Category
conservative
Conservative synagogue body restructures, reduces dues
The umbrella body for Conservative congregations will undergo a major restructuring that includes a significant staff reorganization and dues reductions.
A pioneering minyan celebrates double chai birthday
Pressman and the group did create another entity, what has become known as \”The Library Minyan,\” named for the downstairs library where the 15 families began to meet weekly to pray. Members organized and participated in all parts of the service (especially the weekly sermon), discussed all aspects of Judaism and debated the increasingly complex issues of the changing times.Thirty-six years later, the Library Minyan, with its opportunities for engagement and intellectual rigor is seen as having helped to start a revolution — empowering lay leaders in the essential structure of spiritual leadership. It has become a model for many Conservative and Reform congregations seeking to create alternatives both within and outside the fold of conventional synagogue structure, and has allowed individual congregations to morph it into new and ever-changing incarnations.This weekend, the Library Minyan will celebrate its double-chai anniversary (two times \”life\”) with a Shabbaton Nov. 2-4 that will remember the past but also look toward the future.
A congregation grows in Whittier — Hispanic outreach blooms
As the jewish population in the area east of Los Angeles has dwindled — and as the Conservative congregation has aged — Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak has reached out to the Spanish-speaking community in the area.
Them and Us
At 81, frail of body but sharp-tongued and wise, Rabbi Schulweis has made it his mission to preach the gospel of conversion to the Jews. That is we, as individuals and as a people, must seek and embrace converts. Doing so will not only improve Jewish life but improve our own lives as Jews.
PASSOVER – The Model Seder Begets Model Students
Lingering clouds huddle at the eastern edge of Los Angeles\’ clear blue skyline, casting a dusty shadow over the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains. Follow one of those meandering white trails down the mountain, and you\’ll find yourself at Weizmann Jewish Community Day School in the eastern foothills of Pasadena, where 38 students and 11 staff members occupy a stronghold of Jewish education in an area of Southern California not known for its overall Jewishness.
Studio Secured to Create Spiritual Art
On the small, darkened stage, a lone streetlight illuminates the façade of a front porch that, hours later, will serve as the set of Billy Crystal\’s Long Island home in his one-man show \”700 Sundays.\”
First Person – A Miraculous Trip
It was a nippy, star-filled Friday night, and we were on our way to a bar mitzvah. We — Julius, my husband of 50 years; our son, David; and I — had traveled from the Valley to Santa Maria for the celebration.
Orthodox But Not Monolithic
\”We\’re so busy fighting over the form of where women sit in shul that I think we\’ve lost the substance. There was a time that women were the pillars of the Orthodox community,\” Luchins said. \”We\’ve lost on that issue, big.\”
New Year, New Orleans
\”I think of Pompeii,\” wrote Anne Brener in a September article for The Jewish Journal. \”New Orleans was so beautiful.\”