Benjamin Reznik: L.A. based lawyer who takes on Goliath

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on October 26, 2012

Among land-use attorneys working in Los Angeles, Benjamin Reznik is better known than most, perhaps because of his success at suing the City of Los Angeles.

Kenneth Feinberg: The 9/11 mediator who listens

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on September 11, 2012

When massive tragedy strikes in the United States, when half a dozen or a score or thousands of people are killed in a single incident, when disaster hits a region, Kenneth Feinberg often gets a call.

Citing Trayvon Martin case, lawyers seek change of venue in Baltimore assault

Published on April 24, 2012

Lawyers for two Baltimore Jewish brothers accused of beating a black teenager requested that the trial be moved out of the city because of perceived similarities between the case and the death of Trayvon Martin.

Lawyer for Leiby Kletzky’s alleged murderer: My client is insane

Published on October 25, 2011

A lawyer for the man who confessed to killing 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky said the confession was coerced and his client is insane.

Voicemail and My Father’s Outgoing Message…

By Julia Bendis
Published on July 2, 2011

Obvious vs. the-Not-So-Obvious!

By Julia Bendis
Published on May 31, 2011

A Kristallnacht lesson for our generation

Published on May 16, 2011

It was Nov. 9 - Kristallnacht, the night of "broken glass" - when hundreds of Jewish businesses and virtually every synagogue throughout Germany and Austria were set ablaze. On that terrible night in 1938, my father, Sol, ran into a burning synagogue near his home in Vienna and rescued a Torah that would otherwise have been consumed by the flames. He and his brother, Morris Brafman, carried that Torah halfway around the world, ultimately bringing it to the United States, where it was restored and is currently in a yeshiva in Far Rockaway, Queens, N.Y., in an ark dedicated to the memory of my father and his wife of 55 years, my mother Rose.

Three Cheers For the Law

By Tamara Shayne Kagel
Published on January 11, 2011

A lawyer’s personal investment in Mideast peace

By Tom Tugend
Published on December 22, 2010

Josef Avesar is a soft-spoken lawyer with a wife and four children, but for the past six years he has spent most of his time and a considerable amount of his own money on an all-consuming project: to establish an Israeli-Palestinian Confederation (IPC) and break the interminable impasse between the two groups. Unlike another dreamer, Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism who in 1897 foresaw, amid widespread derision, that in 50 years there would be a Jewish state, Avesar is more circumspect in his predictions. In 2006, speaking before a UCLA audience, Avesar asserted that his vision had a 5 percent chance of becoming reality in his lifetime, but he was more optimistic in a recent interview.

Who is Roger Diamond?

By David Suissa
Published on February 14, 2008

I got to know a quirky, passionate Los Angeles native who never dreamed he'd become a counsel to skin merchants nationwide and the reviled bête noir of neighborhood groups everywhere.

Jack Gindi, American Jewish University philanthropist, dies at 83

By Shoshana Lewin-Fischer
Published on August 5, 2007

Jack Gindi, real estate developer, lawyer, philanthropist and Jewish community benefactor, died Saturday, Aug. 4, at 83, following a prolonged illness.

Lawyer makes case for answering rabbinical school call

By Peter L. Rothholz
Published on April 26, 2007

And yet despite these avocations, the 40-something Kenneth Klee said he felt there was something missing in his life. He's now studying for his smicha, or ordination, as a rabbi, which he intends to compliment his sideline as a spiritual counselor.

Sex and The 30-Something Professional

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on April 5, 2007

Before David Rouda became a stage director and writer, he was an internationally ranked rower who placed 17th in the 1999 World Rowing Championships. Rouda, who started training as a sculler at 13, won six Gold Medals at the Maccabee Games and just missed qualifying for the 2000 Olympics.

Who needs law school? Just marry a lawyer!

By Jane Ulman
Published on January 4, 2007

First, let me say that by the time I announced to my family that I was actually getting married, at the already questionable child-bearing age of 34, they would have been ecstatic had I said I was marrying a Martian.The fact that Larry was a lawyer, on the partner track at a reputable Los Angeles law firm, was a bonus. The fact that he was a Jewish lawyer, strongly identified as a Member of the Tribe and actively engaged in the community, was beyond their wildest hopes.

Writer spins thrillers from his own undercover adventures

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on November 16, 2006

Jet lag launched Haggai Carmon into his career as an author. The international lawyer found himself in a small, unheated hotel room in a remote country he won't identify. He was on U.S. government assignment, collecting intelligence on a violent criminal organization, but his security cover had been blown, and he was advised by Interpol not to leave his hotel room.Tired, but too scared to sleep, Carmon sat at a child-sized desk with his laptop computer and spun 100 pages of a thriller based on, but disguising, his experiences. Those first 100 pages became the basis for "Triple Identity," the first in a series of three thrillers featuring Dan Gordon, a lawyer and former Mossad agent working for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Book review: The Divorce Lawyers’ Guide

Published on October 5, 2006

Author and former practicing attorney Wendy Jaffe has written an interesting and illuminating work called, "The Divorce Lawyers' Guide to Staying Married."

Young Lawyer Has a Ball With Bet Tzedek

By Marc Ballon
Published on June 22, 2006

Founded in 1997, the Justice Ball has grown into one of the nation's most successful nonprofit fundraisers/parties targeting young professionals, Jews and non-Jews alike. Over the past nine years, more than 16,000 attorneys, financiers and others have attended the soirees, and scores of them have gone on to become Bet Tzedek contributors and volunteers.

‘Top Gun’ Lawyer Aims to Aid Likud

By Tom Tugend
Published on January 12, 2006

Born into a strongly Democratic family but later a founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Berman, at 51, is a man of strong physique and opinions.

"I am fed up with intermarriage and with rabbis who reach out to gay and intermarried couples," he said during an interview in his spacious Sunset Boulevard office.

The Nation and The World

Published on January 6, 2005

The Nation And The World.

From Punk Teen to Bet Tzedek Dream

By Marc Ballon
Published on July 10, 2003

Mitch Kamin was a punk. As a teenager, he would don grubby jeans and an attitude and make his way to the Roxy, Madame Wong's or the Whisky A Go Go to listen to the sonic drum-and-guitar assaults of such bands as X and the Circle Jerks. Plowing his way through the mosh pit, the young Kamin experienced a cathartic release as the music pounded throughout his body.

The Circuit

By Michael Aushenker
Published on July 10, 2003

The Circuit

The Class of ‘93

By Sharon Schatz Rosenthal
Published on June 19, 2003

As students around the Southland graduate and move beyond high school, The Journal sought out some of the outstanding Jewish high school seniors of 10 years ago, talking with five of the 13 valedictorians of the Class of 1993.

Hadassah Encourages Women to ‘Check Out’ Program

By Journal Staff
Published on February 6, 2003

Despite winning a $5,900 grant in December 2001 from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to present the program free to 2,000 students, Hadassah's Long Beach-Orange County chapter has, so far, found few takers.

Gambling Goodman

By Amy Klein
Published on May 16, 2002

Oscar Goodman sure likes his Beefeater. So much so that this Las Vegas mayor had proposed to become a spokesman for the gin company for $100,000. The money, Goodman promised, would go to the city coffers.

The Secret History

By Ruth Andrew Ellenson
Published on November 15, 2001

"The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People," by Jonathan Kirsch (Viking Press, $14.95).

Jonathan Kirsch lives a double life that many lawyers only dream of.

Inside Dating

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on September 6, 2001

When "Inside Schwartz" creator Stephen Engel was in college, dating was relatively easy. He'd meet a girl in class, hang out -- and presto! -- he had a girlfriend.

But when Engel's college flame dumped him when he was 25, the Jewish writer entered alien territory: the singles scene. "I didn't have a lot of experience formally calling women and asking them out," he says. "I'd never been 'fixed up.' I'd never been on a blind date. I had some horrific experiences."

Advice From the Trenches

By Lynne Z. Gold-Bikin
Published on February 8, 2001

The statistics haven't changed much in the close to 30 years I've been in practice. About 50 percent of all American marriages end in divorce. As a family law attorney, I work with people every day who are giving up on their dreams of marital bliss. And in many cases -- for my client and for the well-being of children involved -- ending the marriage is a good idea. Marriages that break up because of untreated physical abuse, gambling, drug and alcohol problems, and infidelity are often damaged beyond repair. In those cases it's usually best for everyone concerned if the marriage is dissolved, allowing the innocent spouse to move on with his or her life.

Whose Money?

By Michael J
Published on September 7, 2000

Since 1996, Jewish groups and their lawyers have gone to the mat with the likes of the Germans, the Swiss and the French, extracting $9 billion in restitution for the evil wrought in Europe by Nazi forces and their collaborators.

Waiting for Furrow

By Tom Tugend
Published on August 10, 2000

A year and a day after Buford O. Furrow Jr. allegedly burst into the North Valley Jewish Community Center, spraying the lobby with 70 bullets from a 9mm semiautomatic assault weapon, the case is slowly winding its way through the federal legal system - very slowly.

Laborers File Suit for Wartime Injustices

By Tom Tugend
Published on March 11, 1999

Jews who worked as slave laborers during the Nazi era are one step closer to receiving some measure of compensation for their ordeal.