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A.B. Yehoshua, long recognized as one of Israel's best novelists, has in recent years also emerged as one of its most prominent scolds.
" . . . I'm talking to Shlomo Shva about my daughters, trying to dredge up a little sympathy. He knows about that. The harshest criticism of Israel and the Jews has always come from us. The biggest anti-Semites of all are educated Israelis, and my daughters are as fanatical as they are, but sweeter than most . . . "
"My big idea for the CD was, 'Let's give this to our families for Chanukah,'" Hyams said. "I never thought we'd get a record deal, because I figured 'This is stupid and Jewish and no one cares except us.'"
Beautiful, pleading Sephardic High Holy Day piyyut recited on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur before Amidah. Tradtional Moroccan melody sung by Eyal Bitton.
In a way, Jewish prayer is like another pillar of observant Jewish life: Shabbat. Just as tefilah involves letting one's creativity conquer one's boredom, Shabbat is about finding creative enjoyment on a day when cell-phones, iPods and DVD players are treated as hardly more useful than paperweights.
Are Hebrew-language charter schools the answer to the tuition crisis, or a threat to both Jewish education and American values?
In honor of Israel's 60th Birthday, we thought you should learn a few key words and phrases in Hebrew that will bring you closer to Israel's people and culture. This vocabulary will be useful on your next trip to Israel-- or on your next trip to Ventura Boulevard. Delight your Israeli friends, teach your kids or impress a date. What better way to mark this milestone in Jewish history than to do a very Jewish thing: learn!
Jamie Sigler, who played the daughter of Mafia kingpin Tony Soprano on the acclaimed HBO show "The Sopranos," grew up in a Jewish home in Jericho, N.Y., going to Hebrew school and having a bat mitzvah. But it was only during her recent visit to Israel that she said she felt a true spiritual and emotional connection to her roots.
Some time ago, I was invited to a dinner here in Israel attended by a delegation of film people from Los Angeles. During the meal, one successful documentary director asked me a question: Could I think of any Hebrew words that have no equivalent in English?
An excellent question, and even though I was sure there were many such words, the only two I could think of actually do have English equivalents, except that in Hebrew -- or maybe it would be more accurate to say "in Israeli" -- they carry completely different values.
While studying this Torah portion several years ago, I enjoyed one of those peculiar delights vouchsafed to those who learn to study great Jewish texts in the Hebrew original -- the discovery a great mistranslation. The concept is "ein mukdam u'm'uchar ba'Torah" -- usually mistranslated as "the Torah [often] is not written in chronological order," or more literally, "there is no before and after in the Torah."
In the space of an hour -- plus an extra 10 to 15 minutes thrown in for good measure -- David Solomon outlines the 4,000 years of Jewish history, from 2000 B.C.E. to the present. Each white paper wall represents 1,000 years, and as Solomon moves from Abraham to the 12 tribes, Moses, the prophets, the First and Second Temples, the Babylonian exile and the "PR stunt" of Chanukah, he works the room, swiveling the audience in its seats as he races from one side of the room to another.
Bettina Kurowski is the chair of the 2008 fundraising campaign of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and active in her Conservative synagogue. She's also a grandmother of three young grandchildren. They give her great naches, or joy, she says, but she's also worried -- the children's father is not Jewish, the kids are being raised in an interfaith home and Kurowski, for all her Jewish involvement, is not sure what role she should play in passing on the Jewish heritage that is so dear to her.
It didn't make Britain's Top Ten Christmas records, but it's still a killer version: Lauren Rose sings 'Hava Nagila' like you've never heard it -- or danced it -- before!
We wound our way through the busy streets of Athens, dodging loud protesters commemorating the 1973 Greek student uprising, until we came upon an unassuming six-story apartment building and climbed the narrow stairwell to the top floor.
As tourists flock this year to the Israel to celebrate the Jewish State's 60th anniversary, they may find themselves thumbing through Hebrew phrasebooks to order at a restaurant, to haggle in a shuck or to figure out how to get back to the hotel.
Haim Ramon indicated that Israel's West Bank security barrier will be the future Israel-Palestine border. Israel's deputy prime minister, speaking Monday night at the Israel Policy Forum's annual gala in New York, said Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are in dispute over just 5.5 percent of the West Bank.
When the two women travel overseas together, one passes routinely through airport security checks; the other is invariably pulled aside for lengthy questioning.
At home, one is rarely asked for her ID; the other is stopped frequently.
Also known as "Read Hebrew America," the course has been picked up by nearly 700 synagogues in North America during last 10 years through the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP), a nonprofit organization based in New York. The objective is to promote Hebrew learning among American and Canadian Jews who have lost touch with their Jewish identities. While this is the first year Nessah has participated in the program, its leaders said the free Hebrew course has attracted more than 600 local Iranian Jews to its first three sessions.
It's 7:55 a.m., and parents are dropping off their kids in front of the Ben Gamla Charter School along busy Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Fla. Amid a noisy melange of languages -- English, Spanish, Hebrew, French and Russian -- the uniformed children say their goodbyes and rush off to class at one of the nation's first Jewish-oriented charter schools.
Although all the presenters were united by their passion for the study and practice of Kabbalah, the most observable differences lay in their approaches as to how Judaism's most sacred and intimate teachings should be disseminated.
All Saturday evening screenings of "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" at the Sherman Oaks Galleria were sold out, but I snuck in on Sunday and will pass on two observations.
Community briefs - Israeli Security Offers Pointers to LAX; Education Programs Get Multimillion Dollar Boost
Israel beyond the headlines, a country that has produced a world-class literature.
Being a service member in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I also realized that life, like the sukkah, is temporary. One never knows how long one might live or when one might die.
Etshalom's book cannot replace a study partner; no single book can do that. I'm sure that Etshalom would agree with me on this point, but his book is not meant to do that. Etshalom's book is meant as a sort of introductory field guide to Torah.
In the Jewish schools of today, Jewish literacy can have new and special meaning. It calls for a refocus on the linguistic, textual and ethical dimensions of learning, which will be the legacy we leave our students.
The American Jewish community is one of the most learned and sophisticated communities in Jewish history - in everything except Jewish texts. As Jews, we are illiterate.
Jews are not immune to America's divorce endemic.
Michael Simkin, CEO of C-Do Networks, believes that Sheinkin still retains enough of its eccentricity and bustle to perpetuate its mythic status.
Community Briefs.
The way Dieckilman sees it, Jews are God's Chosen People and Christians are simply "grafted on" to that group.
"There's no question Jews are the people blessed by God and chosen by God to bring redemption to earth," he said.
It's time for Jonah again. I cherish this prophet, whose Hebrew name, "Yonah" means "dove,"
Krauthammer's Law: Everyone is Jewish until proven otherwise.
>"Off the Derech: Why Observant Jews Leave Judaism; How to Respond to the Challenge," by Faranak Margolese.
The difficulties of being in an interfaith family.
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.
What happened to the Vietnamese refugees, and the hundreds that followed them, in "the land of the Jews"?
Tri-ing to Raise Funds for Israel; Gems of Wisdom for 5767.
At the very least, Tasini wants voters to get a chance to listen to him. He offers himself up as a new kind of Jewish American anti-war candidate for Congress, the only one who, as this summer's news about the miseries of Iraq merged with that of the Lebanon blow-up, critically addressed both situations.
Circuit News.
Many Reform Jews express their connection with the divine through social action and tikkun olam, fixing God's world. While all of these are also part of my own life as a Jew, it is study that nourishes my rationalist-traditionalist soul and links me to another realm.
When Devora Kidorf wanted to help a family of four from northern Israel displaced by Israel's battling with Hezbollah, she knew where to turn. Having hosted the family for a night but needing to make room for relatives from abroad, the English teacher and mother of seven posted an urgent message on Janglo -- the ultimate online networking service for English-speaking ("Anglos") in Jerusalem -- seeking accommodations for the family she had just met.
For a great many of us, there is an instant and easy identification with the Jewish state. They are not they, they are we. The heat of battle forges them into us. Whether we've spent much time there, whether we have blood relatives there, we feel ourselves as one, we are they.
Some of my best friends are clowns. I know that sounds like a line, but it's true. Jewish clowns, too. Back East, there's Dr. Meatloaf and Dr. Noodle (aka Stephen Ringold and Ilene Weiss). They're in the CCU, the "Clown Care Unit" of the Big Apple Circus. Like badchens (Yiddish for clown) for the broken up, they play hospitals instead of weddings.
Looping is plugging in background sound for movies after they are shot so they sound more realistic. I had done some looping sessions before, but they were all in English. While this movie was also in English, there were plenty of scenes with Hebrew and Arabic in them. My Hebrew is far from perfect, but I can still pull off the Israeli accent so I was pretty sure I could do the job.
With the distant booming of Katyusha rockets becoming louder and more frequent, only a few brave souls ventured out - and when one boom sounded particularly close, everyone rushed back into the shelter, some in near-hysteria.
"There's a challenge for Reform Jews around the observance of Tisha B'Av, and communities make all kinds of choices," said Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman, the Union for Reform Judaism's director of worship, music and religious living.
"Baruch Hashem, we are very pleased with the new synagogue," said Avi Cohan, a local Iranian businessman who is one of the founders of the Downtown Synagogue. "It looks just amazing with the nice chairs, and it's perfect for many of us who wanted a place for prayer at the end of the work day."
Unity is a collaboration between Jewish and Muslim high schools and focuses on interfaith studies, taught by educators of both religions.
Jewish tradition is marked by rendering the oral tradition in print and recording the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the accounts of the prophets, the tales of Kings David and Solomon and the tales of the rabbis.
Jewish Journal of Los Angeles 20th Anniversary
The centerpiece of the third section of the Tanach, the section known as Ketuvim (the Writings), is the Book of Psalms. The Book of Psalms contains some of the most majestic poetic images in the history of the Hebrew language.
Briefs
Letters
Letters to the Editor
Around the Pico-Robertson neighborhood -- and the city -- the standard lectures were being given on topics ranging from the Book of Ruth to Israel, but something off the beaten path was taking place on Robertson Boulevard in a lecture at Anshei Emet Synagogue. The subject was "Kabbalah and the Red String."
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Parshat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27): It was brief. Jacob, head of the House of Israel, met with Pharaoh, King of Egypt
What else explains the collective amnesia on display?