Hail, Caesarstone!

By Elyse Glickman
Published on December 20, 2012

As California’s real estate market continues its recovery and spring remodeling season is poised to start, many homeowners are once again looking for enduring ways to rejuvenate their living spaces and add value to their homes.

Eco-friendly home reveals ‘greener’ pastures ahead [SLIDESHOW]

Published on July 25, 2012

As scientists continue to warn us that our over-consumption of natural resources is putting too great a strain on our planet, the idea of sustainability — of reducing one’s carbon footprint, recycling and finding a cleaner, greener future — has never been more popular.

SLIDESHOW: Fashion Week in Tel Aviv

By JewishJournal.com
Published on November 23, 2011

Fashion & Beauty: Highlighting the hottest local Israeli designers

Published on September 16, 2011

Some of the top names in fashion today are Jewish: Donna Karan, Anne Klein, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors.

Gypsy 05

By Orit Arfa
Published on September 16, 2011

Inside the waiting area of Gypsy05’s solar-powered plant in downtown L.A., walls are decorated with brightly colored dresses and T-shirts alongside decorative hamsas, fashion magazine clippings, a “blessing of the business” in Hebrew, a picture of the Rebbe and certificates of recognition from American Solar Energy Solutions.

Tal Sheyn

By Rachel Heller
Published on September 16, 2011

Tal Sheyn likes to say she built her fashion career “from Z to A.”

Dina Bar-El

Published on September 16, 2011

If you’ve seen Kate Hudson’s stunning yellow gown in “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” then you are already acquainted with the work of Los Angeles-based Israeli designer Dina Bar-El.

YMI

Published on September 16, 2011

David Vered’s jeans are his daughter’s jeans.

Design yourself

By Dikla Kadosh
Published on September 16, 2011

I was inspired to create a fashion issue because I look at personal style as a shortcut to becoming whoever I want to be.

Sacred spaces

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on August 19, 2011

Ever catch yourself on Rosh Hashanah flipping through the remaining pages of the prayer book, mentally calculating how much longer you’ll be there?

Sukkahs that captured a city’s imagination to go nationwide

Published on September 28, 2010

It was a surprise hit on the cultural roster of a city that may be the most culturally busy city in the nation.

L.A. Receives Emergency Grant, Sinai Head Appointed, Composer Wins Soup Contest

Published on March 18, 2009

Five communities, including Los Angeles, will split an $11 million emergency grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation for day school and Jewish camp tuition assistance over the next two years. The San Francisco-based foundation will begin paying money out immediately to Jewish federations in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and its neighboring North Shore, and the greater Washington, D.C., area.

L.A. bakers suggest ways to make picking your cake a little sweeter

By Elyse Glickman
Published on August 15, 2008

In Los Angeles, with today's foodie culture in full tilt, there is no "one-size-fits-all" option when it comes to choosing a bakery to create the perfect wedding cake.

Recycling on the fashion runway

By Meredith Price
Published on April 4, 2008

Floating fashions are totally tubular

By Meredith Price
Published on December 13, 2007

Forget cotton, Lycra and leather. Israeli balloon twister Ori Livney has a new material that could put a real bounce in your gown: rubber.

"The air is the expensive part," says Ori Livney, grinning from behind a pile of colorful rubber balloons. "But it's not as complicated as it sounds. I can make just about any regular dress out of balloons. The challenge is to make it a perfect custom fit."

Prefab housing gets ‘fab’

By Sam Hall Kaplan
Published on February 22, 2007

Prefab indeed has the potential to lend itself to being "green" by using materials more efficiently, wasting less space, and generally creating structures that are lower maintenance.

American-style retirement for Israel’s seniors

By Miriam Bulwar David-Hay
Published on December 21, 2006

Although old-age homes have always existed in Israel for those who cannot care for themselves, it is only in recent years that the American idea of retiring to a comfortable community of seniors has taken off here.

Rainbow-haired couturier takes fashion fun seriously

By Keren Engelberg
Published on November 2, 2006

"I'm a colorful person," Tochterman said. "I like color; I like texture; I like mixing things together. I think my customer is a sophisticated, ageless, confident woman."

Designing woman preserves observatory’s past for future

By Morris Newman
Published on November 2, 2006

Brenda Levin, associate architect for the renovation and restoration of the original Griffith Observatory building and grounds.

Which came first: the building or the dress?

By Morris Newman
Published on September 14, 2006

"Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture," opening Nov. 19 at the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown, proposes that building design and haute couture have increasingly begun to overlap and borrow ideas from one another.

Persian Jewish Artist Finds New Freedom

By Karmel Melamed
Published on August 10, 2006

Nassi has spent more than 10 years making a name for herself in the art world who has shown themes ranging from women's rights and marriage to societal issues.

7 Days in the Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on July 6, 2006

7 Days in the Arts

Brain-Busting Doc, Eight Letters

By Morris Newman
Published on June 22, 2006

The cult status of The New York Times Crossword puzzle is the subject of "Wordplay," an uneven but entertaining documentary by director Patrick Creadon about the people who design the fiendishly difficult crossword puzzles for The Times and the gifted eccentrics who devote their lives to puzzle solving and who compete against each other with all the fury and devotion of Olympic athletes.

Shlub to Hero: Film Sketches Gehry Life

By Morris Newman
Published on May 18, 2006

Gehry's creative solution -- his psychoanalytic victory -- was to embrace the delight of free-form design, while making sure that his buildings met the needs of his clients. His freedom in designing what appear to be purely sculptural objects that subsequently win rapturous praise must make him the envy of all architects who secretly wish they could find such willing clients.

9/11 Museum Head Uses Shoah Lessons

By Matthew E. Berger
Published on April 27, 2006

For more than two decades, Alice Greenwald has been helping to give people a palpable understanding of the Holocaust through her work with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

‘Design’-ing Woman Comes to Town

By Judy Bart Kancigor
Published on February 9, 2006

"Susie Fishbein has done for Jewish cooking what [rabbi and author] Aryeh Kaplan did for beginning Judaism," said Rabbi Shimon Kraft of the 613 Mitzvah Store on Pico Boulevard. "They're buying her cookbooks en masse. She's a genius at editing and putting everything all together."

The Building Blocks of a Great Sukkah

By Michael Brown
Published on October 13, 2005

Every year, Scott Rekant of Monmouth Junction, N.J., hauls a tidy pile of 21 2-by-4s from his garage and puts together a sturdy sukkah that stands on his back porch.

Shoah Slave Driver to Disney Designer

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on June 9, 2005

"What interested me about the story was not the Holocaust," Nancy Keystone said. "It was in what we did by bringing these people into the country and later by kicking them out. We whitewashed Rudolph's record when we decided he was important for national security. But when the game is over, can you really change the rules and is that justice?"

People, Motifs Blend at The Shul

By Lisa Alcalay Klug
Published on April 14, 2005

The Shul's powerful sense of Jewish solidarity is well-documented. In May 1995, it hosted a meeting of the annual Sephardic Rabbis Convention, which featured an address by Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, then the the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel.

New Chuppah Honors Terror Victim

By Carin Davis
Published on February 10, 2005

On the eve of her wedding, 20-year-old Naava Applebaum and her father, Dr. David Applebaum, the director of emergency medicine at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, sat at Jerusalem's Café Hillel. The two were celebrating her upcoming nuptials with a father-daughter talk. But Naava Applebaum never made it to her chuppah. That night, Sept. 9, 2003, she and her father's lives were taken by a terrorist's bomb.

Getting Married? Get ‘Creative’

By Sonja Hyams
Published on December 9, 2004

"The Creative Jewish Wedding Book" by Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer helps couples tap into their creativity and design the wedding that really suits them. Kaplan-Mayer inspires readers to honor their own comfort level of style, taste, emotional and financial resources and Jewish observance.

Ex-Communist ‘Burb Makes Menorahs

By Carolyn Slutsky
Published on December 2, 2004

All the menorahs made at the factory have seven branches, a departure from the nine-armed versions most American Jews light to celebrate Chanukah.

Create Festive Table in a Blue Mood

By Linda Morel
Published on December 2, 2004

Following are pointers on livening up your Chanukah table from "Kosher by Design" by Susie Fishbein (Mesorah, 2003).

Creative Chuppahs Are Labor of Love

By Donna Gordon Blankinship
Published on November 11, 2004

Nancy Goldov says the chuppah cost a few hundred dollars to make, but is now considered a priceless family heirloom. She is having a quilt made for their bed that mimics the design of the tree. Someday she may change the chuppah in some way to signify their children.

Wilshire: Boulevard of Sanctuaries

By Kevin Roderick
Published on November 11, 2004

The boulevard in the 1920s was the natural place for the institutions and their members to relocate. They saw that, in the future, downtown's narrow, congested streets would no longer be the center of the community. Los Angeles was turning into a driving city, and Wilshire became the nation's first Automobile Age thoroughfare. Religious establishments that wished to be part of the exciting future moved to Wilshire Boulevard.

Create a Bridal Look That’s Made for You

By Donna Gordon Blankinship
Published on November 11, 2004

Both brides were beautiful and the dress was a focal point each time, thanks to the loving restoration work by dressmaker Camila Sigelmann, who made it possible for Amee Huppin Sherer to be married in Grandma Marian Huppin's 1925 wedding gown.

Truthbusters

By Rob Eshman
Published on March 4, 2004

The current March/April issue of Adbusters magazine features a lead-in piece by editor Kalle Lasn titled, "Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?" In it, Lasn points out the fact that of the 50 or so neocons influencing United States diplomatic and defense policy either within government or in media and think tanks, about half are Jewish.

A Sparkling Life

By David Geffner
Published on August 14, 2003

"Back in my grandfather's time, the diamond business was almost entirely Jewish," Aaron Furlong said, as he graded small stones. "Mazel was your word, and if you went against it, you were ostracized from the business."

The Circuit

By Michael Aushenker
Published on May 8, 2003

Becker General Contractors' Sandy Becker was happy to be at what is known in the real estate and construction business as a "sunriser" -- an early morning get-together.

L.A. Museums: Saved by the Jews

By Gene Lichtenstein
Published on August 15, 2002

A small museum opened its doors in Pasadena last month and naturally enough made local headlines.

Let Them Eat Cake

By Jewish Journal Staff
Published on August 1, 2002

While so much of daily life in Israel has changed -- or stopped -- due to the security situation, life does go on: children celebrate birthdays, teenagers become b'nei mitzvah and couples marry.

Be Your Own Interior Designer

By Naomi Zimmerman
Published on March 22, 2001

The most important thing to remember in decorating your home is editing. (The same is true of organizing schedules and handbags). Decorating is not about acquisitions but rather about fine-tuning what we have, ruthlessly.

A New Masthead

By Rob Eshman
Published on December 21, 2000

Through the practice of journalism, The Jewish Journal serves what we believe is one of the region's most interesting, influential and dynamic communities, and we wanted a masthead which both proclaims and reflects that.