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Editorial cartoon: To bomb, or not to bomb
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Rachel Heller
Shorter summer challenges camps
“Early-start” is finally starting. After delaying implementation of a new, earlier school calendar last year, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will begin classes three weeks sooner this fall for the majority of students.
At 95, Kip’s Toyland owner ready for more fun and games
On a chilly Monday morning in late November, the sunlit patio outside Kip’s Toyland in the original Farmers Market was awash in anticipation. Reporters and city officials milled about, and passers-by with cameras hovered among the tables and chairs.
The big tent: Jews, Muslims, Christians celebrate spirituality in a shared sacred space
Whirling Dervishes, an elaborate feast and a lecture by a prominent Muslim scholar – Musallah Tauhid’s joyous celebration of its move to a new home in 2008 heralded good times ahead for the Sufi Muslim worship group.
JCA Shalom Color Wars for adults who are kids at heart
Each summer, thousands of gleeful children at Jewish summer camps everywhere split into color-coded teams and compete against their peers in water balloon tosses, three-legged races, baton runs and the inevitable sing-off.
Tal Sheyn
Tal Sheyn likes to say she built her fashion career “from Z to A.”
Wrap mind, and body, around Holy Days prep
Traditionally, the weeks leading up to the High Holy Days are a time of account settling for Jews, marked by personal reflection, repentance and prayer.
The shul that fits
It happens most Friday nights. I close my laptop, pack stray work-related thoughts into my mental filing cabinet and begin to decompress for the weekend, when an insistent pang starts tugging at my brain. Something, I’ve long felt, is missing.
Religious schools add family programs, new apps
Hebrew schools across Los Angeles are starting to look less and less like, well, Hebrew school.
Kosher, allergy-free bakery brings sweet indulgence downtown
The time: evening, after a delicious fleishig dinner. The place: outside the local cupcake shop. The contenders: one kosher nosher versus a towering heap of buttercream frosting. Sweet tooth, thwarted.
Paint by soul
The walls of Ora Tamir’s home are covered with color-soaked landscapes, masked faces and dystopian, dreamlike structures. Just don’t ask her what any of it means.
Leo Baeck’s community of elders bridges the generation gap
About 40 seniors gathered in a sunny community room at Leo Baeck Temple on a Wednesday morning as Fredda Wasserman, adult program director of Our House: Grief Support Center, discussed the nuances of mourning the loss of a loved one. Many clutched tissues and dabbed at their eyes throughout the presentation.
Valley and Proud: Valley Savvy
If it’s happening in the San Fernando Valley, chances are Karen Young knows about it. Not only that — she’s probably already been there, chatted with the bigwigs and written up a whip-smart recap for her thousands of online readers.
Educator realizing lifelong dream to become rabbi
Dvora Weisberg doesn’t think she’s had any unfair advantages over her fellow rabbinical students graduating from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) this month. Well, maybe a few. “I do have a considerable number of years over most of the other students,” Weisberg, 51, admitted recently. That, and she’s also the director of HUC-JIR’s School of Rabbinical Studies.
VBS’ beloved adult Hebrew tutor has a way with words
Yossi Dresner has coached teens for their b’nai mitzvah at Valley Beth Shalom (VBS) for 40 years. He has run the adult b’nai mitzvah program for 26. As ritual director, he also conducts VBS’ morning and evening minyans and coordinates holiday services.
Police bike tour seeks funds for Israeli cyclists
“We ride for those who died” — that’s the motto of the national Police Unity Tour (PUT), a grueling, three-day bicycle ride in which teams of police officers from across the United States pedal to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. The annual spring event is held to honor the memory of officers killed each year in the line of duty.
LAUSD schools accountable to new law
Los Angeles public schools could be poised for revolution due to a controversial state law gaining momentum locally. The landmark “Parent Trigger” law, passed by the California government in January 2010, grants parents at failing schools the power to force their district to make sweeping changes in a bid to improve school performance. Petitions are now under way at several Southland schools, but the law remains little known among many Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) families who could benefit from it most, according to Los Angeles education reform advocate Larry Sand.
Grant contest will award Jewish day schools new classroom technology
Jewish day schools in the Los Angeles area have until April 1 to take part in a unique contest that will award grants of up to $25,000 for cutting-edge classroom technology and programs.
Single mom by choice
Thirty-two: That was the deadline, and Danit was sticking to it. That was the age, she’d decided, when she would finally heed her maternal impulse – husband or not. Danit (not her real name) had always known motherhood was her calling. For years, she worked at her mother’s day care center in Israel, relishing the chance to surround herself with children. But after a long-term relationship ended in a failed marriage, she found herself in her early 30s, alone and facing some grim truths. Her dream of a fairy tale family was slipping further and further out of reach.
1,500 raise voices in song to remember Debbie Friedman
As the piano struck the first notes of Debbie Friedman’s “Elohai N’Shama,” Cantor Linda Kates paused before the approximately 1,500 people gathered in the sanctuary at Valley Beth Shalom (VBS) and recalled a story about how the late singer-songwriter energized a crowd of Jewish students while teaching them the song.
Pearl’s passions: magnet honors slain journalist
Ask anyone who knew him: Daniel Pearl loved music. He joined bands in Atlanta, Paris and Mumbai, relishing the way a good melody can draw people together. So imagine how the slain Wall Street Journal reporter, killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, might have felt watching the second-period choir class at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School as its members stand, roll their shoulders back and belt out a lilting rendition of “Seasons of Love” from the musical “Rent.”
Debbie Friedman honored by peers
The music of Debbie Friedman energized generations of Jews across denomination lines. This weekend, a memorial concert to be held in the late singer-songwriter’s honor will attempt to do the same through a celebration of Friedman’s popular tunes.
New Jew to relocate to larger, permanent West Hills campus
“We now have a ‘makom’ — a sacred space in which to house our values,” said Bruce Powell, head of school at New Community Jewish High School, shortly after the deal was announced that New Jew may have finally found a permanent home — at the site of its first home.
LAUSD’s new calendar impacts camps, families
This summer was going to be the one — the one when Prissi Cohen’s daughter, Tillie, would finally get to enroll with a friend in a late-summer overnight session at Camp Ramah. But now Cohen’s not so sure. If Tillie, 10, winds up going to a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) middle school in the fall, she would have to be at her desk two days before camp ends.
Pingpong therapy brings net gains to Alzheimer’s patients
Usually, Fryda Dvorak needs a cane to move around. But put her behind a pingpong table and you wouldn’t know it. Dvorak, 86 and living with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, returns volley after volley with her confident lob, sometimes gritting her teeth in concentration as she reaches to hit the ball. She’s so focused on the game that she refuses to put the paddle down for a breather when her instructor, Irina, suggests they take a break.
NCJHS to move to larger, permanent West Hills campus
“We now have a ‘makom’ — a sacred space in which to house our values,” said Bruce Powell, head of school at New Community Jewish High School (NCJHS), shortly after the deal was announced that NCJHS may have finally found a permanent home — at the site of its first home.
‘Glee’-ful Magevet bringing sound of (Jewish) music to L.A.
They might not have Kurt Hummel or Rachel Berry among their members, but Magevet, Yale University’s Jewish a cappella group, exudes plenty of “glee.” Round them up at a Jewish historical site and they’re liable to belt out a spirited tune. They’ve serenaded passersby on the streets of New York, the beaches of Florida and in the Jewish Quarter in Prague. In fact, there are few places where the New Haven, Conn., group isn’t prone to spontaneous fits of crooning. “We all love to sing, especially with each other, so we burst into song rather often,” Daniel Olson, the club’s student manager, explained.
Children’s library in jeopardy
Dozens of children (and their parents) flocked to The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles building on a recent Sunday, drawn to a cheerful corner of the first floor where two performers led a tambourine-studded sing-along about barnyard animals.
Diverse Daniel Pearl magnet nurtures leaders
Ask anyone who knew him: Daniel Pearl loved music. He joined bands in Atlanta, Paris and Mumbai, relishing the way a good melody can draw people together.
Sisterhood strikes gold with adult ed
In a brightly lit classroom on a Wednesday morning, Rabbi Deborah Silver leads a standing-room-only crowd of pupils in an absorbing dissection of Psalm 27.
Students and learning suffer in ‘Race’
When Jasmine Jafari sat down to write her college application essays this fall, she was gripped by a troubling fear.
Mishkon Tephilo’s members look to shul’s future
In the early 1960s, when Jewish delis, kosher butchers and bakeries lined the Venice boardwalk, Temple Mishkon Tephilo was Aliza Wine’s neighborhood social hub.
Pray with your feet, end genocide
As a high school freshman, Katie Hoselton decided to join an extracurricular club called “End Worldwide Genocide.” She didn’t know much about the issue at first but read up on conflicts in Eastern Europe and Africa and became a passionate activist for the cause.
The joy of teaching
After teaching for 50 years, Adina Bender is looking forward to retiring this June — sort of.
Teens build bridges, from So Cal to Uganda
Tefillah, sports, study sessions and even a dance — the four-day youth convention on Nabugoye Hill in late January was almost like a typical United Synagogue Youth (USY) convention, according to the three Southland USYers who traveled to Uganda to help run the event.
The house that David built
David Cygielman was a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, a business major and the energetic president of the school’s Hillel, when he found out his father didn’t have long to live.
Lindsy Seidel: A Hunger to Supply Relief
From the cheerful campus of Milken Community High School, Los Angeles’ Skid Row can seem worlds away. But the realities of homelessness and squalor plaguing L.A. city streets were brought home for student Lindsy Seidel last year on a “life-changing” visit.
Merrill Alpert: Inspiring Youth
Sometimes, in the midst of Shabbat morning davening with her USYers, Merrill Alpert will fall silent for a few moments and listen to the teenagers’ voices.
A Brief History of Jews in Public Schools
With the many LAUSD schools having spotty reputations, and given the array of private schools to choose from, Jewish support for Los Angeles public schools in recent years has been at best tepid. But that wasn’t always the case.
Healing the World, One School at a Time
When Robyn Ritter Simon first checked out Canfield Avenue Elementary School for her sons in 1995, she didn’t like what she saw.
Jewish Home-Schooling Advocates Band Together
On a typical Monday, school starts with an hour of davening for Shari Rosenman’s two children. They next spend two hours with a music teacher and work with online grammar and math curricula before unwinding with lunch and recess at a local park. Swim team practice and an art history DVD round out the evening, with Rosenman and her husband joining their kids on the couch to share in the learning.
Industry Pros Point Way to Post-Addiction Creativity
Some recovering addicts call it their “moment of clarity.” Others call it their “bottom.”
Nachshon Reaches Out to Unfulfilliated
In an airy Encino dining room, Cantor Judy Greenfeld instructs 12 women gathered around a lace-covered table on how to relax. Eyes closed, she tells the women to lean back in their chairs, abandon stressful thoughts and picture themselves on a pristine white beach.
One God or More? Ancient Texts Can Raise Questions of Practice
When asked if we’re monotheists, most Jews will hardly flinch before answering, “Yes.”
Immersed in Hebrew, Ulpan Learners Make Great Strides
As Charles Goldsmith became more active in his synagogue, he yearned to know more about the meaning of services and the sacred texts. So the retired physician, 66, decided to enroll in a Classical Hebrew course at the Whizin Center’s Hebrew ulpan.
Performances, Classes Spark Connections and Joy
Celebrated Jewish thinker Mordecai Kaplan, whose philosophy helped shape American Jewish University (AJU), once wrote that one of the most powerful ways to bond a community is through the performing arts.
Up Next: Clinton, Bush Share Wexler’s Stage
It’s T-minus five months to one of the most high-profile headlines in the history of American Jewish University’s (AJU) annual lecture series: On Feb. 22, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are slated to share a stage at Universal’s Gibson Amphitheatre, with AJU President Robert Wexler probing their perspectives on world affairs.
Rabbi-Novelist Mines Ancient Treasure
Of all the prophets, Jeremiah has always been the personal favorite of Rabbi Zoë Klein. So in a series of two fictional works, the prolific pulpit rabbi and fiction writer did him a favor: She gave him a lover.
Innovative Religious Schools Take Hold
When the Silverlake Independent JCC (SIJCC) opens its new Jewish Learning Center on Sept. 22, it hopes to enroll a new kind of student along with the target crowd of grade-school children: their parents.
Orthodox Students Thrive at Milken
Barbara Schloss had gone to Orthodox day schools her whole life. When it came time for high school, she figured, why change?
Service Honors Victims ofTel Aviv Attack
In the flicker of a yahrtzeit candle, congregants and community guests rose and draped their arms around each others’ shoulders. As Cantor David Berger strummed the first chords of “Oseh Shalom,” men and women began to swa
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Who is that masked Jewish man? It’s Hero Man!
David Filmore is a mild-mannered filmmaker. A Shabbat-observant Jew from Australia who moved to West Hollywood 10 years ago, he spends his days focused on his production company, Plutonian Films. REMOVE
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The 85-year-old comedy icon signs DVD copies of “The Jazz Singer,” the 1959 television remake that features Lewis as Joey Rabinowitz, a nightclub singer torn between show business and his faith. Wristbands will be distributed at 9 a.m., and Lewis will only sign copies of
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