March 16, 2010

In our house, a man’s place is in the kitchen. That’s the way it’s been for all 18 years of our marriage. I do the cooking, not because I have to, but because I like to. I actually worked as a chef and caterer for years before we met. My wife picks up the domestic slack doing those household chores I don’t enjoy, like everything else. This is an arrangement that has worked out well from the start of our marriage.

American Jewry behaving like teenagers

Published on March 16, 2010

First, let’s establish that what Israel did by announcing the construction of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem during the visit of Vice President Joseph Biden was dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It was dumb because it shifted the focus of the United States and Israel from the most immediate existential threat Israel and the entire Middle East face — Iran — to one of lesser importance, the settlements.

Howard Zinn: Israel was a “Mistake.”

Published on March 11, 2010

The Seismic Jew

Published on March 9, 2010

The last time I saw Christopher Hitchens speak publicly in Los Angeles, he argued against God and religion. This time, delivering the eighth annual Daniel
Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA on March 3, he sounded a warning against a resurgence of anti-Semitism.

Harman Declines Jewish Journal Debate Invite

Published on March 3, 2010

Houses of Mourning

Published on March 3, 2010

In one month, four young lives are gone, each one of them taken in an automobile accident. One after another — it feels less like a coincidence than an attack. For
such loss, grief goes beyond words. You can’t write about it, you can’t not write about it.

Tragedies

Published on February 24, 2010

The year started tragically. When the 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on Jan. 12, it looked as if fate finally had humanity on the ropes. The scale of devastation scoured our hearts. Children crushed by their own classrooms, bodies heaped onto the backs of trucks and ferried out to mass graves. When the president of Haiti said it would take three years just to clear the debris, I wondered how, in an age when attention is measured in nano-spans, the people of Haiti would ever get the help they need.

Love Train [SLIDESHOW]

Published on February 23, 2010

I first met Ed and Bernie Massey 12 years ago when they organized a citywide art project to paint the oil derrick towers at Beverly Hills High School. The brothers, who got hundreds of children in schools and hospitals around Los Angeles to paint brightly colored panels of flowers, then affixed them to the drab green towers. I hadn’t seen the Masseys since, but I thought of them every time I drove down Olympic.

Peer-less

Published on February 19, 2010

The Tabouli Lesson [RECIPE]

Published on February 16, 2010

They say we are all children of the same God, but it’s clear we don’t act like it. For centuries we’ve slaughtered one another in the name of God. We’ve enslaved, oppressed, reviled and ridiculed our fellow men and women because their god just looked at us funny. I belong to a people who, because we chose not to believe in somebody else’s idea of God, suffered 2,000 years of mayhem at the hands of true believers. I’m over it — sort of — but a quick glance in any history book makes me wary of those who say the path of human unity is through the Divine.

Michael Oren

Published on February 10, 2010

This week, Michael Oren kept up a very busy schedule in Los Angeles.

Mayor Jan?

Published on February 5, 2010

Goldstone Versus Haiti

Published on February 2, 2010

If you eat Jewish food you’re likely to get heart disease. If you read Jewish news you’re likely to get whiplash.

The big tent

Published on January 29, 2010

In the early 1990s, when I started work as a Jewish journalist, there was a great fear in the land. Its name was intermarriage.
The 1990 National Jewish Population Survey had just been released, and its central finding — that 52 percent of U.S. Jews who had married in the previous five years had married non-Jews — greatly upset American Jewish leaders.

Clinton: I don’t know what we’d have done without Israel in Haiti

Published on January 28, 2010

Hollywood Zion

Published on January 27, 2010

In Philadelphia over winter vacation, I popped over to see the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of the nation’s best. I got to stand alone before Picassos and Van Goghs. In fact, the only place I had to wait in a line of jostling, snap-happy tourists was to see — Rocky.

Disaster

Published on January 20, 2010

Disasters teach us more about religion than religion teaches us about disasters.

Gribenes: The Joy of Skin [VIDEO]

Published on January 19, 2010

Whatever happened to gribenes?

I still make them every time I roast a chicken or make chicken soup; couldn’t be more simple.

Israel in Haiti

Published on January 19, 2010

Helping Haiti

Published on January 13, 2010

Harman v. Winograd

Published on January 12, 2010

One Shabbat morning several years ago, Dan Shevitz, one of my two favorite Venice rabbis, was walking down Abbot Kinney Boulevard toward his synagogue, Mishkon Tephilo. He came to a narrow stretch of sidewalk in front of Abbot’s Habit, and stopped, not wanting to walk over a large dog standing guard beside its owner.

David Brooks: Israel’s “Astonishing Success”

Published on January 12, 2010

Greeks Condemn Crete Synagogue Arson Attack

Published on January 10, 2010

Too Many Jewish Organizations?

Published on January 6, 2010

LAX TLV

Published on January 5, 2010

The year almost ended with a bang. If not for some brave, smart passengers on that Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam, a Muslim underwear bomber would have succeeded in blowing a hole through 2010.

New Year in Natanz

Published on December 23, 2009

2010 could be the year Iran gets the bomb.

What’s Happening

Published on December 16, 2009

Last week, I met a guy named John who moved out to Los Angeles many years ago, dreaming of Hollywood.

Bad Behavior

Published on December 9, 2009

Elliott Broidy seems like a nice guy. I know he’s a charitable one: As I travel through Jewish L.A., I see his name on synagogue and museum plaques. The last time I saw him was last summer, when we exchanged “Shabbat Shaloms” in a sushi line at a bat mitzvah. Like I said, seems like a nice guy.

Why TRIBE?

Published on December 3, 2009

Why would anyone launch a new publication at a time when every indication is that print is dead and the economy is on life support?

Wind-Down Nation?

Published on November 25, 2009

Ask my wife — every week I come up with one sure-fire, world-changing, patent-worthy invention. My latest is an iPhone app that will tell me a person’s name when I hold the phone up to his or her face. Of course none of these inventions make it past the I-tell-her-and-she-rolls-her-eyes stage. The difference between me, a wannabe inventor, and a real high-tech entrepreneur is I don’t know the first thing about technology. The difference, in a word, is education.

The Prophet

Published on November 18, 2009

Last Friday evening, I arrived early for a Shabbat event at American Jewish University, where I was supposed to interview Israeli writer Amos Oz in front of some 300 guests.

Bibi Then and Now

Published on November 10, 2009

If you heard Benjamin Netanyahu speak at the General Assembly in Los Angeles three years ago, you would have thought, except for the perfect diction, it was a different man.

The Goldstone Follies: Live debate with Judge Goldstone

Published on November 5, 2009

Last year, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a video showing an Israeli soldier shooting a rubber bullet into the left foot of a bound and blindfolded.
Palestinian demonstrator at close range while a lieutenant colonel and other soldiers watched. After an army investigation of the incident, a military court charged the battalion commander with conduct unbecoming an officer.

Tough Guys

Published on November 5, 2009

I arrived in Israel in 1984. I didn’t speak or understand Hebrew, didn’t have a job and didn’t have a friend. In my pocket I had the name of the one person I knew in the entire country: a middle-aged Israeli American woman I had heard lecture on contemporary Hebrew literature at an Orthodox synagogue in Berkeley. After her talk, I mentioned to her that I would soon be moving to Jerusalem. She scribbled down her address and told me to come by for Shabbat.

Claude Levi-Strauss,  Raw, Cooked, Kosher, Treyf

Published on November 4, 2009

The Wall Project: Good Cause, Bad Comparison

Published on November 3, 2009

Chillax

Published on October 28, 2009

Every day, more like every hour of every day, I get e-mails, letters and phone calls crying out that Israel faces dire threat, if not certain doom.

Col. Richard Kemp Testified at U.N. on Gaza [VIDEO]

Published on October 28, 2009

LA Unity Mission

Published on October 28, 2009

Mel Levine: Obama “Well Understands”

Published on October 27, 2009

Obama’s Big Jewish Speech

Published on October 23, 2009

Neda Square

Published on October 21, 2009

Everybody with a cause, everybody angry at a country eventually ends up in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard at Veteran Avenue, waving a poster at passing cars, hoping for a honk. It may not be the most effective form of activism, but at least it tries to reach Angelenos where we live: in our cars.

The Heretic: Q & A With David Sax

Published on October 21, 2009

Rob Eshman interviews David Sax, author of the book, "Save the Deli."

Top Jewish Non Profit

Published on October 20, 2009

Thanks, Chief

Published on October 15, 2009

The way I see it, after a sheriff rides into town, cleans the place up, then rides off into the sunset — those townspeople better be out in the center of Main Street, waving goodbye and choking back tears.

Was Christopher Columbus a Jew?

Published on October 12, 2009

Higher Learning

Published on October 7, 2009

My friend Norma came up to me at the celebration following my daughter’s bat mitzvah and said, “Do you know how special this is?”

Who Killed the Biodiesel Car? [VIDEO]

Published on September 30, 2009

This past summer, the last two Westside gas stations offering 99 percent pure biodiesel closed down their pumps. You can still buy regular gasoline at those stations, but the Great Green Hope of the Millenium, a powerful fuel made from sustainable organic matter, is nowhere to be found. Well, not quite.

Windmueller’s Wise Take

Published on September 29, 2009