A Reason to Give a Hoot

By Karin Kloosterman
Published on September 15, 2005

ity mouse, look out! A researcher on the other side of the globe thinks he can end Los Angeles' rodent problem for good -- by putting barn owls to work.

Israeli ornithologist Yossi Leshem says owls operate more safely and effectively than spraying poisons, which contaminate groundwater and are toxic to pets. The key, he says, is supplying the owls, a natural predator, with the right habitat.

L.A. Visit Excites Shoah Survivors

By Karin Kloosterman
Published on April 28, 2005

For Israeli Shifra Fyne, 83, this week’s journey to Los Angeles will be her first time leaving Israel in 56 years, and her first trip ever on an airplane.
Yehuda Goldstein is making the same trip. He hopes to reconnect with John Gordon, an L.A. resident he met last year in Israel. They think they grew up in the same pre-World War II neighborhood in Budapest.

L.A. Brigade Helps Israel Fight Hunger

By Karin Kloosterman
Published on November 11, 2004

Rachel Bamberger Chalkovsky doesn't need statistics to know about poverty in Israel.

Affectionately known as "Bambi," the retired head midwife of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital can tell heart-wrenching tales of women who gave birth wearing tattered undergarments and shoes, and young women in their prime who are missing several teeth for lack of dental health care and an adequate diet. From reading the postnatal hemoglobin counts of mothers she knows that 20 percent of the 900 birthing mothers coming to the hospital each month are subsisting on food such as bread and margarine.