Say you\’re a few years out of college, living with friends and working in a low-paying job for some do-good organization. You don\’t go to synagogue, but you miss the camaraderie of your college Hillel, and you like to invite people over for Shabbat meals.
Imagine if someone was willing to pay you to keep doing it?
Each year, The Los Angeles Business Journal uses legwork and a little guesswork to discern who\’s worth the most in Los Angeles. Once the list comes out, as it did this week, I like to run it through the old \”Who\’s a Jew?\” detector.
Hollywood Fight Club\’s current production \”A Lively … and Deathly Evening With Woody Allen\” brings to the stage three written works by the Neurotic One. Woody Allen\’s \”God,\” \”Death Knocks\” and \”Mr. Big\” all deal with existential dilemmas as only Allen can.
Jewish school spirit can be found in abundance on the USC campus this weekend. The Jewish Student Film Festival has coordinated a weekend of Jewish activities, which culminates in today\’s film fest. Friday evening, attend Shabbat services at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion followed by Shabbat dinner at USC Hillel; Saturday, attend \”Jewzika: A Night of Jewish Musicians\” featuring Dov Kogen and the Hidden, SoCalled and the Moshav Band.
Corporate, private and organizational donors underwrite the day, including Temple Israel. The budget this year is $450,000. The city\’s participation will include providing security, busing and street closures. Additional donors are both welcomed and needed, Levinson said.
\”Looking at what\’s happening locally and nationally, we\’ve found that fewer teen boys enroll in informal Jewish activities than they did in previous years,\” said Lori Harrison Port, senior associate director for planning and allocations at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.
Specifically, Abramoff allegedly using money from a Washington charity he oversaw to fund military-style programs in the West Bank. Indian tribes donated money to tax-exempt charities, believing they were supporting anti-gambling foundations, but the money was redirected to help a \”sniper school\” in the West Bank, operated by a friend of Abramoff.
It was in the summer of 2004 that Hillel began work on a five-year plan to attract the two-thirds of Jewish college students who say they don\’t go to Hillel activities. That troubling statistic has been one of the most talked-about findings from the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS).
Rosen recognized that he ruffled too many feathers to be out front. So he groomed protégés to assume that role. He mentored one so well that he became the head of AIPAC; another became the first Jew to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
While projects like tempera-painted honey dishes and party-whistle shofars are de rigueur, preschool and elementary school teachers take seriously the idea of having the High Holiday message of personal accountability set the tone for the whole year
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