Heart and Soul

By Nancy Sokoler Steiner
Published on January 30, 2003

It's 7:30 on a Friday morning, and 15 participants in the Westside Family YMCA gym are busy moving their bodies to the rhythm of Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing." Ranging in age from 58 to 86, the majority are enrolled in the YMCArdiac Therapy Program because fate and their doctors gave them an ultimatum: Exercise regularly or risk a heart attack. What they didn't expect was to have a good time doing it.

Protocol

By Michael Aushenker
Published on December 12, 2002

Rules of etiquette suggest that one must whisper in a library. But for the Jewish Community Library of Greater Los Angeles, that rule is just the beginning.

The library recently held its culminating ceremony for a group of youngsters enrolled in its Children's Etiquette and Social Grace class. This is the first time that the institution has sponsored such a class.

The idea developed after the library director Abigail Yasgur and children's director Sylvia Lowe, children's librarian, enrolled their respective youngsters in an etiquette class.

"Libraries are not just about the books," Lowe said. "They're becoming meeting places for people in the community."