April 3, 2012 | 11:57 am

“Jacob and Jack” combines laughs and soul

Posted by  Tom Tugend

Veronica Alicino, Bruce Katzman and Nan Tepper (from left) cavort in "Jacob and Jack." now at the Zephyr Theatre. Photo by Chuck Green

“Jacob and Jack” is part backstage farce, part Yiddish soul, part time travel and, mixed together, a barrel of fun.

The play by James Sherman (“The God of Isaac,” “Beau Jest”) is set in Chicago in 1935, and then 75 years later in the present, with each of the six characters jumping from one era to another and back.

In the titles role, Bruce Katzman is both the stentorian Yiddish actor Jacob Shemerinsky and his present-day grandson Jack Shore.

Neither incarnation is a marquee name. Jack makes a living doing TV commercials, and when he got a chance to play in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” he recalls, “there were more people in the attic than in the audience.”

What ties the two time zones together is that Jack has been persuaded by his forceful mother to stage a tribute performance for her ladies club, commemorating his grandfather Jacob.

Facilitating the switches between past and present on the small stage of the Zephyr Theatre are five constantly slammed doors connecting the time-traveling characters in their dressing rooms and with the outside world.

Revolving around Jacob/Jack are his long-suffering wife and actress Lisa/Leah (Veronica Alicino), who, with good reason, suspects her husband of infidelities, and charming ingénue Deborah Knox, the object of desire in both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Nan Tapper, who doubles as the mother of both Jack and of the ingénue in different eras, is the no-nonsense Jewish matriarch, who gets her descendants out of their frequent scrapes.

Tepper displays a finely-honed comic edge as well as a grasp of graphic Yiddish, which cannot be printed in a family publication, either in English or in the mamaloshen.

Rounding out the talented cast are Matthew Gottlieb as Jack’s agent and a stage manager, and young Matthew Scott Montgomery, alternating as a novice stage manager and as Moishe/Mickey, a hopeful, Hollywood-bound actor.

Director Lee Sankowich keeps the fast-paced action and the constant character rotations from devolving into bafflement. Adam Hunter gets credit for the ingenious set and Joanna Leskow for the costumes.

Performances of “Jacob and Jack” continue through May 6 at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., between Fairfax and La Brea Aves.

Show times are Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m. For information and tickets call (800) 838-3006, or visit www.brownpapertickets.com

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April 3, 2012 | 9:44 am

Gerald Estrin, U.S. and Israel computer pioneer, dies at 90

Posted by  Tom Tugend

On a visit to Israel, Professors Gerald (Jerry) and Thelma Estrin pose in front of the WEIZAC computer which they and their staff built from scratch i the 1950s as the first computer in the Middle East. Photo courtesy Weizmann Institute of Science

Prof. Gerald (Jerry) Estrin, a computer pioneer in the United States and Israel, died March 29 at his home in Santa Monica at age 90.

Both Estrin and Thelma, his wife of 70 years, were born in New York City, earned their Ph.D.s in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and worked for three years with John von Neumann, the principal architect of the computer age, at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

In 1953, the Estrins accepted an offer from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel to build from scratch the first computer in the Middle East and the first outside the United States and western Europe.

On arrival, they faced only two problems. There were no parts or tools, from vacuum tubes to soldering irons, available in Israel, and there was no staff, trained or otherwise.

Nevertheless, the computer, named WEIZAC, with its closet-sized main frame and some 3,000 vacuum tubes, went online in 1955, and after 46,000 hours of solid service was retired in 1963.

Estrin’s legacy to Israel has been long-lasting. By building its own computer, in the face of widespead skepticism, “Israel got into the information revolution early in the game,” he said.

Perhaps even more important, WEIZAC spawned a cadre of engineers and technicians who, with their successors, went on to staff the country’s much admired high-tech industries and academic institutions.

Israel also left its mark on the mild-mannered academic. “I learned how to pound tables, which stood me in good stead when later I became chairman of the UCLA computer science department… but I also fell in love with the people,” he recalled in a 2004 interview.

Subsequently, Estrin served for more than two decades on the Weizmann Institute’s board of governors.

In 1956, both Estrins joined the UCLA faculty, Jerry to create a program in computer engineering, and Thelma as a pioneer developer of data processing in brain research.

Among his many research contributions, Jerry Estrin developed the concept of “reconfigurable computing,” which led to the creation of new types of programmable computer chips that are still in use today.

Away from the classroom and lab, he was an avid fan of UCLA basketball and the Metropolitan Opera, and, in addition, left two legacies.

One is a host of graduate students, who went on to notable careers in industry and academe, and who warmly remember the genuine modesty of their distinguished mentor.

The second legacy consists of three daughters, who carry on the family’s computer science tradition. Judith (Judy), who was born in Tel Aviv, is a Silicon Valley leader, who has co-founded seven technology companies.

Deborah is a UCLA computer science professor and founding director of the Center for Embedded Networked (ok) Sensing.

Margo is the Estrin maverick, choosing a career as doctor of internal medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to his wife and three daughters, surviving family members are four grandchildren, Rachel, Joshua, Leah and David.

The family suggests that persons wishing to make a contribution in Jerry Estrin’s memory consider one of the following organizations.

Weizmann Institute of Science - https://www.weizmann-usa.org/ways-to-get-involved/make-a-donation.aspx

UCLA Computer Science Dept - https://giving.ucla.edu/Standard/NetDonate.aspx?SiteNum=8 (Please specify Computer Science Fund)

Autism Speaks - http://www.autismspeaks.org/ways-give

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March 30, 2012 | 3:23 pm

Take the cultural competency quiz

Posted by Los Angeles Magazine

The April issue of Los Angeles magazine offers a compelling look into the ethnic mosaic that makes up LA.  The problem is, in a city whose residents speak over 100 languages, belong to dozens of religions and hail from a UN of nations, few of us really get to know our neighbors in all their diversity.  The reasons are varied—traffic, settlement patterns, legacies of redlining, weak public transportation—but enough with the excuses.  You can travel the world in Los Angeles, and it’s time to start.

To test your baseline knowledge of LA’s diversity, the magazine provided a very challenging quiz. With the permission of Los Angeles magazine editor Mary Melton—the hardest working woman in publishing—we’re reposting below.  Try it yourself, try it on your friends, and add your own questions to the comments section below.

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March 30, 2012 | 3:20 pm

Another Bad Seder [VIDEO]

Posted by Ohr HaTorah

Got my parsley
Got my wine
Gonna have me
A real good time
If it takes all night
And I got a feeling it might

Got that shankbone
Those bitter herbs
Got me thankful
I’m stuck in the burbs
And not enslaved in Egyptland
Like we once were…
Now we’re talking ‘bout Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to tell us what to do But it’s been two hours and we’re still on page 2 Send my soul a liberator I can’t take another bad Seder

Moses cried
Let my people go
But it doesn’t fly
In a monotone
Makes me wanna jump and shout
At this rate
We would have never got out Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to tell us how to be But it’s been three hours and we’re still on page 3 Send my soul a liberator I can’t take another bad Seder -Instrumental- Destiny testin’ us
Way back in Exodus
Tryin’ to bring out the best in us
Tryin’ to Charlton Heston us
It’s history
But not if we take it a bit more personally Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to give us the score But it’s been four hours and we’re still on page…well, still 3, actually Send in the defibrillator I can’t take another bad Seder

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March 30, 2012 | 11:09 am

Establishing Community Medicine Banks Around the World

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Did you know that about 30,000 individuals die every day from curable diseases? Some evils are entirely dreadful because they are not preventable; there is little we can do in the face of a hurricane or tsunami. But it is even more tragic when we ignore preventable human suffering. 

Yesterday, I took my UCLA Hillel students to volunteer at the Refuot community medicine bank in Buenos Aires, Argentina, funded by the Fundación Tzedaká. Since 1999, Refuot has distributed around 580,000 medicines to more than 12,000 Jews and non-Jews through 70 Jewish centers in Argentina. I left the medicine bank inspired by their heroic work and yet deeply troubled by how much more work there is to do to improve medicine access worldwide.

One story among thousands is that of Juan Granovsky. He was born in 1937, and worked for decades in a fumigation and disinfection company. He receives about $90 a month in retirement benefits, but it is not enough to cover the cost of the medicines he now needs. He suffers from diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and has had six heart bypass operations. Granovsky typifies the patient who would have no access to medication without the help of the medicine bank. Where would Juan turn if the medicine bank wasn’t here for him?

Usually these needed medicines are donated from pharmaceutical laboratories, but if someone is in need of another medicine, the medicine bank purchases it after searching for the best drug prices on the market. The Argentinian government covers some HIV and cancer treatments, but the community medicine bank is needed to treat patients with other diseases such as Parkinson’s, Crohn’s, and diabetes that the government is not equipped to address. All medicines are packaged and then sent to hospitals and health professionals, where they are dispensed to patients.

The idea that we are responsible to ensure that others have access to medicines is not a new one. The great Talmudic sage Rav Huna set the model for the importance of granting others access to the drugs they need. “Whenever he discovered some [new] medicine he would fill a water jug with it and suspend it above the doorstep and proclaim, ‘Whosoever desires it let him come and take of it’” (Ta’anit 20b). Rav Huna understood the loss of human dignity felt when an individual is unable to meet personal health needs and those of loved ones. Further a society based on intellectual, moral, and spiritual values cannot thrive if all must be consumed with their basic physical survival needs.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, the great 20th century Jewish legal authority taught that Jewish law demands that every community must play a crucial role in granting access to medicine: “When poor people are ill and who cannot afford medical expenses, the community sends them a doctor to visit them, and the medicine is paid for by the communal fund” (Tzitz Eliezer 5:4).

The most strategic way to address sickness is by improving exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, and preventive care. But where health counseling, governmental funding, and education are unavailable or insufficient, medicines are especially crucial. We should consider helping to financially support Refuot, establishing more amazing community medicine banks, and advocating pharmaceutical companies to donate more medicines to those in need worldwide.

Pharmaceutical companies must do more to provide universal access and government must provide tax incentives that help companies to do so. Most importantly, like Refuot, we all can and must support local and foreign organizations ensuring the just distribution of drugs to those who need them.

There are few situations in life as terrifying as a life-threatening disease without access to the necessary medicines. How can we let innocent individuals die around the world when a pill that costs less than one cent to produce can save their lives? G-d commands us to take care of the poor, the starving and the sick and with 30,000 dying every day of curable diseases we don’t have much time to delay.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 29, 2012 | 3:43 pm

AMIA and Minority Insecurity: How Do We Attack Corruption?

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

A few days ago, I took my students to visit AMIA, the Jewish community center of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was bombed in 1994, leaving 85 killed and hundreds injured. It was heart-wrenching to hear the personal stories only a few days after the attack at the school in Toulouse.

It is crucial when minorities are attacked anywhere in the world that everything possible is done to help them feel safe and that the justice system makes clear that these attacks are never tolerated. Because there was no justice in Argentina and no one went to jail, the community still feels very vulnerable and insecure. When minorities are attacked, due to anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc., it is not only an attack upon individuals but upon the whole group, making all feel vulnerable. We cannot only speak up when it is our own people and sites attacked. Hate and violence must be condemned wherever it pokes its head.

According to 2010 FBI statistics on 8,208 hate crime victims, 48% were victimized due to race, 19% due to religion, and 19% due to sexual orientation. In racial bias, 70% of victims were black; in religious bias, 67% of victims were Jews, and nearly 13% were Muslims (a rising figure); in sexual-orientation crimes, nearly all victims were homosexuals and lesbians. 

Corruption is more difficult to quantify. Transparency International monitors perceived corruption on a worldwide basis (with 0 as most corrupt and 10 as least corrupt), and the results may surprise you. According to its Corruption Perceptions Index 2011, The United States only ranks 24th (7.1 score), behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Barbados, Qatar, and Chile. Israel fares worse, at 36th (5.8 score), behind Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, and Botswana. However, both are significantly less corrupt than Argentina, which is in a twelve-way tie for 100th place with its dismal 3.0 score.

While we cannot state that there is a direct correlation between a government’s level of corruption and its ability or willingness to combat hate crimes, it is probable that a more corrupt society will not successfully prosecute these crimes. For example, no one has ever been convicted of the AMIA attack, and the Argentinean government has come under scrutiny for incompetence and corruption in mishandling the investigation. While this is discouraging, our disillusionment with politics cannot lead us to disengage. We must continue to attack corruption proactively. Governments that allow for corruption, intolerance, and injustice must be challenged. We can tolerate political difference, but we cannot tolerate scandals and corruptions.

In Argentina, I spoke with Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, a community leader working to address governmental corruption. Others here told me that almost everyone cheats on their taxes, pays bribes, and accepts the corruption, and just lives with it. Rabbi Yattah is calling upon Jews to reverse this cycle. He told me that first we must understand corruptology (how corruption permeates society) so we can address it systemically. The word “corrupt,” from the Latin corruptus (meaning “abused” or “destroyed”), connotes something that is “utterly broken.” It is a critical defect in any society.

According to what Rabbi Yattah called “the politics of inclusion,” corrupt politicians make society more corrupt so that they alone are not blamed. For example, they often ensure that the police force is corrupt, operating through bribes. When corruption is systemic, everyone just throws their arms in their air, enabling corrupt politicians to benefit from the inertia. When we attack the peripheral manifestations of corruption, we are attacking the base as well.

Combating is rarely easy or risk-free. According to “the politics of reflection,” one standing up to corruption has to be willing to face countercharges that he or she is also corrupt. When you fight corruption, the established force will come back at you with ten times the strength. Nevertheless, we know that corruption can be overcome. The Book of Genesis (6:12), for example, describes a world before the flood where “everyone on earth was corrupt.” In a post-flood world, order was achieved.

Today, no problem can be ignored or relegated to others who face corruption in remote areas as the world is now too interconnected to live with the veil of isolation. Just as an economic crisis in Asia or South America affects Europe, so too, hatred anywhere in the world is a threat to all. Corruption is a force that creates insecurity, fear, and a foundation for injustice. We cannot look away from it. Thus, the role of the Jew in the public square is to be a voice of conscience, challenging those who shatter social trust, and in support of all victims of injustice.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 27, 2012 | 3:56 pm

Living and Leading with Soul

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Antennae galaxies. Photo by Wikipedia/NASA

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought to discover the essence and location of the soul, the Divine essence constitutive of our humanity. Some scientists today claim that le siege de l’ame (the seat of the soul) is in the temporal lobe of the human brain (“the God spot”), and V.S. Ramachandran demonstrated in the 1990s that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy were particularly affected by religious experiences. Others reject the claim that the soul has a physical location, thus preserving its mystery. But more important than knowing the soul’s location is to understand the soul’s value. Today, in a world flooded with external stimuli, we often forget the greatest treasure we have access to—the depths of our own souls. 

To the Jew, the soul is not some esoteric mystery to wonder about, but a force to be accessed and lived with. We should neither neglect nor obsess over the body and soul. Activism requires both mental work, to understand the issues and come up with a strategic response, and physical work, to apply that response in practice, in our streets. More important than mind and body, however, sustained social justice activism needs the soul, to inspire the deeper sensitivity that ensures we help, more than harm, others. The soul is where our moral and spiritual choices leave their eternal mark. In today’s world, and especially in Jewish social justice activism, the soul has in many ways been forgotten. It is of tremendous importance that we return to our spiritual essence.

The soul is our holy transcendental channel to the infinite and eternal, our source of immortality. Those who choose enlightened life can access spiritual wisdom: “For G-d speaks time and again, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a night vision, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, then it is He opens people’s understanding” (Job 33:14-16). Our social identities in this world are helpful but not eternal: We can embrace them but we must also transcend them. Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now explains this well: “Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret to life is to ‘die before you die’—and find that there is no death.” Remembering that we have a deeper essence inspires us to live and strip away the falsity surrounding the self.

Further, our soul serves as a reminder that this life is fleeting. “Do not rely on the mighty to save you, or on any human being. His breath gives out, then back to earth he goes—on that every day, his projects are all for naught” (Psalm 146). The soul is our reminder that our soul is on loan in order that we return it even more beautiful than how we received it. The sages of the Talmud refer to the soul as a pikadon (a deposit), since G-d has entrusted us with this divine light to use and guard during our days. Maimonides taught that if we cultivated something very beautiful with our lives, when the body ceases to operate, the soul will continue to flourish. If we neglect the soul, nothing will continue to exist after our body is buried. The afterlife is not, G-d forbid, only for those with a particular religious affiliation. The rabbis teach that “The righteous of the nations have a share in the world to come” (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:1). The soul, the foundation of human existence, is universal. 

Our souls also give us accountability, serving as reminders that not only are all our actions watched, but all our motives and desires are known: “A man may do whatever he wishes, but his soul reports it back to G-d” (Pesikta Rabbati 8). From cognitive perception in this world, we live with moral ambiguity; all of us do good and evil. But the soul is more black and white. Based upon our true motives, it is known if we lived committed to good or evil, self-worship or other-serving. The options are to “choose life or death” (Deuteronomy 30:19). When it comes to the soul, there is no in-between. In our activism, the soul, the home of the conscience, can help as a guide through the morass of gray. The deepest inner voice only knows truth.

The soul is our inner light. If we can tap into our spiritual channel and access that light, we can share it with the world. This is the work we are called to.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 27, 2012 | 10:51 am

Shaquille O’Neal speaks Hebrew on The Daily Show

Posted by JewishJournal

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal talks about going back to college for his Ph.D. in Human Resource Development.

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