April 29, 2010 | 4:45 pm

Harry Weider, “Gay Jewish Dwarf” Activist Killed

Posted by Rob Eshman

“Disabled, gay, Jewish, leftist, middle aged dwarf” Hit and Killed by Taxi

The Gothamist reports that civil rights activist Harry Wieder,  57, was hit and killed by a taxcab in New York city yesterday.

I read Jimmy Breslin’s Newsday column on Weider many years ago, and found it inspirational.

A self described   “disabled, gay, Jewish, leftist, middle aged dwarf who ambulates with crutches” he fought for gay rights, disabled rights and neighborhood rights, rarely giving in to the enormous physical difficulties he faced.

Despite having difficulty walking, and living in a home for the deaf, he was an active fixture at community board meetings, rallies and events, and became well known to local politicians. Community Board 3 Chairman Dominic Pisciotta wrote in an e-mail early this morning after the incident, “I will miss Harry terribly. He contributed so much to the board, and you could always count on him being at nearly every meeting. He loved serving the community, and most of all fighting for it…He had a big impact on his community. That’s why his loss will be really felt by people, because he was so intensely engaged with the community.”

Writes the Gothamist:

And Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said, “I was extremely saddened to learn about the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Harry Wieder, a longtime advocate and member of Community Board 3. My thoughts go out to his family and friends. He leaves behind a huge void in the communities he served. How terrible that someone who worked to improve transportation for all was struck by a taxi. We can honor his life by continuing to fight for safer roads, and furthering his legacy of equality and access for all.“described himself on his Facebook page as a “disabled, gay, Jewish, leftist, middle aged dwarf who ambulates with crutches.” He was crossing Essex Street after leaving a Community Board 3 monthly meeting at P.S. 20 when he was struck by the cab. Many colleagues witnessed the accident and accompanied him to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
District manager Susan Stetzer described the scene after the meeting: “His car was parked across the street. It was as laborious for him to walk. For him to walk to the corner and cross the street would have been extremely difficult. He was crossing the street in the middle of the block. The cab driver was very distraught.”
Wieder first came to prominence in the 1980s with the activist groupAct-Up. He was profiled in Betty Adelsen’s 2005 book, The Lives of Dwarfs: Their Journey from Public Curiosity Toward Social Liberation, and also written about by Jimmy Breslin for Newsday, who captured his “combative, roguish nature and his penchant for truth.”
Despite having difficulty walking, and living in a home for the deaf, he was an active fixture at community board meetings, rallies and events, and became well known to local politicians. Community Board 3 Chairman Dominic Pisciotta wrote in an e-mail early this morning after the incident, “I will miss Harry terribly. He contributed so much to the board, and you could always count on him being at nearly every meeting. He loved serving the community, and most of all fighting for it…He had a big impact on his community. That’s why his loss will be really felt by people, because he was so intensely engaged with the community.”
And Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said, “I was extremely saddened to learn about the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Harry Wieder, a longtime advocate and member of Community Board 3. My thoughts go out to his family and friends. He leaves behind a huge void in the communities he served. How terrible that someone who worked to improve transportation for all was struck by a taxi. We can honor his life by continuing to fight for safer roads, and furthering his legacy of equality and access for all.”

Weiders colleagues at his community center said it best:

“Harry Weider was a teacher, a mentor, and a mench. Many people do not know about his connection to the Chinatown community. Throughout the last several years he made it his interest to understand more about the Chinese culture, and the history of Chinatown and as such he spent considerable time walking and driving in the area to better understand the concerns of the community. He was also very fond of Vietnamese noodle soup. He made decisions based upon his first hand experiences in the area, and he advised and informed - always with a big heart. We recall Harry walking, despite a driving rain, and using crutches, with Chinatown residents at Chatham Square to understand the lay of the land during a hotly debated issue confronting the community board. No matter how difficult the issue, season or the weather, Harry advocated for Chinatown pedestrian safety and his passing is a giant loss for our community, his contributions will never be forgotten.”
Civic Center Residents Coalition’

April 28, 2010 | 11:22 am

Who’s The White Guy Between MLK and Height?

Posted by Julie Gruenbaum Fax

Richard S. Cohen. pictured between MLK and Height, was an organizer of the March on Washington.

When civil rights matriarch Dorothy Height died last week, most major news sources featured an AP picture of Height looking on as Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his 1963 “I Have a Dream,” speech at the March on Washington. Pictured between King and Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1997, is a white man, who in most papers and posts remained nameless.

But three Los Angeles women know quite well who the white man is – their father, the late Richard S. Cohen, who spent his life working for Jewish and social justice causes.

In 1963, Cohen was with the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in New York, where he worked for 22 years as public relations director and associate executive director. He was an organizer of the march, and the right hand man to AJC’s Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who at the march delivered the speech right before King’s.

Cohen participated in all the civil rights marches, according to his daughter, Joelle Keene, and his essay on the march from Selma to Montgomery is part of the Museum of Tolerance’s educational packet on the civil rights movement. He was also active in local civil rights efforts, working to help blacks buy homes in his white Long Island neighborhood.

Keene, newspaper advisor and music teacher at Shalhevet school in Los Angeles, along with sisters Nina Cohen and Leslie Cohen, wrote letters to the news outlets that published the picture, asking that their father and other whites and Jews who fought for civil rights be recognized.

“Sometimes in history books, especially for children, the civil rights movement is depicted in drawings instead of photos, and the drawings contain few if any whites,” they wrote. “But it is worth remembering that, as the photo demonstrates,  this was a pan-American movement, one that drew on the best in the American spirit from all kinds of people.  Their fingerprints, too, are—as Marion Anderson said of Dorothy Height – ‘quietly embedded in many of the transforming events of the last six decades.’ “

When Cohen left the AJC he founded a PR company that is recognized as one of the founders in the field of Jewish PR. He represented the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union of Reform Judaism), MAZON, and numerous other organizations.

He also worked in the presidential campaigns writing Israel-related speeches for Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Henry Jackson, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy and Walter Mondale. In 1948 Cohen worked for the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Paris, taking reports from Holocaust survivors in DP camps.

He was also instrumental in laying the foundations for the strong relationship between Israel and America, and was an early crusader for Soviet Jewry. He was an organizer and director of two conferences in Brussels on freeing Soviet Jewry, and wrote the first book on that struggle, called “Let My People Go: Today’s Documentary Story of Soviet Jewry’s Struggle to be Free” (Eagle Books 1971).

“On his death bed, my father told me the things he was most proud of in his life were his civil rights work and the two Brussels conferences,” said Keene.

Download and read “Marching to Montgomery” by Richard S. Cohen here.

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April 28, 2010 | 12:27 am

Beverly Hills to dedicate Herzl Way

Posted by  Tom Tugend

Besides its numerous other attractions, the City of Beverly Hills will now boast a Theodor Herzl Way.

On May 2, the 150th anniversary of Herzl’s birth date, one block of Clark Drive will be officially renamed and dedicated in honor of the founder of modern Zionism. The block is dominated by Temple

Emanuel, a leading Reform synagogue.

The dedication will also honor Herzliya, Beverly Hills’ sister city in Israel.

The new street name was proposed to the city council by Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad, apparently the first and only Iranian Jewish immigrant at the helm of an American city.

Two council members objected to the name change, fearing a possible breach in the separation of church and state, but they were outvoted.

Israeli Consul General Yaakov Dayan warmly supported the Delshad initiative. “It gives me tremendous pride to see a piece of Israel’s heritage and culture amidst this beautiful city,” Dayan said.

The dedication ceremony will take place between 11 a.m. and 1p.m. on May 2 in front of Temple Emanuel.

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April 22, 2010 | 11:02 am

Obama vs. Israel

Posted by David Suissa

It’s not often you get to meet and become friends with one of your heroes. For years, I was in awe of Yossi Klein Halevi, the author and political analyst. He had written books that fascinated me—like “Confessions of a Jewish Extremist,” which chronicled his transition from extremist to centrist; and “At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden,” which recounted his years hanging out with Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, where he has lived since the 1970s. I also knew that his political analyses in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New Republic were some of the most widely read in the world.

So when I was introduced to him by a common friend and we met in Jerusalem about ten years ago, I felt like a kid meeting his favorite sports star. I expected that we would talk mostly about his expertise, Middle East politics, but instead, we talked mostly about God and meditation.

It turned out that my hero of political analyses also had a real spiritual side.

In the years since, I have heard him speak at a number of events, usually about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And at every event, his spiritual side has added a unique flavor to his hard-nosed political insights.

So when I found out he was coming to America this year for Yom Ha’Atzmaut week, I asked if he would come to Los Angeles and speak about the issue that is on every Jew’s lips: Obama versus Israel.

I used the term “versus” not to signify a personal bias, but to touch on the confrontational nature of the relationship that we’ve seen between Obama and Israel. This crisis was captured by Halevi in The New Republic last month in an essay called “Obama’s Intifada.”

I asked Halevi not just to talk about the confrontation, but to address a rarely asked question: Can Obama be good for Israel?

That’s right, Can Obama be good for Israel?

Well, even though it caught him a little off guard, Halevi said yes, I’ll do it.

So I’m glad to announce that “Obama vs. Israel” will happen tonight at the Nessah Synagogue on Rexford in Beverly Hills, thanks to the partnership of Thirty Years After, The Jewish Journal, OLAM and Nessah.

What is happening right now in the relationship between Israel and the U.S. is for the history books. I have followed this conflict for the better part of three decades, and I cannot recall experiencing this level of tension. Between hysteria on one side and blind defensiveness on the other, lies an enlightened, insightful and spiritual middle. This is the space that Yossi Klein Halevi occupies, a space that few others do.

For more info about the event, click here.

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April 20, 2010 | 12:03 pm

Happy 420!

Posted

Since today is 4/20, we’ve compiled marijuana-Jewish-related reading material:

Books: Pot-smoking antihero proves cathartic for her creator

By Naomi Pfefferman
Twenty-nine-year-old Dahlia Finger, the antihero of Elisa Albert’s debut novel, “The Book of Dahlia,” has an inoperable brain tumor and an attitude.

Burglary, raid, mezuzah underscore pot law issue

By Brad A. Greenberg
A mezuzah with the scroll removed and the plastic wrapper undone at the Karma Collective, a Van Nuys medical marijuana pharmacy. Karma operators claim police pulled the mezuzah off a doorpost and removed the scroll during a raid.

Marijuana could reduce PTSD stress, Haifa study finds

Posted by Adam Wills
Researchers at the University of Haifa report they have stumbled onto a medical treatment that could limit the release of stress hormones in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and it’s increasingly available in L.A. storefronts.

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April 19, 2010 | 5:14 pm

Yom HaZikaron remembrance service at Stephen S. Wise Temple [VIDEO]

Posted by Rob Eshman

Every year, amidst the hoopla surrounding Israel’s birthday, we are drawn to the ceremony a few days earlier marking Yom HaZikaron—the Day of Remembering.

This is Israel’s Memorial Day, and it is observed in Israel itself with pomp and solemnity, as befits a small country where so many citizens know someone who has died in battle, or been killed in terror attack.

The ceremony in Los Angeles is organized by Israel’s Consulate General here, and each year it seems to grow larger, both in participation and attendance. This is the third year it has been held at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel Air, and over 1000 people came.

The crowd is almost all Israeli.  Though the speakers use English and Hebrew, one hears very little English in the audience. An hour before the ceremony begins, the next of kin of soldiers and victims gather in a private ceremony to light yahrzeit candles in front of pictures of their loved ones.  There are hundreds of these pictures arranged on a table in the back of the sanctuary.

The ceremony itself, excerpted in video below, combines traditional liturgy with speeches, memorial poems, and mournful songs.  The kaddish, or prayer for the dead, is recited, and there is a minute of silence, just as there is in Israel.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky delivers remarks at Yom Ha Zikaron (Israel Memorial Day) ceremony April 18, 2010 at Stephen S. Wise Temple

Find more videos like this on EveryJew.com

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April 18, 2010 | 1:56 pm

Turmoil in Berkeley

Posted by Rob Eshman

University of California at Berkeley student Ariela Alberts sent an e-mail to friends describing the attempt to get the student government there to pass a bill calling for divestment from companies doing business with Israel.  Alberts gives a detailed account, from one Jewish student’s perspective, of the turmoil there:

As many of you know, the UC Berkeley ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California), our student government, has recently voted on a bill entitled “Divestment from War Crimes.” Despite the bill’s title, it goes on to criticize Israel only for military acts in Gaza under Operation Cast Lead, and calls for divestment from General Electric and United Technologies for supplying Israel with F16s and military planes. Most ironic to me is the fact that our ASUC, as reported by the ASUC Attorney, is not invested in either of these companies. To me, there is no other way to classify this bill with that knowledge other than as a symbolic attack on the state of Israel and its right to exist. Initially, this bill was passed by the Senate. Our President, Will Smelko, vetoed the bill.

On the personal level, I attended a Senate meeting last night that was meant to decide whether or not the veto would be overridden with a super-majority of senators. Initially, the meeting was supposed to start at 7 pm. Due to large masses of people that could not get in to the room that was reserved, they postponed the meeting to 10:30pm and held it in one of our largest rooms, Pauley Ballroom. The meeting did not end until 7:30 am, and I stayed there all through the night with at least 200 others from both sides that waited until the very end.

I wanted to share with you some of my experience. I know that many of you have been watching this process quite carefully, and I wanted to offer my insider point of view. A total of about 90 people spoke, 45 from each side in a pro/con series with each person allowed to speak for two minutes. Some of the behavior was truly disgusting, with snickering and laughing, hissing and calling out, true of both sides quite unfortunately. I was embarrassed that my peers could act so disrespectfully at points. At least 500 people attended, though it felt like even more than that. Some of the arguments were quite expected, often upsetting exaggerations or fabrications. I do believe that Israel has made mistakes, but I do not think that our Senate should be attempting to resolve issues that governments internationally cannot. Ultimately, the Senate voted to uphold the veto, though according to some of the bylaws of the ASUC (which I assure you seem pointless and are quite hard to follow) , the Senate motioned to “table the motion to override the veto”. The bill as it stands will not pass. No senators will change their votes, but they are trying to find a way to amend it. As a general consensus, those against the bill support the creation of some bill that “Divests from War Crimes” as a general policy without citing countries or singling any out. We’ll see what happens next week. I can tell you more about specific arguments if you would like, but I wanted to share some of the things that stood out to me the most. I helped write the concluding statement and some of the arguments against the bill, but in an effort to bring diverse voices against the bill, I did not speak and instead helped a good friend who is a Sikh, East Indian student in support of the veto.

The writers of the bill say that in itself, the bill is not anti-Semitic. Whether or not you believe that, I argue that whatever it is, something about the bill brings out anti-Semitic sentiment that I have never felt before. An Israeli man, probably in his forties, wearing a kippah, was tapped on his shoulder by the woman behind him (a supporter of the bill and local Berkeley resident), and told by her, “You know what’s ironic? You really look like a Nazi. There is something unpleasant about your face and features that really resembles a Nazi.” While this doesn’t reflect everyone in the room, I was shocked that someone would have the audacity to say that. I cannot think of something more offensive that could be said to a Jew. And here we are in 2010. When the bill was first voted upon and the veto was upheld, a hispanic student that had been sitting in front of me the entire time jumped up and turned back (where many of us who are against the bill were sitting) and yelled, “You killed Jesus.” I was shocked to say the least. Finally, a common refrain of “AIPAC is taking over the ASUC” was called out many times, partially in response to our newly elected Jewish president (what a relief). To me, this is the oldest of anti-Semitic claims - the Jews are running the world, they are running our government. To be honest, this was the first time I was scared because of anti-Semitism, and I really was.

I tell you this not to villainize Berkeley or even its students - many of the accounts above were not even said by students. I still love Berkeley and am happy to be here. In fact, if anything, this should be a reason that I and future Jewish students should come to Berkeley. The community I have here has been unbelievably supportive, Hillel in particular. I do not feel alone and I know that what took place at the Senate meeting involved only a polarized group of students. The majority of students here probably don’t even know this is going on.

I know that many of you have been asking about this, and I wanted to share my experience with you.

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April 16, 2010 | 4:04 pm

Chancellor Merkel, Heidi Klum, Seal and the Holocaust

Posted by Rob Eshman

It was a moment that spoke volumes.

On Wednesday, April 14, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hosted a luncheon for German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Getty Museum.  The agenda of the event was no more than a eet and greet, a chance for the Chancellor, whom Forbes named as the world’s most powerful women, to interact with leaders of the entertainment community, promiment LA-based Germans, officials and benefactors. 

The guests gathered for the noon luncheon right on time, mindful of the vaunted German punctuality.  Among those in attendance: producers Arthur Cohn and Sid Ganis, businessman and philanthropists Haim and Cheryl Saban, Stewart Resnick and Eli Broad, CAA agent Chris Andrews, entrepreneur Jay Penske, film critic Kevin Thomas, attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, Fox studio’s Jim Gianopolous and German Consul General Wolfgang Drautz.

It was an hour before the Chancellor herself arrived.  She swept in wearing a bright orange-red dress, setting off her ginger hair and deep blue eyes. The chancellor moved through the rather chaotic press of guests, stopping to chat for a moment with each one.

When I pushed myself into the throng to introduce myself, I happened to be carrying that week’s Jewish Journal, which I had brought to give to a friend there.  The chancellor took it from my hand—she assumed it was a gift for her.  She looked down and unfolded it to see the gates of Auschwitz and the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” on the cover.

“It’s our Yom HaShoah issue,” I explained.  I immediately doubted she knew the Hebrew, so I fumbled a quick translation. “It’s Holocaust Week.”

She looked up at me quizzically—a whole week?

(I know, Yom HaShoah means Holocaust Day, but… we’;re a weekly… never mind.)

Still, how remarkable:  a chancellor that has no equal in Europe in reaching out to Israel and on behalf of Israel, 70 years after her father’s generation tried to kill every last Jew, and almost succeeded, now outspoken in recognizing Germany’s great crime, and in repairing relations with the Jews… an she was holding The Jewish Journal.

For a moment: then she passed it to an aid, and asked me questions about the Jewish community in LA.  The mayor, who guided her, jumped in with answers—few politicians know more Jews than him.

After a bit, the singer Seal and his model wife Heidi Klum appeared, and sucked every bit of energy into a vortex of beauty and charisma.

At lunch (delicious, by the way), the mayor toasted the chancellor and the chancellor toasted the mayor and LA. Then it was on to Warner Bros., where a different kind of magic gets made.

A full report on her itinerary comes from the German consular web site:

Chancellor Merkel arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday evening on the second leg of her five-day trip to the United States. Prior to her arrival, Merkel had attended the 47-country Nuclear Security Summit hosted by US President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Obama had assembled the leaders and heads of state to secure that nuclear materials not get in the hands of terrorists.

Having long ago extended an invitation to Merkel to visit California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger finally had a chance to welcome her to the state. The governor and his wife, Maria Shriver, greeted her at the airport upon her arrival in Los Angeles. The next morning, Schwarzenegger and Merkel met for breakfast to discuss economic affairs and mutual cooperation.

After the breakfast meeting, Merkel moderated and participated in a panel discussion with representatives from trade, industry and science as well as think tanks at the residence of Consul General Wolfgang Drautz.

The next stop on the whirlwind schedule was the Getty Center, where Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hosted a luncheon in Merkel’s honor. At the obligatory photo-op, prior to the luncheon, Merkel and Villaraigosa encountered elementary students visiting the Center on a field trip. Asked by Merkel, if they knew where Germany was, one student spoke-up and said, “Europe.” The chancellor beamed with pleasure.

At the luncheon, she had the opportunity to meet with leading entertainment executives, business leaders and scientists as well as experience a bit of the Hollywood celebrity factor. In attendance were German top model Heidi Klum and her husband, singer, Seal, German talk show-meister Thomas Gottschalk, and Eric Braeden, the German-born actor starring in the daytime soap opera, “The Young and the Restless.”

A Touch of Hollywood: Warner Bros. Studios Tour

Merkel’s final stop in Hollywood was Warner Bros. Studios, where she met with Chairman and CEO Barry M. Meyer and other leading executives, before touring the studios. One of the highlights of the tour, was a visit on the set of “The Mentalist,” where she met star Simon Baker. Intrigued by the building facades, she was curious to find out if there really wasn’t anything behind one of the shop’s doors. “Let’s go see, “Baker said, as he lead Merkel over to the door to check it out for herself.

The chancellor was also fascinated watching foley artists at work in one of the sound studios. These artists create many of the natural, everyday sound effects in a film. The term foley artist is named after Jack Foley, one of the earliest and best-known Hollywood practitioners of the art.

With her visit to Los Angeles concluded, the chancellor departed for San Francisco, where she was scheduled to address students at Stanford University before returning home Friday.

Helmut Kohl was the last German chancellor to visit Los Angeles in September 15, 1991.

Find more photos like this on EveryJew.com

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