Jewish Life—Life!—in Krakow.

By Ruth Ellen Gruber
Published on April 18, 2012

The end of Jews “distancing” from Israel? (Yeah, right)

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on February 14, 2012

Photos capture remnants of Jewish life in Poland

Published on February 22, 2011

The Jews of Poland may be mostly long gone, murdered by the Nazis or escaped to the safer confines of Israel or America, but the echo of their civilization remains, frozen in time for all to see.

Harvard Hillel accountant accused of stealing $780,000

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on July 8, 2009

The fake Israel—post-Zionism in the Valley

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on July 7, 2008

Chai five: Atlanta Jews thank David Duke

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on June 19, 2008

The lost members of the tribe in Cuba

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on May 12, 2008

Fending off the end of aliyah

By Dina Kraft
Published on April 3, 2008

Founded with the express purpose of "ingathering of the exiles" -- but with no more large groups of Jews to save -- Israel is facing the end of the era of mass aliyah.

Hillel opens doors to non-Jews, campus at large

By Ben Harris
Published on April 3, 2008

Hillel centers on university campuses were viewed not long ago as little more than the local Jewish hangout, a place where students could come for kosher meals or socialize with other Jews. But in a move that Hillel leaders say has been forced upon them by this generation's altered social landscape, the organization is throwing open its doors to everyone, designing programs that appeal to Jews and non-Jews and hyping its contribution to university -- not only Jewish -- life.

Glass ceiling

By Shifra Bronznick
Published on April 3, 2008

We have been having a conversation in the Jewish community about gender for more than three decades. During that time there have been some remarkable changes: the ordination of women rabbis, the proliferation of egalitarian prayer services and bat mitzvah as a rite of passage.So why do we still need to talk about gender? Because in a critical aspect, the gender gap still persists in the Jewish community.

Fear over intermarriage is overblown

By Leonard Saxe
Published on March 27, 2008

Purim is a time to dull our senses with drink and cloak our identity by dressing in costume. We do so in order to confront a troubling part of our history and the threats to Jewish life and continuity in the Diaspora.

Intermarriage reports urge understanding and openness

By Sue Fishkoff
Published on March 13, 2008

Three new scholarly reports on intermarriage argue for increasing Jewish educational opportunities, encouraging Jewish behaviors among both intermarried and inmarried Jews and opening the doors even further to intermarried couples and their children.

‘Generation Next’  powow at Professional Leaders Project parley

By Danielle Berrin
Published on November 8, 2007

By the end of the Professional Leaders Project gathering in Santa Monica, I walked away with three things: a stack of business cards, some good stories and a condom from KinkyJews.com in a package that featured an Israeli flag on the front and an off-color, yet highly creative tagline we can't print here.

‘Mazel Tov’: Lifecycles of the rich and famous

By Jay Firestone
Published on November 8, 2007

In Jill Rappaport's book, "Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories" she interviews 21 celebrities as they describe how the b'nai mitzvah experience brought them to where they are today. With the photographic help of her sister, Linda Solomon, Rappaport provides a joyfully contrasting image of the celebrities and their familiar adolescent counterparts.

Congregations, rabbis try to stop the ‘Big Day’ from becoming the last day

By Michele Alperin
Published on November 8, 2007

The bar and bat mitzvah is traditionally viewed as an entry point into the adult Jewish community, but for many, it's also seen as the door out of both Jewish education and the synagogue. For those who become congregants, Los Angeles synagogues are trying to help b'nai mitzvah students and families understand that the ceremony and its preparation symbolize one point on a continuum of Jewish life and learning. Their goal is to strengthen the communal ties of their marginally committed congregants.

Books: The anti-Chagall offers a field guide to the shtetl

By Gabriel Sanders
Published on November 8, 2007

Kirshenblatt's canvasses, together with a stunningly vivid text -- the product of four decades' worth of interviews with his daughter, noted New York University folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett -- have now been reproduced in a handsome volume by the University of California Press, and the result is a marvel: With his scrupulously recalled images, Kirshenblatt has managed to do no less than create a new visual language for describing pre-war Eastern European life. In stark contrast to the black-and-white record that has made up our vision heretofore, Kirshenblatt's paintings are untainted by the horrors to come. They offer a picture not of Polish Jewish life as it was before tragedy struck, but simply as it was. If Chagall was the shtetl's mythmaker, then Kirshenblatt is his antithesis: a shtetl anthropologist.

South African Jews grapple with semigration and emigration

By Moira Schneider
Published on November 1, 2007

As South African Jews continue to emigrate, many to Australia, the community they leave behind is struggling to adapt.

Cafe Hillel marks new tactic to reach out to young people—in Odessa

By Matt Siegel
Published on November 1, 2007

Kiril Alexandrovich's Cafe Hillel, which was expected to open last week, is the first effort in Odessa at co-branding undertaken by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. The partnership aims to transform Jewish youth organizing in the former Soviet Union, leaving behind the club model and heading out into the cities, where young Jews work and play.

Conservatives’ New Dish

By David Suissa
Published on September 20, 2007

Over the past couple of decades, the Conservative movement has been in a steady decline. A couple of years ago, one of the leaders, in his outgoing speech, described the movement as suffering from "malaise" and a "grievous failure of nerve."

Journey of a Lifetime

By Rabbi Elazar Muskin
Published on September 2, 2007

Every human being is on a special journey; the secret, however, is to realize it. This, perhaps, is the Torah's message when it recounts the details of how the first Jewish house of worship, the Tabernacle, was constructed and dedicated.

A Big Giver

By Rob Eshman
Published on March 22, 2007

Anyone who cares about the future of Jewish life in Los Angeles eventually explodes in frustration over the community's inability to tap its own enormous wealth.

The righteous doctor of Ethiopia—healing suffering in the world heads this Orthodox physician’s

By Roberto Loiederman
Published on March 22, 2007

When Dr. Rick Hodes prepares a to-do list, it doesn't look like anybody else's.

We Are Grateful to the Jewish People

By President George W. Bush
Published on September 22, 2005

The following is an excerpt from the speech President Bush gave on Sept. 14 at the national dinner celebrating 350 years of Jewish life in America at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Kabbalist Theory of Everything

By Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein
Published on December 16, 2004

"Derech Hashem -- The Way of God" by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Feldheim, 1997).

Quietly studying a page of the Talmud on a crowded plane, the great Orthodox teacher and thinker Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik was interrupted by a passenger in the next seat.

"Pardon me. What is that you are studying?" the man asked.

Soloveitchik explained the nature of the Talmud, and that he was a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University.

The man was incredulous. "Do you mean that people spend their entire lives thinking about religion?" he asked. "Why, I thought that all of religion could be succinctly summarized as 'Do unto others what you would have them do unto you'!"

A Sporting Chanukah

By Carin Davis
Published on December 9, 2004

On the third night of Chanukah my true love gave to me, an Olympic swim cap signed by Lenny Krayzelburg, a game of Horse with the Houston Rocket's Bostjan Nachbar and a chance to be on the set of ESPN's Cold Pizza.

Thanks to the Center for Sport and Jewish Life's online Chanukah auction (www.CSJL.org), gift giving just got more interesting.

Wilshire Boulevard Gambles on Future

By Gaby Wenig
Published on November 11, 2004

On any given day, Wilshire Boulevard Temple's Audrey and Sydney Irmas Campus in West Los Angeles is a hub of activity. Built seven years ago for $30 million, the campus attracted new members like a magnet. They came flocking to enroll their children in day school or religious school or attend the many other activities the campus offered.

Now it wants to repeat its success in a part of town that is far less congruous with Jewish life than the Westside: Koreatown. The temple is planning on spending $30 million to revamp its Wilshire Boulevard property and to turn it into a major Mid-City Jewish destination.

Your Letters

Published on May 27, 2004

Your Letters

Israel Trip Reunites

By Dina Kraft
Published on April 22, 2004

The two men walk as one -- in steady step, shoulder to shoulder, their words a torrent of Yiddish.

There is much to catch up on since the former neighbors and schoolmates last met. That was more than 60 years ago, when the transports, fear and separations that characterized Jewish life during World War II reached their Polish hometown.

Abraham Spiegel

By Tom Tugend
Published on April 15, 2004

Abraham Spiegel, a survivor of four concentration camps, who built a new life in America as a successful businessman, philanthropist and ardent supporter of Jewish life in the United States and Israel, died April 10 in his home at the age of 97.

Among his major legacies are the Children's Memorial at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, the Spiegel Family Building at the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv and the Spiegel Family Park, also in Tel Aviv.

New Tales From a Post-Exodus Egypt

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on April 8, 2004

Now that we've just finished two seders celebrating our escape from Egypt, a new exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center demonstrates that not every Jew got out of Egypt -- or wanted to.

Art Brings Life to Old Case Studies

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on January 15, 2004

The eight stark photographs show scenes from a decaying mansion in West Adams, where a homeless parent and child "squat" amid dust and detritus. A microwave oven sits on a peeling bureau; a wall has crumbled between the toilet and living room.

The images -- featured in "Still Listening: 150 Years of Jewish Family Service" -- are photographer Albert Winn's present-day response to an old Jewish Family Service (JFS) case history. The 1934 report describes an impoverished family living in squalor behind a tin shop.

Think Global, Cook Local

By Judy Bart Kancigor
Published on December 4, 2003

"The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World" by Clarissa Hyman (Interlink Books, $29.95)

Clarissa Hyman's new cookbook, "The Jewish Kitchen," is alive with miracles -- stories of Jewish life and war-torn Jewish communities, bringing with them their glorious history, rich culture and a cuisine passed through the generations, itself a story of miraculous survival.

This award-winning author crisscrossed the globe, visiting eight families in nine months, recording their stories and recipes.

Q & A With Larry King

By Gaby Wenig
Published on November 13, 2003

Larry King is as known for sitting hunched over a microphone, schmoozing with everyone who is anyone, as he is for wearing big black glasses and suspenders over shirt sleeves. But as the TV icon approaches the big 7-0 (his birthday is Nov. 19), he's increasingly wearing something else on his sleeve: his Judaism.

Your Letters

Published on September 18, 2003

Your letters

Jewish Trojans—Oxymoron No More

By Rachel Brand
Published on August 21, 2003

Today, just steps away from USC's fraternity row -- which has historically been a symbol of the university's typically all-white culture -- lies the new site of the campus Chabad House. The 6,500-square-foot Victorian home, which Chabad is in the process of renovating, will be the third site that the organization will occupy since outgrowing its first two locations in the past three years.

Where Synagogue Leaders Learn

By Julie G Fax
Published on June 5, 2003

When Rabbi Mark Diamond asked seven Westside rabbis last summer to nominate emerging lay leaders for the Board of Rabbis' new Synagogue Leadership Institute (SLI), many of the rabbis countered with another request. Rather than potential leaders, they wanted to send current leaders -- presidents, executive board members and committee chairs.

Jews in South Need Rabbis’ Resources

By Andrew Muchin
Published on January 16, 2003

For Jewish life in the Deep South to overcome the twin plagues of attrition and assimilation, American Jewish culture must change, argues Macy Hart, executive director of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute for Southern Jewish Life.

Bridging the Gap

By Michael Berenbaum
Published on December 12, 2002

The announcement that Richard Joel has been named as president of Yeshiva University (YU) is an important and salutary development in American Jewish life. Joel is a gifted leader, able spokesman and prolific fundraiser. He has been able to establish the national Hillel organization which he heads as a "big tent" for American Jews -- one that embraces unaffiliated and under-affiliated Jews at a vital stage in their lives (college), while also serving the most committed Jews who enter its buildings to eat, study, pray and socialize with other Jews.

Keeping Kosher in an Unkosher World

By Marisa N. Pickar
Published on August 1, 2002

Sitting on a plane traveling from Israel, via Canada, to Los Angeles, I couldn't help but over hear the conversations

floating on the air around me. I had been living in Jerusalem the past three years and was returning home to Southern California. My friends in Israel warned me I should prepare myself for a dose of culture shock. I had no idea it would start before the plane had even touched ground.

Yippie-I-Oy!

By Tom Tugend
Published on August 1, 2002

Adolph and Sam Frankel are the official poster boys for "Jewish Life in the American West: Generation to Generation," one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever mounted by the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. The exhibit opens to the public on Sunday, June 23.

Stay Connected

By Kimber Anapoell Sax
Published on June 6, 2002

Orange County. At least 60,000 Jewish residents creating over 20,000 Jewish households spanning 800 square miles. Within the borders of this vast area, we can find about 25 synagogues, great Jewish day schools, numerous Jewish organizations ... and you.

In May, The Jewish Journal of Orange County launched its premier issue. As the "numbers" person for The Jewish Journal, I know that the statistics listed above mean a target market for advertisers. But far more importantly, I believe they prove that O.C. Jewry deserves an independent Jewish news source that facilitates your connection to Jewish life.

Follies

By Rob Eshman
Published on December 20, 2001

In the solar system of Jewish life, Irv Rubin is Pluto.

Bagels and Beignets

By Tom Tugend
Published on November 15, 2001

The theme of this year's Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans was "2001: A Space Fallacy," and the Jewish contingent, masked as the Cohenheads, hora-ed its way through the French Quarter behind the Mothership Yentaprise, tossing out a thousand Star of David-emblazoned bagels to the hungry masses.

Do-it-Yourselfers

By Rob Eshman
Published on November 8, 2001

At my college newspaper, new writers all received the same encouraging spiel. "We want you to start writing for us immediately," the editor would say. "We're not like the Harvard Crimson, where you have to scrub floors all semester before anyone even talks to you."

“We” Judaism

By Marlene Adler Marks
Published on October 4, 2001

NOW THAT THE HIGH HOLY days are over, we can begin to appreciate how the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington may alter American Jewish life.

Feast and Help Yourself

By Dennis Gura
Published on May 31, 2001

"Finding Each Other in Judaism: Meditations on the Rites of Passage From Birth to Immortality" by Harold M. Schulweis. (UAHC Press, $12.95)

"Finding Each Other in Judaism" distills decades of those quiet, private moments when a curious, wounded or concerned congregant asks the rabbi: "What do I do now?"

Ritualized Equality

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Published on April 12, 2001

Woven into many Jews' seders when they sit down to celebrate Passover this year will be a spate of new traditions.

Restoring Hope

By Ruth E. Gruber
Published on September 21, 2000

A prayer and study center honoring Jewish life has opened near the place that for more than half a century has been the paramount symbol of Jewish death.

A Very Fine House

By Julie G Fax
Published on September 7, 2000

The socialist experiment may have failed and the kibbutz movement may be struggling, but communal living is alive and well at the Westwood Bayit. Part of Jewish life at UCLA since 1974, the Bayit (Hebrew for house) is a cooperative living setup where young men and women commit to participating in Shabbat, kosher group cooking and dining, and Jewish programming.

First Rough Draft

Published on June 29, 2000

Over the next few months, Jewish life is going to get a lot more interesting than most of us would like. It's summer, and we're in for a hot one.

Ghosts on the Beach

By Charlotte Hildebrand
Published on June 15, 2000

I arrived in Miami Beach one morning last week on a mission: to find the last kosher hotel in South Beach, an ultra-hip area of restaurants, clubs and shops that used to be the hub of Florida Jewish life.Today you can drive along Ocean Drive (inch along is more like it) and see scores of suburban teenagers and sophisticated European tourists sitting at Art Deco restaurants and hotels, sipping their lattes and looking to be seen, but you won't find many Jews. South Beach is where Gianni Versace was murdered on the steps of his mansion and where Gloria Estefan, Madonna and Sylvester Stallone all have had multimillion-dollar homes at one time or another.

Hands-on Tikkun Olam

By Michael Aushenker
Published on April 6, 2000

More than 220 Jewish environmental activists gathered in Malibu last weekend for this year's Mark and Sharon Bloome Jewish Environmental Leadership Institute, sponsored by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). Professionals from Jewish educational, environmental and outreach institutions came from as far as Canada, Europe and Israel.

Shabbat Across Los Angeles

By Julie G Fax
Published on March 12, 1998

It's finally happened. Marketing gurus have gottentheir hands on Shabbat, taking it off dining-room tables and throwingit up onto billboards across the nation -- in the hopes of bringingit back down to more tables.

The GA: Missing Out

By Rob Eshman
Published on November 27, 1997

If a Jew yells in Indiana, will a Jew in Los Angeles pay attention?

For six days in mid-November, 4,400 mostly bright, all intenselycommitted Jews gathered in Indianapolis to wrestle with the toughissues of contemporary Jewish life. And, if you're like the bulk ofLos Angeles Jewry, you probably couldn't care less.