- NEWS & COMMENTARY
Syria fires on Israeli military vehicle, Israel returns fire
Syria fired on and damaged an Israeli army jeep, and Israel retaliated with a missile attack, the Israeli military said.
ZOA regains tax-exempt status
After 15 months, the nonprofit pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has regained its tax-exempt status.
Hezbollah in big Syria battle, Obama ‘concerned’
Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas have fought their biggest battle yet for Syria's beleaguered president, prompting international alarm that the civil war may spread and an urgent call for restraint from the United States.
- HOLLYWOOD
Mel Brooks’ top 10 Jewy Jewish scenes [VIDEO]
Monday night marks the national premier broadcast of the American Masters installment on Mel Brooks. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a collection of Brooks’ best Jewish clips.
Alan Dershowitz sends ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ episode to Netanyahu
Comedian Larry David has been called a lot of things over the course of his long and successful career, but we’re pretty sure “peace maker” has never been one of…
James Franco paints ad for ‘This is The End’
Proving once again that there isn’t anything he doesn’t do, James Franco has created marketing material for his upcoming film “This is The End.” The actor/artist/Ph.D. candidate was spotted in…
- LIFE & CULTURE
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
Survivor: Irene Rosenberg
“Mommy, I’ll be right back.” Irene Rosenberg — then Irene Grunfeld — said as she was leaving the apartment of her cousin Mancy Weiss, where she and her mother were…
The Divine Wedding and Kiss - Parashat Naso
“O for your kiss! For your love / More enticing than wine, / For your scent and sweet name – For all this they love you. Take me away to…
- BLOGS
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
What would my Israeli grandmother think?
When I hear about the latest events in Israel – the air strikes on weapons facilities in Syria, the flare-ups over women donning prayer shawls at the Western Wall –…
A hot topic, a great panel, and chance to learn and discuss—immigration at issue
It's a critical time for immigration reform in this country. Washington is getting set to make major changes, the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1980's under President…
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Scars of Israel’s ‘Numbered’
Holocaust survivor: Gloria Ungar
"Sorry, children. I’m not going to jeopardize my life for your father’s money.” The Christian forester smuggling three Jewish children across the border from Poland to Slovakia had stopped abruptly, wished them luck and told them to keep walking. But Gloria Ungar — then Gitta Nagel — gripped his arm, promising that her father would make him very rich if he continued. She, her younger brother Nathan and her cousin were wending their way through a pitch-black forest. “It was terrifying,” Gloria recalled; she knew they wouldn’t make it alone. Her cousin had broken her ankle, and Nathan was crying that he couldn’t walk anymore. Plus the Germans were scanning the forest with floodlights, siccing attack dogs and then shooting whenever they saw a shadow. The children threw themselves against trees whenever the floodlights came near.
Survivor: Abe Rosenstein
"Abe, go. You’re young. You’re not afraid to work.” Bronia Rosenstein, Abe’s older sister, urged him to answer a call for strong, healthy men to work outside the Lodz ghetto. It was November 1940. Abe was 21 and for nine months he had been living in one small room with his parents, two sisters and one brother. Abe signed up to work. Living conditions in the ghetto were deteriorating, and people were dying from hunger on the street daily. On the day he reported for work, he spotted his mother standing behind a barbed-wire fence, crying. “It was the last time I saw her,” he said.
Leon Leyson, Schindler survivor, 83
Leon Leyson, the youngest Jew to be saved by Oskar Schindler and his famous list during the Holocaust, died Jan. 12 in Whittier, following a four-year struggle with lymphoma. He was 83.
Elie Wiesel on Oprah Dec. 9: Sneak peak Q & A [VIDEO]
Jane Fonda to host Holocaust event on sexual violence
Jane Fonda will host an event in Los Angeles focusing on sexual violence during the Holocaust. More than 200 people are expected for the invitation-only event on Nov. 8 at the Ray Kurtzman Theater. The event is sponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation and Remember the Women Institute.
Survivor: Regina Hirsch
“Leave your possessions. We will bring them to you,” a Jewish commando greeted the trainload of Jews arriving at Auschwitz. He pointed to Regina Landowicz’s mother: “Too old.” And to her sister Lillie: “Too young.” Sally, another sister, took scissors from her rucksack and quickly trimmed their mother’s hair and lopped off Lillie’s braids as German soldiers shouted, “Raus, raus!” (Out, out!) On the platform, a German soldier tried to grab Lillie from their mother’s arms, but their mother clutched her tightly, even as he beat her.
Survivor: Sonja Telias
From the upstairs bedroom she shared with four girls, Sonja Blits heard the soldiers marching through the quiet village of Zaandijk, outside Amsterdam, where she was being hidden by a generous Dutch family. "Remember, stay below the windowsill," Moe Haidel, the other girls' mother, reminded her. But, drawn to the unusual noise, Sonja stood up and peeked through the curtain. Her eyes fixed on the SS troops' black boots making clicking noises on the brick street. That sound continued to haunt her.
Dog ‘Guru’ Justin Silver puts owners on tight leash [SLIDE SHOW]
Survivor: Gitta Seidner Ginsberg
Gitta Seidner -- known at the time by the Christian name Jannine Spinette -- was abruptly awakened around 4:30 a.m. by a large commotion outside her farmhouse bedroom in Waterloo, Belgium. "No, no, no. What do you want with my goddaughter?" she heard her godmother, Alice Spinette, say. SS soldiers then kicked open the door and pulled the crying girl from her bed. "She's not Jewish," Alice insisted. The soldiers didn't listen. They ordered Alice to get Gitta dressed and drove them to SS headquarters in Brussels.
Holocaust Survivors Foundation prez: ‘Obama policies hurting survivors’
Survivior: Julia Moshe
In early October 1943, a day or two after Rosh Hashanah, Julia Moshe — née Conti — was walking to her bookkeeping job at the Atlas Watch Co. in Volos, Greece, when she heard footsteps behind her. “Mademoiselle, don’t turn around your head,” a male voice warned. “Yesterday SS soldiers came to city hall asking for a list of the Jewish people.” Julia started trembling. She recalled her mother’s words, “If the Germans come here, it’s OK if they take us.” Julia gave notice at work and hurried home. “Please don’t say no,” she begged her mother. “We have to go from here.”
March of the Living Honors Survivors, Prepares Next Generation to Carry Torch
Surivor: Greti Herman
In the pounding rain, lined up five abreast, Greti Herman — then Margit Berger — and her parents were marched from Hungary’s Csillaghegy Ghetto to the nearby train station. As they walked, her mother motioned for her and her father to remove five of the six threads that attached the yellow stars to their canvas raincoats. They arrived early evening, into “a big chaos,” according to Greti, as the Hungarian gendarmes — the police force — shoved people into the waiting cattle cars, tossing their belongings in after them.
Let there never be a need for another Yad Vashem
Declaring a place to call home
Sam Worthington on Playing a Holocaust Survivor and Mossad Agent in “The Debt” [VIDEO]
Jessica Chastain and John Madden on “The Debt”
Kristin Scott Thomas on “Sarah’s Key:” “I Don’t See It As a ‘Holocaust’ Film” [VIDEO]
So long, Eva
It’s not easy to handle death. It’s so naked and finite. No matter how much we talk about the spiritual journey to the next world, about legacies that never die, about a life well lived, there’s really no consolation for the pain of missing someone — really, really missing someone.
Kurt Frankfurter, Holocaust survivor dies at 90
Holocaust survivor Kurt Frankfurter died on Christmas Eve at 90, 17 years to the day after his wife, Giselle, died in New York.
Holocaust survivor keeps memories alive
For the sake of his career, Jack Voorzanger worked to leave the horrors he endured during the Holocaust behind, but through his volunteer work at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, he has demonstrated his commitment to “never forgetting.” He spends 15 hours each week digitizing the family photo collections of victims and survivors.
Gerda Weissman Klein, Holocaust survivor, receives Freedom Medal
A Holocaust survivor who teaches children the value of citizenship is among those who will be honored by President Obama with a Medal of Freedom.
Webcasts: Greek Jewish Holocaust Survivor speaks out
Survivors’ stories create fabric of Shoah quilt
Ann Spicer's experience is not unique among the more than 100,000 Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States after the war. But she has chosen to share her memories this year in a unique way -- by contributing this photograph to a "Shoah Quilt" project put together by Mount Sinai Memorial Parks in honor of Yom HaShoah
Briefs: UCLA’s Friedlander awarded Pulitzer Prize, Rabbi Weil to head O.U.
UCLA historian Saul Friedlander, a child Holocaust survivor, has been awarded a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his definitive account of "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945."
The $10,000 award in the general nonfiction book category honors the 75-year-old scholar and Israeli citizen for his remarkable ability to evoke the entire Nazi era through a combination of meticulous research and a novelist's eye for personal, human detail.
Congressman Tom Lantos left behind human rights legacy
Obituary for Congressman Tom Lantos.
These are the faces of the fighters, the survivors
Profiles and pictures of volunteers of the Survivor Mitzvah Project and some of the Holocaust survivors they serve.
Holocaust remembrance—Exodus redux
Over the last several years, in anticipation of the voyage's 60th anniversary, survivors of the Exodus have been asked to share their stories in an effort to solidify Exodus' place in history, before all that is left are the fictionalized and romanticized versions of the 1958 Leon Uris novel or the 1960 Otto Preminger film (and even those are already being forgotten). Among the recent projects are "Exodus 1947," a 1997 documentary film by Venice resident Elizabeth Rodgers, and a new release of journalist Ruth Gruber's account of the voyage, "Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation" (October 2007, Union Square Press).
Films: Romantic triangle survives in the midst of hell
"I'm a very special Holocaust survivor," Jack Polak says. "I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend, and, believe me, it wasn't easy." This may sound like a line from the new genre of Holocaust films with humor, but Polak (who is Jacob on his birth certificate, Jack in America, Jaap to his Dutch friends and Jab to his wife) is just stating the facts in the documentary feature, "Steal a Pencil for Me."
‘They killed us like termites’
Eva Brown tells her story of survival.
Briefs: Olmert tells OU Jerusalem not negotiable; Temple Mount digging may cause problems
News briefs.
Rep. Lantos' call for sanctions <i>and</i> diplomacy puzzles L.A. Iranians
Tom Lantos, chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, made headlines last April when he reiterated his desire to travel to Iran for informal talks with Iranian officials. And yet one month later the Democratic congressman from San Mateo introduced a tough Iran divestment bill with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that the House overwhelmingly passed last week.
Briefs: Delshad to Beverly Hills: Just say 'no' to investment in Iran; Survivors still fighting Germany for reparations
Community briefs.
Permanent home planned for Holocaust Museum
Nearly 50 years after a group of survivors first conceived the project, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH) has cleared the last legal hurdle to build a permanent home.
1+1+1+1 ... = 6 million
On April 11, I embarked on a journey back in time to one of the darkest chapters in human existence with the Los Angeles delegation of the March of the Living Program, sponsored by the Bureau of Jewish Education, an agency of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. I felt myself detaching from the comfort and security of my family and many of my friends.
Survivors blast Holocaust Museum over archive access restrictions
Holocaust survivors are venting their anger at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington over its decision not to allow immediate electronic access to the long-secret records of the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany.
The tragic irony of a hero in Virginia
Irony. In a book or a movie, it's the writer's way of giving the observer a slap in the face. People attempt to expect the unexpected, but when it actually happens no one is prepared.
Liviu Librescu z’‘l
Cartoon.
L.A. Shoah remembrance dedicated to young victims
This year's Yom HaShoah Ve'Hagvurah Community Wide Holocaust Remembrance Day program, "Children in Crisis: Voices from the Holocaust" paid special homage to the many defenseless and innocent children killed by the Nazis.
Berserkers
Librescu's story has to make me wonder whether even my complex answers suffice. Some men experience brutality and become monsters, some witness evil of historic proportions and become saints. It is all much more mysterious than I will ever know, than any of us think we know.
Crossroads School thanks its courageous music man
Crossroads School in Santa Monica might not be where one would expect to find the archived works of a celebrated composer who survived Dachau and Buchenwald, especially when one considers that the Vienna-born Herbert Zipper worked as an educator at a variety of institutions of higher learning, including USC and the New School for Social Research in New York. But when Zipper died at the age of 93 in 1997, he left his papers to the K-12 school where he taught musical composition and theory in his retirement years. His relationship with the school was such that co-founder and former headmaster Paul Cummins wrote Zipper's biography.
‘Rebel With a Cause’
The ostensible reason for this column is the recently published "Brothers for Resistance and Rescue: The Underground Zionist Youth Movement in Hungary During World War II," by David Gur (Gefen Publishing House), in which Stevens appears.
Pledge to survivors—we will carry the torch
The responsibility for transmitting the survivors' legacy of remembrance into the future must now increasingly shift to us -- their children and grandchildren.
Theater: ‘Brother Theodore’ back from the dead
Equal parts existentialist rant and theater of the absurd, Robert Trebor's "The Return of Brother Theodore," now playing at the Skylight Theater, honors the late monologist, who died in 2001 at 94, with a performance that combines the deceased's black-comedy act with some of Trebor's own writing.
Social Justice gets new address on Pico
When Max Webb was interned at 18 different concentration camps during the Holocaust, he made a promise. "If he survived, he would make sure he would contribute to the advancement of the Jewish people and Judaism in any way he could," said his grandson, Greg Podell, the director of the Max Webb Family Foundation.
Webb has made good on that promise, donating to causes in Israel and to local Jewish charities, including The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. And now, as he's about to turn 90, his foundation has purchased a plot of land for $3 million for a center to house two socially conscious Jewish organizations.
Broke but hopeful, one survivor says it’s ‘better than Auschwitz’
Last Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day, Walter Essinger did not attend any community vigils or synagogue commemoration services. Instead, the 73-year-old survivor spent that day, April 26, being interrogated by Ventura County detectives. He was then arrested, handcuffed and eventually booked into the Ventura County Jail.
Many aging Shoah survivors are living a new nightmare
Moscovitz is one of the tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors living in abject poverty in the United States. These witnesses to the 20th century's worst atrocity are enduring a second nightmare, often struggling just to feed and clothe themselves.Their wartime experiences, which included malnutrition and physical and psychological abuse, have made them prone to costly medical and mental problems as they age.
Olga Bitterman’s story: Survivors helping survivors
When Olga Bitterman, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, found out that another survivor needed help, she knew what to do. For a year, Bitterman left money in the other survivor's mailbox without leaving a trace of its origins.
Film: Too soon to forgive Dr. Mengele?
Just when the film world seems to have examined the Holocaust from every possible angle, a new film comes along that shakes up our complacency."Forgiving Dr. Mengele" focuses on the story of Eva Kor, one of the so-called "Mengele twins," who along with her sister was subjected to the Nazi doctor's experiments. Most notably, it deals with the forgiveness of Nazis, a concept antithetical to many Holocaust survivors.
Theater: ‘Leipzig’ weaves heartfelt Alzheimer’s tale
Wendy Graf was at the women's group at her synagogue when she discovered that a number of her colleagues were the children of Holocaust survivors. She became fascinated with the repercussions of the tragedy on their lives, but put aside the subject as she wrote "Lessons," a play about a widower who decides to have a bar mitzvah. More recently, a person close to her developed Alzheimer's disease. The synchronicity of memory loss with so-called "second-generation" syndrome provided the raw material for Graf's new play, "Leipzig," the latest offering of the West Coast Jewish Theater, now playing at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Israel
The year is 1999, and on the Israeli TV miniseries, "Catching the Sky," Nurit walks into her Tel Aviv kitchen at the crack of dawn to find her husband doing something completely shocking and inexplicable.
Spectator - When Metal Meets Mettle
Jewelry artist Gail Goldin grew up immersed in Jewish culture and scrap metal, a combination that helped inspire her Modern Myths collection.
She comes by this unusual convergence of influences through her father, Steven Goldin, a freedom fighter in Poland who helped fellow Jews escape over the Alps during World War II, before building his own business in the U.S. scrap-metal industry. The family belonged to an Orthodox shul in Detroit, although they weren't Orthodox.
When Goldin put this all together -- stirring in some life experience and a fascination with universal spiritual symbols from world cultures -- she first made silver rings adorned with carved Asian good-luck beads called netsukes. Out of these rings came the idea for her Modern Myths collection. Several Modern Myths pieces combine stones with beads, mounted in ornate bezel designed silver.
Local Writers Recall Times of Tyranny
In a tale rooted in personal experience, Dr. John Menkes explores the themes of loss and recovery in his novel “After the Tempest” (Daniel & Daniel, 2003). A Holocaust survivor, Menkes returned to his hometown of Vienna after the war and found that not only was his family and his home gone, but his very identity had been irrevocably lost.
Unlikely Friendship Rises in ‘Wounded’
A chance encounter between a young Palestinian radical and an elderly Holocaust survivor takes an unexpected turn when L.A. Theatre Works presents "Sixteen Wounded" at the Skirball Cultural Center from Jan. 26-30.
The reading of the five-character play, following last year's Broadway run, stars Ron Rifkin as Hans, the survivor, and Omar Metwally as Mahmud, the young Arab.
Hungarian Baker Rises to Success
Since Meir Jacobs bought the J&T Bread Bin 34 years ago, the bakery hasn't changed much. Nestled in the center of the Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax, it retains its old-world charm -- the original glass showcases line the store's perimeter, and the original orange "Bread Bin" metal signs hang on both sides of the store. Handwritten yellow notes advertise the goods: chocolate danishes, raspberry hamantaschen, sprinkled cookies, lemon bars, macaroons and more.
It's the Hungarian treats that reveal the bakery's hidden history. The loaves of glazed cinnamon raisin bread, the apple squares and the three-flavored puff pastries called kalaches give meaning to Jacobs' words: "This is a very old-fashioned-style bakery."
An old-fashioned Hungarian bakery fashioned after its owner.
Fred Kort
Fred Kort, Holocaust survivor, philanthropist and founder/CEO of Imperial Toy Corporation, died on Sept. 6. He was 80.
Fred Kort
Fred Kort, Holocaust survivor, philanthropist and founder/CEO of Imperial Toy Corporation, died on Sept. 6 at the age of 80.
Kort, like fellow philanthropists Jona Goldrich and Max Webb, survived the Holocaust to become one of Jewish Los Angeles' most prominent and impassioned supporters, as well as a big giver to secular humanitarian organizations. Kort gave millions to dozens of Jewish causes, including Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, the Anti-Defamation League and Israel Bonds. He was a founding donor of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and contributed to Goldrich's L.A. Holocaust Memorial.
Showtime Examines Shoah Diva Doctor
In Showtime's "Out of the Ashes," a Holocaust survivor steps off a boat at New York Harbor, imperiously hands her battered suitcase to her American niece and embarks on a shoe shopping spree.
The TV movie is the story of Dr. Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti), the Hungarian gynecologist who saved 1,000 women by performing secret abortions in Auschwitz. "She was also a bit of a diva," Lahti said.
The Other Soldiers
"Do you remember me?" he asked. "I am Semion, the soldier with the camel. In Berlin, at the Brandenburg Gate, remember?"
I sure did. During the war there were no trucks for his artillery unit, so several dozen camels were shipped in from Soviet Asia to pull the guns.
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