November 7, 2012 | 1:04 am

Jewish Whiteness Doesn’t Get You Elected

Posted by Pini Herman

A Latino forum might have been safer

American Jews have maintained a complex relationship to whiteness. The 2012 exit polling preliminary results shows that 70 percent of Jews voted for President Obama, equaling the voting profile of Latinos and other minorities.

The Republican Jewish Coalition may be stunned again, peering out of the echo chamber of some Jewish wealth magnets, Jewish Orthodox, immigrant communities of Israeli, Russian and Iranians who identify with the American whiteness and privilege projected by the Republican party. These small American Jewish groups echoed repeated polling findings in Israel that reflected an affinity of Israelis for Republicans and perhaps the embattled American whiteness that they represent which may resonate well with Jewish Israelis who feel embattled themselves.

Locally, we have lost major congressional influence and power based on a simple campaign miscalculation of ignoring the votes of fellow minorities. Unfortunately, Howard Berman, who embraced Latinos throughout his legislative career somehow forgot them in his re-election effort and never wavered from catering to numerically miniscule constituencies who don’t share his core convictions. He ignored his natural Latino constituency, who would have embraced him just for his record if he had been a little more vigorous in sharing it with them. I mourn Berman’s loss.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is a past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

November 2, 2012 | 12:04 pm

Ten Tons of Chickens Tossed As Food Relief Lines Grow in LA

Posted by Pini Herman

Chickes on the Way to Landfill from Pico-Robertson

On September 25, 2012, Erev Yom Kippur, the City of Los Angeles Department of Sanitation made three dead animal pickups, two in the Pico-Robertson area and one in the La Brea-Melrose area collecting a total weight of 19,685 pounds of dead animals, that is chickens.  The chickens were disposed of in the usual manner, taken to a landfill.

The source of the chickens were Kaparos sites which had assured Jews performing the Kaparos ritual with chickens, each costing between $19 and $26 that each slaughtered bird was being given to the needy. When the Kaparos organizers decided to increase their financial gain by availing themselves of the City of LA’s free dead animal pickup, they left a data trail which was made available by Richard Lee of the Public Affairs Office of the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Sanitation.

The produces an interesting way to roughly estimate the less than one-in-four proportion of the minority of Orthodox households  who perform the Kaparos ceremony with a live chicken rather the three-in-four majority Orthodox households who use only coins for Kaparos. The 1997 LA Jewish Population Survey found that four percent of the Jewish households were Orthodox.  Assuming that Los Angeles has not seen a radical change in it’s Orthodox population, less than one percent of estimated Orthodox households used at least one chicken for Kaparos based on the average weight of live chickens, 7 pounds, and the total of 19,685 pounds of chicken trucked to landfill by the city.  There may have been other Kaparos sites using private sanitation hauling or just disposing chickens in dumpsters or garbage cans.

I have not encountered any donations of Kaparos slaughtered chicken prepared and donated to the needy as the community has been assured. (Click here for first and second blogs on Kaparos)

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (and author of the “most recent” 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population which was the third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is a past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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