Hess Kramer campers evacuated due to fire concerns

By JewishJournal
Published on May 2, 2013

Ventura County Star is reporting tonight at 10:18 p.m.: Roadrunner Shuttle donated two charter buses to pick up the 165 poeple at Camp Hess Kramer on Yerba Buena Road.

We felt so safe there

By Marty Kaplan
Published on November 20, 2008

Maybe the only way you can put down roots in California is with the thought that every place has its own risks, its tornadoes and hurricanes and lightning, that driving on the freeway is even more dangerous than living on a fault line.

Lazy hazy crazy days of summer

By Steve Greenberg
Published on July 10, 2008

Tzedakah With Toys

By Sharon Schatz Rosenthal
Published on November 13, 2003

When 5-year-old Ariela Weintraub learned about the recent Southern California fires during a family dinner discussion, she was worried. The Santa Monica resident asked her mother, Susan Weintraub, "Mommy, do you think the children who lived in those burning houses lost their toys?"

Her mother told her yes, and the youngster ran to her room and returned with a big white teddy bear. To her parents' surprise and delight, Ariela announced that she wanted to donate her cherished stuffed animal to a child who lost his or her own toys in the fires.

When Susan Weintraub told her daughter's story to Rabbi Karmi Gross, the principal of Maimonides Academy in Los Angeles, which is attended by Ariela and her older sister, the 5-year-old's generosity inspired a school toy drive for local children affected by the fires.