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"Every day of freedom is like an act of faith," says Tuvia Bielski, one of three brothers who led a partisan group battling Nazi troops in the forests of Belarus.
In contrast to previous years, there have been no acrimonious controversies so far. Apparently all sides have tired of arguing whether the Palestinian entry should be officially designated as coming from Palestine, the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinian territory, and plain "Palestine" has won out.
The film reconstructs the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on the Fuhrer's life, which, had it succeeded, would have spared the lives of untold thousands of soldiers and death-camp inmates
Steven Spielberg suffered some losses in the Bernard Madoff fraud scandal, though apparently nowhere near a rumored $300 million. However, the famed filmmaker's private Wunderkinder Foundation had some investments with Madoff, though Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy said he was unable to detail the assets or losses of the foundation.
With Israeli resources strained to assure quality training and equipment for the army, navy and air force, the mission of the FIDF and its Israeli counterpart, the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel's Soldiers, is to provide the extras and comforts to relieve the daily pressures of combat service.
". . . I fought in a tank unit, though we didn't have any real tanks in the beginning, so we got some trucks, attached some armor plating and called them tanks . . ."
Those who gulped down "The Reader" in one sitting when the English translation of the German book came out eight years ago will need no inducement to see the movie.
World War II and the Holocaust ended more than 60 years ago, but the subject's fascination for filmmakers as the ultimate moral testing ground for participants on both sides only intensifies with the passage of time.
Block is known to his colleagues as a workaholic and multitasker but also wins praise for his patience and optimism. He displayed his patience and humor during an hour-long interview at his UCLA office and needs all his optimism to tackle the problems at hand.
"I'm treated with particular respect by the Arab delegates, because I am a woman," the 67-year-old ambassador said. "Or maybe it's my gray hair."
Once he read the amazing story of the Bielski brothers, who not only fought the Nazis, but also struggled with hostile local populations and anti-Semitic Soviet troops, Zwick gradually discovered that there were hundreds of similar reports on Jewish resistance fighters.
With 200 guest rooms, the Peninsula -- one of an international group of five luxury hotels owned by Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, Ltd. -- is certainly not the largest hotel in the city, but it hosts more than its share of celebrities and A-list events.
Starting next week, 50 synagogues and 50 mosques throughout the United States and Canada will get together for three days of "twinning" and intensive discussions.
The prosecutor reads the charges against God: murder, collaboration with the enemy, breach of contract with His chosen people. Setting: A barrack in Auschwitz, with some 20 Jewish prisoners, half of whom will be gassed in the morning.
The presidential race makes the headlines, but there's lots of emotion, energy and money left for the 12 statewide propositions on the California ballot. As in McCain-Obama contest, Jewish voters are sharply split between the Democratic/liberal majority and the Republican/conservative minority.
A tall African-born woman, raised a devout Muslim but now one of Islam's sharpest critics, last week calmly dismantled some of the favorite shibboleths of American liberalism.
The Israeli Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Simon Wiesenthal Center can build is long-planned Center for Human Dignity -- Museum of Tolerance on a contested site in the middle of Jerusalem
When Rabbi Naomi Levy conducted Kol Nidre services this year, her congregation numbered 200,000, stretching from Canada to Colombia and from Japan to Norway
The oddly titled film combines state-of-the-art animation, an anti-war documentary theme and a psychoanalytic approach to recover the memory of a traumatized Israeli soldier.
From Iran to Venezuela, petrodictators are using billions of our dollars to fund terrorism and propaganda against the United States and Israel, noted Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center.
Same-sex marriage is likely to remain a hot-button issue in the presidential race, with Prop. 8 backers looking to Sen. John McCain for ideological support, and opponents to Sen. Barack Obama.
The outdoor event, under extensive security, was an old-fashioned lift-your-voices, wave-the-flag celebration, with a little bit of everything. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa rang the rafters, pledging his city's unbreakable bond with Israel and ending with a rousing "Am Yisrael Chai."
The wife of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani paid a visit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Friday, toured its Museum of Tolerance, and recalled her friendship with the Jews of her Kurdish hometown
Adat Chaverim is a small congregation of secular, Humanistic Jews, whose brochure proposes that "reason rather than faith is the source of truth, and human intelligence and experience are capable of guiding our lives."
"Religion is not primarily about faith in God; it is about community, identity, heritage and being of service to others," he said. "We Humanists must also do more to meet these needs, rather than complain about what others believe.
"I really, really believe that I have the skills, the courage, the conviction and the know-how to make a difference in the peace process in the Middle East."
Not to worry, though, there is, as always, a Jewish angle. In this case, it's two films, "Shalom Ireland" and "Grandpa . . . Speak Russian to Me," set for Saturday evening, Oct. 4.
Korobkin, the Yavneh spiritual leader, said he was very pleased with the mayor's recommendations and that the fault for last year's incident lay mainly in the way DBS was structured, as well as a certain lack of sensitivity.
In 2000, the pope undertook a pilgrimage to and formally recognized the State of Israel, inserting a note between the stones of the Western Wall.
The blue and white flag with the Star of David will be raised for the first time in front of the Israeli Consulate on Sunday, Sept. 28.
Rabbi Leonard Muroff was driving to his home in Agoura Hills after conducting services at Temple Ner Tamid in Downey, when he heard that families of those thought to have been on the train were told to assemble at Chatsworth High School and wait for news.
More than 60 years have passed, yet French filmmakers are still wrestling with their country's less than heroic role under Nazi occupation during World War II.
In August, she joined 240 other North American olim, or new immigrants, on an El Al flight chartered by Nefesh B' Nefesh (Soul to Soul), arriving to an emotional welcome in Israel.
What is the dream of the future president of the United States? For the answer, check out your e-mail or a pocket-sized, 36-page booklet called "Jewels of Elul IV," which is subtitled "29 Dreamers and Their Dreams." Among the dreamers who sent in their thoughts and hopes are the presumed presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
"Every election, I get calls from around 15 people asking my advice on how to vote in specific judicial races," said Wapner, whose son, Fred, is a current judge
"I had been a student, wife, mother, news executive and caregiver, but I had always promised myself that one day I would be an actor."
" . . .We had a visit from a high-ranking West Point officer, who said that his cadets were not only great fans of our show but were actually taking their cues from Jack Bauer. That was very disconcerting . . ."
If elected, one of his top priorities will be California's "quality of life," especially in upgrading the state's infrastructure. "Every one dollar invested in infrastructure adds seven times that amount to the general economy," he said
To Max's surprise and delight, the bereaved widow proves quite amorous, insisting, as do his other female companions, that a man is never too old for some active love-making
"I wish I had 10 percent of the success with the Israeli government as I have with private donors," sighed Moshe Kaveh, the president of Bar-Ilan University.
Israeli producer-director Uri Paster has four movie and theater projects planned this year
Nancy Pelosi and Dalia Itzik, the speakers of their respective countries' legislatures, both talked tough on Iran during speeches to delegates at Hadassah's annual convention in Los Angeles.
"A man should live, if only to satisfy his curiosity." The Yiddish proverb, tacked to the wall of my study, came to mind when curiosity -- and the assignment to entertain my visiting young grandsons -- led me to the Nextbook festival. It's a personal embarrassment, or the fault of the organization's anti-promotional attitude, that I had never heard of Nextbook, or as its logo has it: nextbook>.
An overflowing plate of activities, from Shalom Yoga exercises at 6:15 a.m. to festivities lasting until midnight, will be served up to some 2,000 energetic delegates attending the 94th annual convention of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, in Los Angeles.
In the Israeli film "My Father My Lord," the secular or casually religious Jew encounters a world whose mindset and lifestyle might as well be thousands of miles and centuries away. It is the world of the charedi, or ultra-Orthodox, community, in which every action, every thought, is determined by God's law, as elucidated by the sages.
The new president of the University of California keeps a kosher home, lectures on Maimonides for intellectual stimulation and is an unabashed Israel supporter.
The UCLA professor glides easily across the centuries by way of a construct he labels alternately as digital archaeology, information navigation, hypermedia and time-space documentation.
A member of a four-man homegrown terrorist cell that planned to attack Israeli and Jewish targets three years ago in Los Angeles was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on Monday
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It's beginning to look a lot like you know what, and that's OK, says comedy star Elon Gold. Also: complete coverage of the Madoff scandal, tales of family menorahs, latke recipes, Orit Arfa gets her t-shirt circumcised, and Rob Eshman wishes Jews believed in hell, so Bernie Madoff would go there.
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Parshat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27): It was brief. Jacob, head of the House of Israel, met with Pharaoh, King of Egypt
What else explains the collective amnesia on display?