May 15, 2008
Scene & Heard
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Inspired by an election season in which young, first-time voters are participating in record numbers, USC trustee Carmen Warschaw has pledged a $3 million gift to endow the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics. The goal of the new position is meant to encourage civic activism by bringing students together with elected officials through courses, conferences and discussion forums. Warschaw and her husband, Louis, who died in 2001, helped established the college's Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life in 1998 and have since funded a lecture series which invites prominent elected officials to speak about how their Judaism influences their political life.
The 2008 graduating class, JVS CEO Vivian Seigel (top row, left) and JVS founder Les Biller (middle row, center).
JVS Bankworks, a free career-training program founded by former Wells Fargo COO Les Biller and a consortium of brand-name banks, educates aspiring financiers for entry into the banking industry and held its April 2008 graduation ceremony at the Expo Center.
Lloyd Levine and Hanka Kent.
State officials heard about the persecution of homosexuals under the Nazi regime when Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) delivered an explicit and moving address to the Capitol in Sacramento during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on April 28. Levine was accompanied by Holocaust survivor Hanka Kent of Tarzana, whose own harrowing story was also honored that day.
(From left) Rabbi Meyer May, executive director of the Wiesenthal Center; L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Alan and Susan Casden; former Gov. Gray Davis; Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Larry Mizel, chairman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center board of trustees; Martin Rosen, center trustee and a close friend of Simon Wiesenthal.
