Ari Rubin suicide continues pattern of violent JDL deaths

By Tom Tugend
Published on August 22, 2012

Ari Ephraim Rubin, vice chairman of the Jewish Defense League long led by his father, Irving (Irv) Rubin, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 20. He was 30.

California Jewish Voters Guide: Views on state and local issues split on party lines

By Tom Tugend
Published on October 30, 2008

The presidential race makes the headlines, but there's lots of emotion, energy and money left for the 12 statewide propositions on the California ballot. As in McCain-Obama contest, Jewish voters are sharply split between the Democratic/liberal majority and the Republican/conservative minority.

Schulweis selected for L.A. County humanitarian award

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on October 1, 2008

Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino will be honored Oct. 23 with the John Allen Buggs Humanitarian Award, given out annually by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations

Some ‘Profiles in Courage’

By David A. Lehrer
Published on August 23, 2007

South L.A. will, hopefully, have a hospital that won't have the term "killer" in front of its name, because of the very difficult steps that have been taken over the past two weeks and the hospital is reborn. Perhaps, Turkish governmental leadership will begin to confront its dreadful past vis--vis the Armenians when they realize they can no longer successfully bully organizations to ignore history to its benefit.

Preschool Project Strives to Educate All

By Rabbi Eli Hecht
Published on December 8, 2005

King Solomon was known to have coined the expression, "Educate the child accordingly so that when he grows old, he will not leave." In other words, take advantage of the child's education as soon as possible.

In modern times, this admonition certainly applies to preschool, and it's something that my day care school, the Bilowit Learning Center, based in the Lomita-Torrance area, has always taken as a mission.

Our Cross to Bear?

By Judy Gruen
Published on June 17, 2004

At first blush it seemed an odd thing for an observant Jew to do: Slogging my way through morning rush-hour traffic to get downtown to demonstrate against the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors' decision to remove a small cross from the county seal.

And yet, I felt compelled to be there. The supervisors had already capitulated, in a 3-2 vote, to a threat by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to sue the county over the cross. Surprised by the public outcry, the supervisors called for another vote to consider a so-called "compromise" with the ACLU in which the cross on the seal -- just one of a dozen various symbols of the region's history -- would be replaced by a mission. But as one clever observer noted, a mission without a cross just looks like a Taco Bell.

Focus on Forensics

By David Margolis
Published on March 18, 1999

Barry Fisher, director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crime laboratory, showed up in Jerusalem this week, invited by the Israeli Police Department to give a couple of lectures and the benefit of his 30 years' experience to the forensics people of the Jewish state. In a wood-paneled room at National Police Headquarters, along with about 25 Israeli police officers, I caught his second lecture, "Forensic Science After O.J. Simpson." (I will assume that, despite so many breathlessly absorbing high-profile murders and sex scandals since then, you still vaguely remember O.J. Simpson.)