Megillat Esther — The book of the exile

Published on February 12, 2013

Purim is an extraordinary festival in the Jewish calendar. It can be distinguished from all the other festivals by the character that it was granted in later generations, but mainly by its most primary source - Megillat Esther itself.

Libyan Jewish exile to leave country

Published on October 10, 2011

A Libyan Jewish exile attempting to restore Tripoli's main synagogue will leave the country following angry protests.

Solving the riddle

By Gina Nahai
Published on December 31, 2008

In Los Angeles and New York and elsewhere in the West, families who had left Iran "for the summer," to"wait out the troubles" and "return in time for the kids to start school in September" realized there was no going back.

This time, I remember

By Gina Nahai
Published on November 7, 2008

It's been 30 years since I left Iran, and I still know I'm going back some day, because I have to see that house again, to stand before the yard door and discover if it's indeed 12 feet high, or if I've imagined it so, to ring the doorbell and see if I can hear its chime echo up and down the street.

Was Roman Polanski treated unfairly?  BBC documentary says yes

By The Web Guy
Published on October 10, 2008

Escape, exile, rebirth: Iranian Jewish diaspora alive and well in Los Angeles

By Karmel Melamed
Published on September 4, 2008

Thirty years have passed since the massive and violent demonstrations against the Shah of Iran that began in September 1978, and for many, the start of that country's bloody revolution might seem a faded memory. Yet I have carried those shattering events with me all of my life: I was born on in Tehran on Sept. 11, 1978, as chaos unfolded on the streets outside

Exile’s gains and losses

By Gina Nahai
Published on September 3, 2008

I don't know what will become of the legacy of Iranian Jews outside of Iran, how history will judge us in the context of the opportunities we had and the extent to which we helped make the world a better place with what we were given.

Family’s tale recounts Libyan Jewish dispersion

By Danielle Berrin
Published on November 29, 2007

The opening line from the documentary "The Last Jews of Libya" begins a nostalgic visit to an ill-fated community of 25,000 people living between the Mediterranean Sea and North African desert at the dawn of World War II. It's a story we know too well -- pious, successful and family-oriented Jews living in coexistence with their neighbors suddenly become targets of racial hatred and are ultimately expelled or destroyed. Once in the United States, the immigrants struggle to find their place within an American Jewish life rooted firmly in Eastern European culture.

‘Live from Tehran’

By Gina Nahai
Published on October 4, 2007

It's 8 p.m. on a Wednesday, and I'm at the studios of KIRN -- a Persian-language AM radio station on Barham Boulevard near Universal Studios. I'm a guest on a program called "Live From Hollywood."

Leftist government’s moves worry Nicaraguan Jews

By Brian Harris
Published on March 8, 2007

During the Sandinista's regime, the country's synagogue, damaged in a 1978 fire, was converted into a secular school. It is being used now as a funeral home. The country's Torah remains in exile in Costa Rica.

7 Days in the Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on October 19, 2006

7 days in the Arts.

Ahoy, mateys ! Thar be Jewish pirates!

By Adam Wills
Published on September 14, 2006

Jewish piracy has been around since well before the Barbary pirates first preyed on ships during the Crusades. In the time of the Second Temple, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus records that Hyrcanus accussed Aristobulus of "acts of piracy at sea."

Loud and Proud Mizrachi Voices

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on May 13, 2004

"The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage," edited by Loolwa Khazzoom (Seal Press, $16.95)

On the last night before her family would flee Libya in 1967, Gina Bublil Waldman recalls that she had to choose between taking her only warm sweater or a photo album with the words "Souvenir of Libya" on the cover. Its hand-painted image of a peaceful seascape was in absolute contrast to the political turbulence and danger her family faced. She packed the photos, remnants of a life she wouldn't know again.

Her essay is included in a compelling collection, "The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage," edited by Loolwa Khazzoom.

New Tales From a Post-Exodus Egypt

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on April 8, 2004

Now that we've just finished two seders celebrating our escape from Egypt, a new exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center demonstrates that not every Jew got out of Egypt -- or wanted to.

Recall Golus

By Gaby Wenig
Published on September 18, 2003

If Golus is recalled, then the entire state of California will be transported to the Holy Land, and we won't have to worry about a budget crisis, Davis's lack of personality or unsavory Arnold Schwarzenegger interviews -- which definitely makes recalling Golus something worth thinking about.

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on March 6, 2003

"Welcome to Heavenly Heights" by Risa Miller (St. Martin's Press, $23.95).


Many writers have imagined the Jewish immigrant experience, setting their novels and short stories on the Lower East Side and places like that, where newcomers can forge their way to become Americans. Risa Miller's debut novel, "Welcome to Heavenly Heights," is a different version of that story, with American Jews making new homes in Israel, reversing the exile. This transition can be more pressure cooker than melting pot, mixing idealism, religion, bureaucracy, family complexities, shifting expectations, love and, never far away, violence.

Symbol of All Hopes

By Stuart Schoffman
Published on February 15, 2001

About 20 years ago the Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua wrote an essay called "Exile as a Neurotic Solution," in which he endeavored to explain why so many Diaspora Jews, for many centuries and in our own day, have avoided coming to live in the Land of Israel.

Bittersweet Life

By Rabbi Ed Feinstein
Published on April 20, 2000

Exiled from Paradise, Adam and Eve lived together east of Eden, struggling to raise children, to scratch a living out of the hard earth, to stay alive.

Enrico Suavé

By Curt Schleier
Published on October 28, 1999

In 1961, a saddened and disheartened 23-year-old Algerian school teacher and musician named Gaston Ghenassia was merely one of the thousands of refugees on a ship bound for France, leaving his homeland in the aftermath of the Algerian Revolution. Little did he know at the time how defining a moment it was to become in his life.

A Brecht Debut and Finale

By Tom Tugend
Published on June 24, 1999

In an ironic twist that Bertolt Brecht would have appreciated, his legendary Berliner Ensemble will make its American debut at UCLA July 7 to 11, and then lower the curtain permanently.