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Thursday, November 5, 2009

We Need ‘A Street,’ Not J Street

By David Suissa

I don’t quite get the brouhaha that is going on in the Jewish world about J Street. Some Jews are convinced that this new organization poses a threat to Israel’s interests, while others are equally passionate about the need for an organization that will counter AIPAC and critique Israeli policy for the sake of peace.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

How to Rescue the Resort

By Gina Nahai

Have you noticed how the people who work in luxury hotels never actually use the word “hotel” to refer to the place? They call it “The Property,” or “The Resort,” or sometimes even “The Estate,” which, I imagine, is supposed to describe something much grander, more awe-inspiring and worthy of one’s hard-earned money than a mere “hotel.”

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

No Pork, Just a little: Reflections on our college road trip

By David Rudolph

My daughter Hana “suggested” last spring that we needed to take a college road trip so she could make an informed decision about where to apply to college. After delaying my decision on this for weeks, I finally gave in. Why do I always give in? That “informed decision” – including air fares, rental car, hotels, food, etc. – cost us over $2000, but who’s counting? Hana is “sixteen, going on seventeen” and you know the rest of the song—“Baby it’s time to think. Better beware. Be canny and careful. Baby you’re on the brink.” Being the concerned father that I am (that’s c-o-n-c-e-r-n-e-d, not overprotective in the least), how could I say no?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Pro-Israel Motives Do Not Mean Pro-Israel Results

By Alan Levine

J Street, after its first ever conference has shown that it misunderstands how to be pro-Israel in the Diaspora. In a nutshell: non-Israeli supporters of Israel are supposed to support Israel, not tell Israel what to do.

Monday, November 2, 2009

If You Liked Health Care, You’ll Love Afghanistan

By Marty Kaplan

If you’re depressed by the way the national debate about health care has been playing out, just wait until the rubber hits the road on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Israel. If you’re enraged by the way Wall Street’s rescue has made us hostages to their recklessness, get ready for how the oil and coal industries are going to game the energy and climate change decisions ahead. If you’re scared by the way the media can trivialize and polarize and make entertainment out of any topic in its crosshairs, imagine its toxic impact when we get around to dealing with education, immigration and trade.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Spelling Afghanistan

By Steve Greenberg

You can't spell Afghanistan

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Chillax

By Rob Eshman

Every day, more like every hour of every day, I get e-mails, letters and phone calls crying out that Israel faces dire threat, if not certain doom.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

LETTERS: October 30-November 5, 2009

According to Professor Marty Kaplan, infotainment programs like “Showbiz Tonight” and “Jon & Kate Plus 8” are “dangerous” to democracy (“Balloon Dad to Pose for Playgirl,” Oct. 23)! So dangerous that anonymous villains, including lobbyists (who?), Wall Street firms (which ones?) and Big Pharma (whatever that is) cynically rely on them to distract hapless, stupid Americans. After all, “average” people have short attention spans and become confused when given too many choices. In other words, they’re uninformed tools addicted to trash TV.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Child of Moses

By David Suissa

A thousand Jews were gathered for the Passover seder. There were no tables or chairs or haggadot. The matzot were handmade. No one had gone shopping at the local markets, since they had grown all the food themselves. The plates were brand new; each family had broken their old ones in a wild ceremony and made new ones by hand, as they did every year.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

From Israel, With Love

by Lawrence Bender

I’ve been thinking about Israel a lot lately. I recently produced “Inglourious Basterds,” a film about World War II, and held a premiere in Tel Aviv. Going to Israel causes me to reflect on why I feel so connected to that country. There’s the Jewish thing, of course. But it’s more than ethnic solidarity. It’s also the strange, jarring and fascinating disconnect between the Israel that exists on CNN and the Israel I find when I land at Ben-Gurion Airport.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Different Kind of Fighter for 5th District

By Bill Boyarsky

L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz hustled into his fourth-floor office suite followed by two aides, just after he finished a long council session. I followed him into a back office to interview this City Hall newcomer, the latest person to represent the difficult 5th District.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Israel must break growing stranglehold of religion

By Uri Regev and Stanley Gold, JTA

How does it happen that thousands of Israelis travel each year to Cyprus and Eastern Europe to get married? Is this an Israeli custom, to elope? Not at all.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My President

By Steve Greenberg

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Government must help save domestic violence programs

By Nancy Ratzan, JTA

As we observe National Domestic Violence Awareness Month this month, we mark the 15th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act -- a tremendous achievement that significantly buttressed efforts to address domestic violence. Unfortunately, the anniversary occurs amid news of significant state and local cutbacks to domestic violence programs across the country, just as reports of violence are increasing.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Neda Square

By Rob Eshman

Everybody with a cause, everybody angry at a country eventually ends up in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard at Veteran Avenue, waving a poster at passing cars, hoping for a honk. It may not be the most effective form of activism, but at least it tries to reach Angelenos where we live: in our cars.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

LETTERS: October 23-29, 2009

Three cheers to Jon Voight (Letters, Oct. 16) for his reflections on the demonizing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by Marty Kaplan (“I Want to Know What Happens Next,” Sep. 25). Voight has always been one of the most moral and decent people coming out of Hollywood. He has volunteered his time and efforts on behalf of causes beneficial to Jews and others for years, especially the time he graciously volunteers to Chabad. Kaplan should look into his own leftist nest to find people who actually despise Israel; it wouldn’t take him that long. You will find that many Republicans, such as Sarah Palin and former President Bush, are some of the best friends that Israel will ever have.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Holocaust Man

By David Suissa

I’ve always had a weird feeling about the whole notion of Holocaust studies. I mean, 6 million Jews were murdered — how much more do I need to know? I can read 100 books on the subject — analyzing the who, what, where, why and how of this unspeakable atrocity — and still, I don’t think anything I read will come close to equaling these five words: Six million Jews were murdered.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A National Conversation on the American Jewish Future

by Steven Windmueller

A new level of uneasiness now dominates our general society and, more directly, the Jewish community. We are living in one of the most transformative moments in history, resulting in the reshaping of the human condition, where the global enterprise is undergoing a major technology and communications revolution, the reconfiguration of political power, the creation of a world economic order, and a significant generational shift in cultural attitudes and social behaviors and norms.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

We Are All Baha’is

By Rabbi Mark S. Diamond

Are we our brother’s and sister’s keepers? Last week I joined a group of distinguished community leaders in a resounding affirmative response to this timeless question. We gathered together at the University of Southern California in “Belief Behind Bars: A Call for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in Iran,” co-sponsored by the USC Office of Religious Life, the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, and the Los Angeles Baha’i Center. We were a large assemblage of faith leaders and celebrities, musicians and dancers, human rights activists and university officials, faculty and students.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Should Jews care about the Goldstone report?

Marcus Sheff, Executive Director, The Israel Project - Israel Office

It was of course utterly predictable. Last Friday, Judge Richard Goldstone, reacting to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s inevitable decision to endorse his made-for Al Jazeera report about last winter's Gaza war, criticized the UNHRC because it included only censure of Israel, without any mention of Hamas.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Balloon Dad to Pose for Playgirl

By Marty Kaplan

It’s my own fault, I know, for watching “Showbiz Tonight” over the weekend, but I couldn’t find the news on any other channel, and I’d forgotten that HLN, better known as CNN’s Headline News, had turned its definition of journalism over to Nancy Grace, host of “television's only justice themed/interview/debate show, designed for those interested in the breaking crime news of the day”; to Robin Meade, author of “Morning Sunshine: How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It, Too”; to Jane Velez-Mitchell, author of “iWant: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life,” who has been “stand[ing] up for the powerless, and speak[ing] for those who don't have a voice” on HLN since Glenn Beck left it for Fox News. And, of course, to “Showbiz Tonight.”

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Can We Argue Without Fighting?

By David Suissa

If you want to ruin a Shabbat meal in my neighborhood of Pico-Robertson these days, just say one word: Obama. Within minutes, one of two things is likely to happen. If everyone around the table is anti-Obama, you’ll get a grown-up version of a verbal piñata, with people taking turns bopping the man who is “selling America and Israel down the river.”

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Thanks, Chief

By Rob Eshman

The way I see it, after a sheriff rides into town, cleans the place up, then rides off into the sunset — those townspeople better be out in the center of Main Street, waving goodbye and choking back tears.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

LETTERS: October 16-22, 2009

My name is Jon Voight. I am not a Jew, but I have been a great supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.

I have been to Sderot in Southern Israel, and spent time with the most heroic, amazing people, who’ve had to live with missiles attacking them, day in and day out.