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Balancing Acts of Faith and Pork

The question: How Jewish vs. how democratic should the Jewish State of Israel actually be?

That was really the question before Israel\’s Supreme Court.

More than a legal question, it led to serious and heated debate. The answer would be a defining factor in the very nature of the state itself. It came to the fore as the court was asked to decide if three cities, Jerusalem included, could ban the selling of pork.

The ruling: That cities cannot outright forbid the sale of pork and should respect communities that are predominantly religious but may sell pork in other areas of the city.

Friends Found a World Away

Every other year, our congregation travels to a different part of the Jewish world to meet and, if necessary, help our fellow Jews. Having traveled to Israel, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union many times, as well as Turkey, Morocco, Spain, Argentina and Brazil, our experiences have mostly been with communities under political, demographic or economic siege. This trip was different.

When It’s Federal Aid, Pork Isn’t Treif

Getting funding for a project takes massive time, energy and, often, money. Many Jewish communities send representatives to Washington to make the pitch directly to their lawmakers, as well as members of congressional appropriations committees. Some hire Washington lobbyists to make the necessary introductions for them.

JCC Director to Leave Before Project Finish

Part of the team readying O.C.\’s Jewish Community Center for its planned relocation and expansion next year in Irvine is not staying to see the result.

Backlash Threat

As some 20 teens beat 18-year-old Rashid Alam with golf clubs and baseball bats in Yorba Linda on Feb. 22, they allegedly yelled \”White Power!\” The attack, which Alam\’s friends said was unprovoked, left the recent high school graduate hospitalized with a fractured jaw and broken bones in his face.

Unable to speak because his jaw is wired shut, friends and family despair that he might have suffered permanent brain damage from the 65 blows he endured.

Police call the attack a hate crime, but have said that it began as a face-off between two rival groups that had fought in the past. Others said it was fueled solely by ethnic hatred.

Ahmed Alam, publisher of the Arab World newspaper in Anaheim, said his son\’s beating underscored the vulnerability now felt by many Arab Americans.

Kahal Joseph’s New Beginning

When Joseph Dabby arrived in America from Iraq in 1972, and found his way to Kahal Joseph Congregation in Los Angeles, he was shocked. \”It was like being back in the Old Country,\” he said.

\”It was full of people who didn\’t even speak the same language; they were very far removed [from their roots] but they maintained everything the same — the same melodies and the same traditions,\” said Dabby, now 56 and president of the congregation.

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More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.