Rembaum’s Unity

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Torah of Potholes

By David Suissa

Scott Krieger wasn’t always an Orthodox Jew. Before getting “turned on” to Torah observance in the early 1980s — after attending a summer program run by Dennis Prager at Brandeis-Bardin Institute — he was your basic casual Jew who would attend synagogue two or three times a year.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Wolman of Valor

By David Suissa

Lesley Wolman was having trouble breathing.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Missing Class

By David Suissa

I have an idea that I think could really improve Jewish education. It’s so simple and obvious that I wasn’t going to write about it, since I figure everyone’s already thought of it. The idea came to me after a rabbi told me about his dream of broadcasting, on the Internet, a weekly class on Judaism designed for the huge number of Jewish kids who aren’t getting a Jewish education.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Leaning Sideways

By David Suissa

I learned something new at our seder this year, and it had nothing to do with the story of the Exodus.

I was ready for a seder full of questions. I had done my homework, gone to classes, read essays and books. I prepared questions that I would ask the kids, questions that would encourage them to ask their own questions. Like my friend Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller impressed on us at one of our Torah salons, a seder is like a mini-Beit Midrash, a table of learning, debating and understanding.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Bring a Suitcase to Seder

By David Suissa

I had no idea I would be attending a seder the other day when I went to The Jewish Federation building to hear Rabbi Ed Feinstein talk about “The Ethics of Exodus.”

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Mind-State Solution

By David Suissa

I’m not sure, but I think I have a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or at least another way of looking at it. It hit me the other day after I broke bread at Pat’s Restaurant with some people connected to Americans for Peace Now, a leftist Jewish organization that actively promotes the two-state solution.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Music Man

By David Suissa

If you want to upset a Jewish musician who makes Jewish music, just call him a Jewish musician who makes Jewish music. Like it or not, the term “Jewish music” is not flattering to Jewish musicians. It’s got connotations of old-time schmaltz, of Zionist choirs singing “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem,” of fringe music written for a very specific — and very small — audience.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Catcher of Lost Souls

By David Suissa

“How are we going to be as dedicated as these monsters?” was the line in the film that stuck with me. I was in a cramped synagogue, a few blocks from my house, where a standing room-only crowd had come to honor a Jew who had passed away in Jerusalem 30 days earlier.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Laboring for Ethics

By David Suissa

Jews can’t sit still, especially when we see a member of the tribe royally mess up. A kosher slaughterhouse accused of grossly violating labor laws?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bumping Into Judaism

By David Suissa

It’s one thing to go to a Jewish event, shmooze a little, meet the speaker, take a few notes and then write a column. But what do you do when you go to a Jewish event that lasts for 72 hours, has about 200 classes and activities, 150 speakers and 700 Jews buzzing in and out of each event until the wee hours?

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Search for a Leader

By David Suissa

It’s one of the defining moments in the life of a synagogue — the search for a new head rabbi.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Seder With Beach Limbo?

By David Suissa

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I don’t enjoy things like beach volleyball, windsurfing, kayaking and moonlight salsa dancing.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Circling Rabbi

By David Suissa

Rabbi Perry Netter lost his enthusiasm for our conversation when I popped him the question. We were discussing, over a long lunch at Shilo’s, the topic of human conflict, and I asked him if he could recall a special moment of conflict while he was growing up — something that might have marked him.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Gaza Riviera

By David Suissa

In the advertising business, clients pay us to dream.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Can war bring peace?

By David Suissa

I've never met a right-wing Jew who doesn't want peace. The divisive question is always: How do we get there? By being forceful and hard-nosed, or flexible and understanding?

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

How we fight

By David Suissa

Did Israel actually trick our terrorist enemy into complacency before catching it off guard? Did we use the six-month cease-fire with Hamas to beef up our intelligence and plan a blitzkrieg counterattack in response to the incessant bombing of Israeli civilians?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Madoff’s Redemption

By David Suissa

It's like a quadruple shot of cheap vodka that you drink quickly on an empty stomach. You feel disgusted and drunk at the same time.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The quiet tailor

By David Suissa

Paul's shop has been a fixture in the neighborhood for 28 years. When you enter his shop, which sits adjacent to the Pico Glatt market a block east of Beverly Drive, you half expect to see trolley cars and '56 Chevys going by outside. His sewing machines are more than 50 years old.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Man of Joy

By David Suissa

Craig Taubman is a very happy guy, but on Yom HaAtzmaut last spring, as Jewish communities around the world were celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary, he
wasn't a happy camper

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Starving the murderers

By David Suissa

As we mourn and pray silently for the victims of Mumbai, maybe we ought to consider a quieter, more lethal approach to fighting the multi-headed serpent of Islamic terrorism, one that doesn't play to the movement's craving for high drama and worldwide media exposure

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

No money, no cry

By David Suissa

If your organization is having trouble raising funds for a building or a major physical expansion, now might be a good time to consider more creative and less costly ways of fulfilling your mission.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Where’s the struggle?

By David Suissa

When I see the coarse arguments currently raging over the issue of same-sex marriage, I don't see any thoughtful or fascinating debates or any embracing of tension. I see two armies shooting at each other.

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 5, 2008

Yes, I can

By David Suissa

I have a wish that our eloquent new president will have the audacity to tell the nation that, for most of us, 99 percent of our happiness is in our own hands.