Author Page: Beverly Gray | Jewish Journal

Beverly Gray

Ladies, grab your coat and get your Red Hat

Published on May 3, 2007

The first fashion show by the Shayna Punims, a Red Hat Society chapter based at Jewish Home for the Aging's (JHA) Eisenberg Village campus, gave former models an excuse to come out of retirement and provided nervous novices an opportunity to shine among their peers.

Krayzelburg Keeps Swim Program From Taking a Dive

Published on August 3, 2006

Just a year ago, the Lenny Krayzelburg Swim School, headed by the four-time Olympic gold medalist, opened with fanfare and big ambitions at the Westside Jewish Community Center (JCC), a once lively place that in recent years has been seeking to reinvent itself. Living up to the center's dreams, as of late July, Krayzelburg now has 896 students on his roster.

Jews-by-Choice: A Look 10 Years Later

Published on June 1, 2006

Ten years ago, I interviewed a dozen graduates of the Miller program who had followed through with conversion. Although Rabbi Neal Weinberg, who has long directed the program, tries hard to keep track of alumni, many slip out of his database. He was able to supply me with contact information for 10 Jews-by-Choice I had interviewed when I wrote my previous article.

Davening for Dollars

Published on June 1, 2006

Talmud teaches that a righteous act is its own reward. But if that's not inducement enough, a rabbi in Woodland Hills is offering $10 cash plus a Krispy Kreme doughnut to teens who attend his 7 a.m. minyan.

Bar/Bat Mitzvah - Author-Baker Rises to Bimah—at Last

Published on May 11, 2006

Joanne Rocklin is obsessed with food. On her 60th birthday, she began summarizing her life with the essentials: "I love to cook. I love to eat". But it's her passion for writing that has enabled her to come to terms with her life and her faith.

A Young Violinist With a Lot of Pluck

Published on April 13, 2006

As a 9-year-old violinist performing for world-renowned cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, Camilla Tsiperovich was told to call herself Camilla Gadjieva. Her headmaster at the Azerbaijan Conservatory considered this a more suitable name, one that reflected the Muslim heritage of her country. While representing Azerbaijan in international music competitions and spending her first year of high school at the famed Moscow Conservatory, she always understood that "there was something wrong because you were Jewish."

Classical Musicians’ Volume Decreases

Published on March 9, 2006

There was a time when Jews dominated the ranks of American orchestras, and superstars like Leonard Bernstein and Isaac Stern were musical ambassadors to the world. The fact that today's master Jewish musicians tend to have proteges with names like Yo Yo Ma, Kyung-Wha Chung and Lang Lang is one hint that for many Jews, classical music is no longer a top priority.

Glimpses of Jews’ Past in Andaluca

Published on January 5, 2006

Spain's Andaluca is romance. It's orange blossoms perfuming the air. It's golden drops of sherry sliding down your throat in a smoky bodega. It's fingers dancing on the strings of a flamenco guitar.

Holy Toledo!

Published on January 5, 2006

Spain's Toledo contains -- along with spires, damascene jewelry and scrumptious marzipan -- a treasure trove of Jewish memories.

Rhodesli Keep the Faith in L.A.

Published on October 6, 2005

As a student at Cal State Northridge more than 30 years ago, Aron Hasson wrote a paper about the Sephardic synagogues of his ancestral homeland, the Greek island of Rhodes.

Lack of Jewish Life in Greece Just Myth

Published on October 6, 2005

Poets have been known to wax lyrical about "the glory that was Greece." Yet a visitor to Greece today quickly finds that the glory's not only in the past tense. While those who built the shrines to Zeus and Apollo are long gone, the people who inhabit modern Greece are unquestionably alive.

PhD on the Flying Trapeze

Published on September 8, 2005

Edy Greenblatt is best known in Los Angeles as an energetic, knowledgeable folk dance teacher. But in search of a more stable career, she studied organizational behavior at the Harvard Business School, in a joint doctoral program involving Harvard's graduate schools of psychology and sociology.

Families Find Magic in ‘Miracles’ Musical

Published on May 26, 2005

"Everyday Miracles" is an original musical about four Hebrew school students who travel back in time to interact with their biblical heroes.

UCLA Alumna Heads Film School

Published on June 24, 2004

Barbara Boyle has come full circle. When she first entered UCLA in 1957, she was one of four female law students in a class of 140.

Power of Prayer?

Published on April 15, 2004

In the wee small hours of Dec. 7, 2003, my husband and I got the phone call that every parent dreads. A matter-of-fact voice said, "This is UCLA Medical Center. Your son, Jeffrey, has been hit by a car. He's got at least a couple of broken bones, but he's alert and he's asking for you."

As I gasped, unable to take it all in, the voice added, "Your son was very lucky."

Awaken Your Inner J.K. Rowling

Published on December 11, 2003

Scratch away at any Jew and you'll find a storyteller. The people of the book dream of spinning out personal memories and Old Country stories to a rapt circle of children. That's why the first-ever Jewish Children's Literature Conference, held in the fall at Sinai Temple through the auspices of Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries and the Association of Jewish Libraries, attracted 125 eager attendees. Many were there specifically to grapple with the question: So you want to be a writer of children's books?

Book Unpacks Shoah Memories

Published on December 11, 2003

Karen Levine never had plans to write a book.

Then in 2001, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio producer came across an article in the Canadian Jewish News about a young Japanese woman, urged on by Tokyo schoolchildren studying the Holocaust, who traveled halfway round the world to find the owner of a child's battered suitcase. That child, Hana Brady, had died in Auschwitz at age 13, but the determined young woman tracked down Hana's brother George, who had survived Auschwitz and found a new life in Toronto.

Levine made a radio documentary chronicling the meeting between Fumiko Ishioka and George Brady, and that led her to write a children's book, "Hana's Suitcase," a gripping detective story and an inspirational saga.

Golfing Gran Takes Down Yiddishe Bubbe

Published on October 2, 2003

Book publishers know that the marketplace is full of Jewish customers with a high level of secular education, a reasonable degree of Jewish awareness and strong aesthetic sensibilities. And now they're having children.

Is There a ‘Docta’ in the House?

Published on September 4, 2003

"There's a big controversy on the Jewish view of when life begins. In Jewish tradition, the fetus is not considered viable until after it graduates from medical school." -- Old Jewish joke.

Promoting Medical Care in Israel

Published on September 4, 2003

Even when Jews packed medical school classrooms, there were few organizations dedicated to their special concerns.

Marlene Marks’ Spirit on the Web

Published on June 5, 2003

Jana Rosenblatt's founding partners in Five Chicks Unlimited are four local businesswomen who have been touched by cancer. They bring expertise in finance, product research, Web design and customer service to the site.

60th Anniversary Reunites Orphans

Published on April 24, 2003

Miriam Dybnis, vivacious at 83, insists she and her husband never expected to be honored for their deeds. Still, she's deeply gratified that so many of the young orphans have thrived as adults.

Blacks, Jews Unite for ‘Sheba’

Published on December 5, 2002

In 1939, as a child of 3, Sonia Levitin fled Hitler's Germany with her family. The first friend she made in the United States was a small African American girl. Nearly 50 years later, as a well-established writer of young adult fiction, Levitin won the National Jewish Book Award for "The Return" (Atheneum, 1987). This historical novel focuses on the plight of Ethiopian Jews, who consider themselves descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In tracing their perilous journey from Africa to Israel via Operation Moses in 1984, Levitin combined her long-standing interest in African culture with her own childhood memories of leaving her homeland behind.

Woman of the Book

Published on October 10, 2002

Sherrill Kushner's crusade on behalf of the Santa Monica Public Library system began with her realization that Jews are the People of the Book.

In the Biblical Sense

Published on February 21, 2002

Experts agree that Jewish schools -- and schools in general -- need to do more to teach kids about their bodies and about the whole complex subject of human reproduction.

Being Greene

Published on February 14, 2002

Brian Greene thinks of himself as a product of the University of Judaism (UJ).

BJE replaces L.A. Ulpan

Published on January 31, 2002

The Los Angeles Ulpan has been reborn.

Teaching the Kids

Published on January 3, 2002

There's a 7-year-old girl who attends second grade at a local Jewish day school. She's intelligent, but in a classroom setting, she finds it hard to focus: if a fire engine roars down the street, there goes the lesson.

Doctor of the Barrio

Published on December 27, 2001

When Julie Korenstein speaks out on environmental matters, she credits her mother, Dr. Pauline Furth, with shaping her own crusading spirit. Korenstein, who represents District 6 on the Los Angeles Unified School District's school board, said that throughout her life her mother has been "the most important influence on me personally."

Strike Up the Klezmer

Published on November 29, 2001

This is not your grandmother's halftime show. Unless of course, Grandma grew up in a kibbutz or shtetl with a 145-piece marching band in residence.

Susan Rubin ExploresSpielberg’s Childhood

Published on November 15, 2001

Steven Spielberg has inspired dozens of biographies, none of them written with the filmmaker's consent.

Day Schools Cope With Attack Aftermath

Published on October 25, 2001

After Aug. 10, 1999, when a white supremacist went on

a shooting spree at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, Abraham J. Heschel Day School quickly beefed up security at its Northridge campus, installing a high-tech video scanner in the school parking lot and posting an armed guard at an entrance kiosk.

But the events of Sept. 11 have raised the bar yet higher in terms of campus security. Heschel director Shirley Levine has now hired an additional guard. And on all school-owned buses, the Heschel name has been replaced with cryptic initials "AJH."

"It is sad," says Joan Marks, principal of Heschel's elementary school. "It just makes me sick."

Toxic Crusaders

Published on October 18, 2001

When Sherman Oaks resident Robina Suwol drove her two sons to school in the Valley March 1998, she didn't know she was about to become a crusader. The events of that morning kicked off a chain of events resulting in the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) new integrated pest control policy, now considered a model for school districts across the nation.

Torah Lover Beats Odds

Published on September 13, 2001

Joey Schwartzman has a passion for clocks. He is also crazy about street addresses, dates and numbers of any kind. And he has one more enthusiasm not often seen in 15-year-old boys: he loves reading Torah and Haftorah at his synagogue, Westchester's B'nai Tikvah Congregation.

What makes this truly remarkable is the fact that Joey has been diagnosed as autistic. A few years back, he was likely to disrupt services, or fall asleep on a couch outside the sanctuary. But he was fortunate to be part of a warm-hearted community that has known his family for three generations. As his bar mitzvah approached, a congregant with a background in psychological counseling devised a special Hebrew school curriculum for him and another boy with autism.

Kitchen Classroom

Published on August 23, 2001

As he welcomed a group of home schoolers to an open house at the Slavin Family Children's Library of the Jewish Community Library, Dr. Gil Graff of the Bureau of Jewish Education cited an ancient Jewish precept: "Each child should be educated according to that child's particular needs."