Current Edition: Volume 23, Number 39

Annie Leibovitz photos are iconic She'll be at the Skirball ThursdayNovember 13, 2008

Annie Leibovitz, Ed Asner, Shelly Berman, Lainie Kazan and Elliot Gould

By Dikla Kadosh and Lilly Fowler

Featured Stories

Eugene Gettelman and Steve FinleyThursday, November 13, 2008

Centenarian celebrates fourth bar mitzvah

By Ellie Kahn

"If my mother was here, she'd probably be saying, 'Dayenu, enough already,'" said Dr. Eugene Gettelman, who turned 100 in June. "She'd think I was meshugge for having a fourth bar mitzvah."

DJ Elan FeldmanThursday, November 13, 2008

So you want to be a DJ . . .

By Karla S. Blume

For those who have dreamed of going from an infinite iPod playlist to playing live on the ones and twos, the bar and bat mitzvah party scene is a great place to get your start. Setting up a DJ business takes practice, planning and professionalism, but it beats baby-sitting and burgers.

Latest Stories

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Pinched pocketbooks no bar to party planning

By Judy Gruen

Have tough economic times forced you to scale back your child's bar or bat mitzvah party plans? With your 401(k) down, is the ice sculpture out? Is your resetting ARM making you reconsider that 18-piece orchestra?

(From left) Sarita Fields, event co-chair; Rabbi Daniel Bouskila; Eli Attie; and Neil Sheff, event co-chair.Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sephardic film fest opens with gala at Paramount; Young Iranian Jews gather to watch election returns

By Danielle Berrin

"Yes we can," Rabbi Daniel Bouskila said, invoking President-elect Barack Obama's ubiquitous mantra.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Rahm Emanuel is a fighting policy wonk with a Jewish soul [VIDEO]

By Ron Kampeas

One thing Rahm Emanuel is not, all agree, is the president-elect's conciliatory signal to the Jewish community after a campaign fraught with worries that Obama would tip toward even-handedness in dealing with the Middle East

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Begone, bygones! Green is the new blue and white

" . . . It is troubling that some Orthodox rabbis have joined with the Christian right to eliminate same-sex civil marriage. Banning same-sex civil marriage is about as relevant to Orthodox Judaism as banning the sale of shellfish . . . "

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Obituaries

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Attention, politicians: Pandering won’t fly

By David Lehrer

[Jewish voters] are widely perceived as virtually single-issue in outlook, lacking nuance on complex matters and easily pleased. "Throw them a few bones, and they'll be happy," seems to be the operative assessment among the politicians who do the Jewish circuit.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Can new pro-Israel group J Street generate political clout?

By Eric Fingerhut

Can fundraising success translate into Capitol Hill clout? That's the question facing J Street, the new liberal pro-Israel political action committee, which raised nearly $570,000 for 41 U.S. House and Senate candidates.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Briefs: Secular candidate new Jerusalem mayor, Netanyahu would nix talks

Secular businessman Nir Barkat appeared to be the new mayor of Jerusalem, according to exit polls.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mosques and synagogues reach across divide

By Tom Tugend

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.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Passage of Prop. 8 reveals rift between denominations

By Rachel Heller

Jewish voices had joined both sides of the bitter and costly Proposition 8 debate leading up to Election Day. Reform and Conservative leaders largely condemned the stripping of civil rights from a fellow minority population, while Orthodox officials praised constitutional protection for the biblical definition of marriage.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Two LAUSD board members retire, Friedlander wins Shoah scholarship prize

Veteran Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board members Julie Korenstein and Marlene Canter, both of whom are Jewish, announced in late October that they would not seek re-election for their terms, which expire in June.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Look up to see angels

By Rabbi Anne Brener

Parshat Vayera (Genesis 18:1-22:24) May we, like Abraham the Patriarch, be comforted by the appearance of what Abraham Lincoln called, "the better angels of our nature" as they come to transform our country into the caring community for which we pray every day.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Yes, we cantankerous

By Steve Greenberg

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

True confessions of an online dating addict #15: All that’s left is me

By Amy Klein

Dean RotbartWednesday, November 12, 2008

Dear Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin: I apologize for the Jewish vote for Obama

By Dean Rotbart

For now, we must leave the Lost Tribes of Obama on their own. If their ears could not hear and their eyes could not see all the pre-election warnings that a President Obama may cost Israel its very survival, and in a domino effect destabilize the Western world and America, I have yet to discover the magic words that would wake them from their trance.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Warrior mom

By David Suissa

Back in 2002, when the Second Intifada was raging, she would regularly put on a hijab and attend Islamic conferences all over Southern California. She was there to document the hateful venom that often permeated these events, reporting her findings to private investigators of radical Islam in America.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Israel building its first eco-friendly town

By David Shamah, Israel21c

A Mount Gilboa town is set to be the first planned, eco-friendly community in Israel, with infrastructure and services designed not just to encourage, but to actually enforce environmentally responsible behavior.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Wild about Diamond

By Tom Teicholz

David Wild wants you to know that he is an unabashed Neil Diamond fan. So much so that he has written a book titled, "He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond"

Matisyahu Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImageWednesday, November 12, 2008

Chasidic beatboxing keeps Matisyahu moving

By Matthue Roth

Betsy Brown BraunWednesday, November 12, 2008

Q&A with Betsy Brown Braun—Hollywood’s go-to parenting guru

By Naomi Pfefferman

" . . . I'd met so many parents who are talented career people, but can be humbled to their knees by a 4-year-old. They'd say, 'Betsy, what do I say? What do I do? Help!' -- so I offer actual scripts that can be a starting point for parents . . . '

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

HaDag Nachash: Atypical Israel band hip-hops to Hollywood

By Dikla Kadosh

Its six members, known for their mix of funk, hip-hop, rock and reggae, rose to the top of the Israeli charts with smart, biting lyrics that reflect Israeli life and appeal to Israel's growing hip-hop scene. The songs often express a leftist point of view and are critical of everything Israeli.

LimmudLA gathered at Dockweiler Beach to bring together Jews after the election. Photo by Dan KacvinskiTuesday, November 11, 2008

Post-election healing — kumbaya in class and at the beach

By Julie Gruenbaum Fax

Now that the election is over and campaign exaggerations can give way to reality, in schools, and everywhere else, people are making efforts to put things back into perspective. While a lot of healing may still be needed before that sort of unity can move beyond a Saturday night at the beach, one uniting factor all agree on is that this election brought a new level of political awareness and passion across party lines and across ages.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

It can’t happen here

By Rob Eshman

"People choose to remain gay, and people choose to remain Jewish," said an organizer. "Why should the majority of us be forced to honor that choice?"

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The kids are all right

By Marty Kaplan

As I drove across Los Angeles on election night, I saw clusters of teens and kids in their 20s celebrating on random street corners, high-fiving drivers at red lights. They may not have marched on the Pentagon to end the war in Iraq, but they have given the nation a new president who has pledged to do just that. For the first time since the springtime of the baby boomers, they have become not just consumers to be marketed to, but a political force to be reckoned with.

Community Calendar

11/20/08 6:30 pm
TORAH STUDIES

11/21/08 9:00 am
Writing with Light

11/21/08 9:00 am
Picturing the Process: Landscape Through Time and Space

11/21/08 9:00 am
A Literacy of Images: Nancy Newhall and the Art of Photography

View events | Add your event



Candlelighting

11/14 4:33 p.m. PST


Featured Stories

Tommywood
Wild about Diamond

David Wild wants you to know that he is an unabashed Neil Diamond fan. So much so that he has written a book titled, "He Is ... I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond"

Bar & Bat Mitzvahs
Centenarian celebrates fourth bar mitzvah

"If my mother was here, she'd probably be saying, 'Dayenu, enough already,'" said Dr. Eugene Gettelman, who turned 100 in June. "She'd think I was meshugge for having a fourth bar mitzvah."

Israel
Discovery of King David-era fort stirs debate on size of kingdom

Some scholars argue that David's Jerusalem was merely a backwater village glorified into a mythical place by those they say penned the Bible centuries later. Others suggest that true to its biblical description, it was a genuine power overseeing a strong and united kingdom. The discovery of what is being called the Elah Fortress has quickly been used to reinforce the latter argument.

Cartoons
Yes, we can! No, you can't!

Television
Doing Jews right on TV—for better or worse

The Jewish character has become the American Jewish character, disassociated from an ethnic history and assimilated into American culture. And the assimilation hasn't only been for Jews.

U.S.
Shoah group halts talks with Mormons on posthumous baptism of Jews

At a news conference Monday, leaders of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, seated in front of panels listing names of Holocaust victims they say were baptized by the Mormons, said that 14 years of quiet negotiations have proven fruitless.

Religion
Agriprocessors closed—now where’s the beef?

The kosher meat market is in a tailspin as production at the Agriprocessors' meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, which had been operating at a fraction of its normal capacity since May, finally ground to a halt this week. The company, whose meat was sold under the labels

Los Angeles
Perfect storm for charities— contributions go down and requests go up

No one has gone unscathed by the convulsions of the global economy. Even the wealthy are losing money -- and if they cut their charitable giving, it is likely to ripple across the Jewish nonprofit sector

Torah Portion
Marriage is a Jewish issue

Parshat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18) God is present when two people commit their lives to each other and become one family.

Calendar
Annie Leibovitz, Ed Asner, Shelly Berman, Lainie Kazan and Elliot Gould

Singles
True confessions of an online dating addict #16: Marathon date with Jeremy

Opinion
A Moderate Proposal

The start of the event was running late -- did I mention it was a Jewish event? -- and midway through our green room conversation, Hitchens pulled out a small bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. He emptied it into a 16-ounce clear-plastic cup and drizzled in some Crystal Geyser

Films
Survey Says:  Fewer Americans think Jews control Hollywood

The majority of Americans no longer believe that Jews control Hollywood. This is the news from a new poll released by the Anti-Defamation League that also suggests there remains a widespread conviction that there is an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to undermine religious values.

Music
Up-and-comer Dudamel takes on the Israel Philharmonic

Dudamel, who will be 28 when he replaces Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the L.A. Philharmonic next year, considers Leonard Bernstein a role model.