Picks and Clicks for November 21-27, 2009

In response to Rabbi Boteach’s passionate rejoinder to the British government’s ruling (“British Court Dares to Claim Who Is a Jew,” Nov. 13), an examination of the facts is in order. First of all, the Jews’ Free School is a public school. Secondly, it is prejudicial to base admission on ethnic heritage and, I would imagine Jews would be up in arms if another publicly funded school, say Oxford, excluded a Jewish student simply because a parent was Jewish.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Peace in Arabic

By David Suissa

It’s not that I get tired of listening to Jewish speakers. More often than not, they motivate and inspire me. Whether I agree with them or not, there’s a familiarity, a connection. I learn from my people and I embrace their diversity.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Concerted Effort Needed to Meet Demand for Educators

by Jehuda Reinharz

The Talmud teaches that if a king of Israel dies, all Jews are eligible to succeed him. But if a scholar dies, we are told, he cannot be replaced.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Who Are the Hungry, and Who’s Feeding Them?

On any given Wednesday on Pico Boulevard, a line of people starts snaking out of the SOVA food pantry early in the morning. Some of the people are homeless, some are dressed for work, some have kids with them. Some are Jewish, many are not, and all of them are there on a monthly visit to take home a week’s worth of free canned and dry goods, fresh produce, baked goods and meat.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A Call For Action, Plus Change

Ending hunger in Los Angeles is a pretty ambitious goal. Yet The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is staking its identity on a new campaign, titled “Fed Up With Hunger,” that launched in September during the High Holy Days. Spreading the word through reusable shopping bags, strategically placed banners and a full calendar of events, Federation leaders are hoping that this obviously urgent and highly visible target will capture a new spirit at The Jewish Federation and help usher in a revitalized identity for the umbrella fundraising organization, one that will endure into the 21st century.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Santa Clarita Jews Plan Cutting-Edge Center

By Rebecca Steinberger

The Jewish community of Santa Clarita Valley could take a big step forward next year. Plans for a new Southern California Center for Jewish Life (SCCJL) include a complex designed by renowned architect Hagy Belzberg with a new home for Temple Beth Ami as well as an independent community cultural center, a public Hebrew-language charter school, an early childhood education center and 140 senior apartments. Groundbreaking for the $54 million project on a 19-acre property approximately five minutes north of Granada Hills is planned for late 2010. With the current Jewish population of Santa Clarita reaching close to 20,000, the new center would fill a big gap in the emerging community, as well as attract newcomers.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

USC Safety Taylor Mays Keeps Education and Football in Sights

By Carin Davis

Taylor Mays, an All-American, All-Pac-10 USC safety, is pegged as fast and physical in NFL scouting reports. Known for his intense, hard-hitting play and his blazing speed, he has the ability to go sideline-to-sideline, chase down opponents and deliver crushing blows. He runs a 4.25-second 40-yard dash, and in 2008 he made 53 tackles and a team-high nine deflections.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Windmueller to Retire, Holo New Dean at L.A.’s Reform College

By Tom Tugend

Steven F. Windmueller, a prominent figure in Jewish communal and academic life, will retire as the Los Angeles campus dean of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion on July 1.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Attorney Calls State Report Exonerating Eden Memorial Shoddy and Inadequate

State investigators reported last week that they have no evidence to prove that Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills mishandled graves, as alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed against the cemetery’s owners in September.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Defending Muslims in Wake of Fort Hood

by Eric Fingerhut, JTA

Mikey Weinstein is probably best known for defending Jews from alleged bigotry and harassment in the U.S. military. In the past few days, however, he’s been raising questions about whether there’s also an anti-Muslim bias in the service.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Israeli Documentary Challenges Jewish Responses to Anti-Semitism

by Akiva Gottlieb, Contributing Writer

Yoav Shamir’s provocative new documentary, “Defamation” (“Ha Shmatsa”), suggests that today’s anti-Semitism, however pernicious, reflects little more than petty ignorance. The Israeli filmmaker’s central inquiry is whether the contemporary Jewish response to anti-Semitism is disproportionate in its force, and, if so, whether that response is detrimental to Jewish interests. That the two-part question is asked so forthrightly is enough to make “Defamation,” which First Run Features will open in Los Angeles Nov. 20, the most important Jewish movie of the year.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Writer Gets Inked to Honor Her Body

By Jo-Ann Mort

On my first trip to Israel 29 years ago, I was waiting for a friend at the entrance to Beit Hatfutsot, a museum on the Tel Aviv University campus. It was during a conference convened for Holocaust survivors, and as I watched older survivors flow out of the building, I glanced at the occasional uncovered arm to see the tattooed numbers there, remnants of their Holocaust experience. It was a powerful vision for a first-time visitor to Israel, one that underscored triumph over adversity and the human will to survive along with the need for the country as a safe haven for the Jews.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Vista Del Mar Throws Jazz Fest Fundraiser

Grammy-nominated artists attracted 800 music lovers to Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services’ first annual jazz festival.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

B.H. Education Board Teams With MOT for Character Education

Nooshin Meshkaty, Beverly Hills Board of Education president, and Beverly LeMay, program manager for the Museum of Tolerance’s Tools for Tolerance, are working together to expand character education for elementary and middle school students.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Mitzvah Day in the Valley

More than 25 Jewish organizations across the Valley participated in the 13th annual Mitzvah Day on Nov. 1, coordinated by The Jewish Federation Valley Alliance.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

UCLA Jewish Studies Honors Founding Director

The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies recently honored founding director Arnold Band, professor emeritus of Hebrew and comparative literature, for his half-century of service to UCLA. Raymond P. Scheindlin, professor of medieval Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, delivered the annual lecture named for Band and sponsored by Sheila and Milton Hyman on Oct. 21.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Celebs Tee Off for Camp Kesem

The stars aligned for Camp Kesem’s “Fore” the Children Golf Tournament on Nov. 2, attracting the likes of Marcia Cross and Peter Gallagher to the MountainGate Country Club for the inaugural event.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Cyberstalking Akiva and the Kippah Snafu

t’s the day after Yair’s bar mitzvah, the day after the one and only day that’s been on our emotional and organizational calendar for the last few months. For the first time in weeks there isn’t much to do, aside from watching the montage over and over and basking in the unexpectedly intense pride and wonderment of the day before.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

B’nai Mitzvahs Simchas: Nov. 20-26, 2009

There are two easy ways to send us your birth, bar/bat mitzvah, engagement, wedding and anniversary announcements. Visit us at jewishjournal.com and click on the Simchas link at the bottom of the page — there you’ll find an easy, efficient way to post your news and upload a photo.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Obituaries: Nov-September 3, 2009

Obituaries dating between Aug. 14 and Sept. 21, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

William Ganz, M.D., 90, Pioneering Cardiologist and Co-Inventor of the Swan-Ganz Catheter

William Ganz, M.D., an internationally recognized leader and inventor in heart medicine, died of natural causes on Nov. 10 at the age of 90. Ganz was a co-inventor of the Swan-Ganz catheter for measuring heart conditions and was a pioneer in thrombolysis, in which enzymes are injected into the bloodstream to break down clots that block vessels.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Angella Nazarian Seeks Her Place in the World

by Dora Levy Mossanen

Angella M. Nazarian’s “Life as a Visitor” (Assouline Publishing) is a memoir/travelogue/compilation of touching poems plus beautiful photographs captured during the author’s travels to more than 50 countries. Nazarian is an honest and candid writer who raises hope that dreams can be achieved even if one is uprooted from one’s homeland and even if the glass souvenirs she so desired in her childhood in Iran were out of reach in a cabinet, “locked and the key put away.” But not for long. An avid photographer and traveler, Nazarian managed to discover her own key while visiting foreign lands, where she collected her own souvenirs and came to believe that, “a similar theme or experience has a way of collapsing the distance between past and present, here and there.”

Monday, November 16, 2009

Repairing the World, One Book at a Time

By Karla S. Blume

Finding the true meaning of the word “mitzvah” can be a difficult task, especially as a newly minted teen. While the Hebrew word means commandment, it’s also come to mean an expression of loving-kindness. And luckily for seventh-grader Jacob Tobias, 12, he knew right away what his mitzvah was when he set out on a mission of good deeds.

Monday, November 16, 2009

‘Why This Me?’

By Rabbi Daniel Greyber

During my first summer at Camp Ramah it became necessary to dismiss a camper. We sat on my porch together, and he started to shake and cry after I broke the news to him. He buried his face in his hands.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Bra Helps Fight Breast Cancer

By Marty Kaplan

Now that CNN has put Lou Dobbs out to pasture, you'd think that The Most Trusted Name in News would make the reporting of facts - you know, the practice formerly known as journalism - the hallmark of its brand. Dream on.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Palestinian threat to declare statehood seeks to put onus on Israel

By Leslie Susser, JTA

Frustrated by a lack of progress toward statehood, the Palestinians are considering taking their case to the United Nations.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Orthodox students are embracing social action

by Amy Klein, JTA

A few months after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, Texas, in September 2008, Yeshiva University student David Eckstein went to the devastated area with 32 other students to help rebuild homes.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Future of ORT Schools in Former Soviet Union on Shaky Ground

By Laura Stampler

The Jewish life that once was so vibrant in Eastern Europe was long ago ravaged, if not destroyed — first by the Holocaust and then by communist regimes. The latter strictly forbade all religious practice, and even being culturally Jewish was considered socially detrimental and potentially life threatening.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

One Man’s Illness Works to Myeloma’s Benefit