- NEWS & COMMENTARY
A new era of Jewish leadership in L.A.?
Los Angeles chose Eric Garcetti as its first elected Jewish mayor, one of a number of political contests on Tuesday that reflected the city’s diversity, as well as its numerous…
Stone-walling
In the last two years, the Western Wall in Jerusalem — also known as the Kotel — has become a place of controversy as much as of worship. It’s the site of a battle that has long been waged by…
Gun violence in America: Scandal!
Two years after his mother was shot and killed, Dallas Sonnier received a phone call from the police: His father had just been shot and killed.
- HOLLYWOOD
Spielberg to produce ‘Halo’ television series, plus other news from the Xbox One announcement
Microsoft Corp gave the world a first look at its new Xbox One on Tuesday, announcing that its first gaming console in eight years will come with exclusive video and…
Justin Timberlake and Coen brothers answer Jewish questions at Cannes
Using his preternatural smoothness, Justin Timberlake saved the Coen brothers from some serious awkwardness at a Cannes press conference for their folk singer film “Inside Llewyn Davis” on Sunday. “Jewish…
Sean Penn lobbies for Charedi man imprisoned in Bolivia
Actor Sean Penn urged a congressional hearing to pressure Bolivia to release a haredi Orthodox father of five under house arrest in the country.
- LIFE & CULTURE
Sarah Silverman sings about staying home in ‘Perfect Night’
For your listening pleasure, “Perfect Night,” in which Sarah Silverman recounts the benefits of skipping the club for the couch. Because this is a Silverman production you can expect references…
Maccabi Tel Aviv back on top but coach future uncertain
Champions Maccabi Tel Aviv have reasserted their dominance of Israeli soccer but media reports on Tuesday suggested they might have to continue their revival without coach Oscar Garcia.
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
- BLOGS
State 194: A Documentary About Palestine
Opening this weekend at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 is a very hot-button new documentary called State 194, which follows the recent history of Palestine. Many will approach this film with…
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
What would my Israeli grandmother think?
When I hear about the latest events in Israel – the air strikes on weapons facilities in Syria, the flare-ups over women donning prayer shawls at the Western Wall –…
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Leaving a Career in Television for Israel
What is art good for?
I wonder every time I go into and out of the office, what art is for? To capture the truth of a person or a thing? To tell that truth in unexpected ways to people who expect it least?
A ‘Clue’ about creation
Parshat Bereshit (Genesis 1:1-6:8) Why did God create the world? Why are we here in this life?
Defender of Faith:
Rabbi David Wolpe explains why faith matters
As we get older, we no longer ask so many questions aloud. Our questions become more private: Why? Why are we on this earth? Events occur, and we ask: Why me? Or, why not me?
‘Prayer isn’t boring—you are’
In a way, Jewish prayer is like another pillar of observant Jewish life: Shabbat. Just as tefilah involves letting one's creativity conquer one's boredom, Shabbat is about finding creative enjoyment on a day when cell-phones, iPods and DVD players are treated as hardly more useful than paperweights.
Shalom Auslander is my failure
This doesn't answer my questions. It doesn't staunch my tears. I don't sleep better. I don't justify terrible things when they happen to others, and I don't know why they don't happen to me. But I know that just as surely as there is inexplicable evil in the world, there is inexplicable good, as well. It's something to put on the other side of the scale, something to attribute to a good God.
In Quest for Meaning
Man is a meaning-seeking animal. Hardly a second goes by in which our mind does not stop its routine activities to ponder the meaning of the input it receives from our senses or from its own activities.
Can happiness be taught?
Anyway, what does it mean to be happy? Does it mean to experience constant pleasure? Bouts of joy? Moments of ecstasy? Does it mean to suffer no pain? Never be sad? Never struggle with challenges? Whatever it is, how does one get happy? It's a High Holy Days challenge if ever there were one, since if we all lived happier lives, wouldn't the world be a better place?
Not By Bread Alone
The milchama with lechem stops when we can eat it proportionately and spiritually. When we enjoy our fill -- rather than demonizing, avoiding or sinfully binging on it -- we are redeemed. By the mouth of God, bread was created, as was light, as were we, in His image. Our purest source of nourishment is Divine love, manifest in our capacity to lift up the vital force in all foods through our own utterances of gratitude.
Silencing Passover
You'll have to forgive me this week if I get all wistful and spiritual on you, but there's something about Passover I need to get off my chest. I have a question for my readers. How many of you have been so moved by a Passover experience that something inside of you changed?
Unmasking Purim’s vital meaning
On Purim we are forced to confront the possibility that nothing we do really matters, because history is ultimately arbitrary, and life is therefore unalterably unpredictable. No wonder they tell us to have a couple of drinks ... But the power of Purim is not that it leaves us in a drunken stupor, vulnerable, uncertain and hungover.
Kabbalah boom prompts meeting of mystical minds
Although all the presenters were united by their passion for the study and practice of Kabbalah, the most observable differences lay in their approaches as to how Judaism's most sacred and intimate teachings should be disseminated.
Swimming in the Holocaust
Jon Kean succeeds at having the women speak with candor about their families and their experiences as the war took hold, and how the Nazis put them in ghettos, on the transports to Auschwitz, as well as about their arrival and their tribulations there.
Amy Klein’s bibliographical guide for the perplexed
Bibliographical guide for the perplexed compiled by Amy Klein.
Jews in the Military: High Holidays Under Fire
Here are the stories of these American servicemen who observed the High Holidays not in conventional synagogues, but on far-flung battlefields. The worship services they participated in were often improvised and incomplete. But the jarring juxtaposition of war and prayer, faith and fear, continues to resonate with these men.
Small Things Add Up
It is the small things that merit the blessings. It is the "heel" commandments, the acts we forget about, that can change lives and bring holiness into our world.
Are You Listening?
"Therefore" connects all our fine sentiments and deep wisdom with the reality of the world. "Therefore" binds us to bring our values out of the vague realm of our subjectivity and into the hard objective world of work, family, politics and power. "Therefore" tests all our spiritual aspirations and visions against the limits of our courage, imagination and resolve. "Therefore" makes religion real. Every day, someone confesses, "Rabbi, I'm a deeply spiritual person."
Converts’ Hardships Expose Truth
"I have been told not to touch the Torah and to go back to my own religion" she relayed to me matter-of-factly.
"Wasn't there anyone you could confide in?" I asked.
"I could confide in some more than others, but when it came down to it, no one really cared whether I converted or not."
God Is Gray
Heaven, paradise -- choose a synonym: ecstasy, bliss, rapture. We use such words to describe experiences of perfect, supreme happiness, God on earth. The conditions on Sunday merited all such descriptions, especially that immaculately blue sky. Skies like that burn gloom away.
Unraveling the Red String
Around the Pico-Robertson neighborhood -- and the city -- the standard lectures were being given on topics ranging from the Book of Ruth to Israel, but something off the beaten path was taking place on Robertson Boulevard in a lecture at Anshei Emet Synagogue. The subject was "Kabbalah and the Red String."
The Second American Jewish Revolution
Wars, the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel and the movement of Jews to countries of freedom and security shaped the first revolution in Jewish communal life. Now, individuals are able to re-invent the idea of "community" on their own terms.
Death by Fire
Today, Judaism is undergoing a transformation, as we seek to embody the words of Rav Kook, who said we must make the old new and the new holy. Prayer must be made spiritually meaningful, whereby it becomes what Heschel described as the language of the soul, not just the language of the past.
‘We Will Remember Your Story’
Let me tell you why this honor means so much to me. I did not learn about the Holocaust in school. I did not really understand what happened until I came to America. And even today, I am still learning. Just when I think I have heard a story so horrible that it cannot be surpassed in barbarity, I hear or read something even more inhumane and incomprehensible.
Food for Thought
Scientists will tell you that the senses of smell and taste are most strongly associated with memory. I think eating resembles what learning the Passover story should be -- we allow something from outside of ourselves to enter us; we "digest it" and change it (it is we who must tell the story so that our children can hear it) and it changes us and nourishes us and stays with us forever.
Throw a Party With a Purpose
It's not that glitz, glamour and secular themes at b'nai mitzvah are inherently problematic, like in the soon-to-be-released one-upsmanship film, "Keeping Up With the Steins," but when they're inadequately balanced with Jewish values we can be left with an empty shell of a party that undermines the entire point of these meaningful milestones.
PASSOVER: Modern Causes Add Meaning to Seder
Passover is a time for remembrance, but it is also a time for making memories relevant, and at many seders in Los Angeles, there is a practice of incorporating meaningful events of the day into the ritual dinner.
PASSOVER: Try to Avoid Asking the Fifth Question
While there are only four questions posed in the haggadah, most seders struggle with the unasked fifth question, "When are we going to eat?" It is asked, not only by hungry children, but also by adults who feel disconnected to the rituals of their ancestors.
A Tenuous Claim as a Jew for Jesus
You know Jews for Jesus, the lovable San Francisco-based organization that uses the appeal of Jewish kinship to introduce Jews to "Y'shua ha Mashiach" (Jesus Christ). Its executive director is a pleasant fellow named David Brickner. After he critiqued my book, "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus," in a Jews for Jesus publication and later graciously retracted a prominent factual error he made, we started e-mailing.
Hineni
I expected to be dealing with an empty nest when my daughter started college. I projected my availability to friends who had yielded my attention during my childrearing years. I dragged writing projects onto my computer's desktop to await the plane ride from NYU to the rest of my life. Instead, the levees broke in my hometown. I spent the next three months as a relief worker with the Red Cross and the New Orleans Jewish agencies in service to those displaced and/or traumatized by Katrina.
Parental Values Do Influence Children
Having an open dialogue -- about things like rap music, Xbox games or Polly Pockets -- is essential for raising moral and ethical children. Creating the stage begins in infancy. There are no guarantees about the results of our parenting efforts, but there are ways we as parents can tilt the odds in our favor.
ADL Youth DREAM of Promoting Tolerance
DREAM is an acronym for Developing diverse, Respectful relationships, Empathy and Action with Meaning through dialogue. The program is a youth leadership project of the ADL's World of Difference Institute, run by the ADL's West Coast office.
Letters
Letters to the Editor
Television - Bruce Feiler’s Biblical Road Trip
The three-part "Walking the Bible With Bruce Feiler" follows the recent documentary trend of sending a charismatic host to a series of dangerous or hard-to-get-to places. Accompanied on occasion by archaeologists, scholars, Egyptologists, and theologians, Feiler tracks his way through places in the Middle East where the biblical stories of Genesis and Exodus are assumed to have occurred.
The Lost Words
Perhaps what's at issue is my own life: I'm a word person. For more than 20 years I've made my living by writing and editing. Getting the words right is what I labor to achieve, all day every day. It's a struggle that often leaves me in despair.
Culling Your ‘Stuff’ Can Be Painful Task
Moving from a familiar home and letting go of things owned for years can feel like an additional loss. It's not just the loss of the objects that has an impact; it's the connection with the past that these objects symbolize.
What to Ask a Jew
If you're Jewish, this is not for you to read. Please clip this editorial and hand it off to a close non-Jewish friend. I'm certain some of your best friends aren't Jews.
Face It: Judaism Is Not Hip
I was an advertising agency copywriter and creative director. I was trained to be one of the manufacturers of hip. I would sit in offices and create hip, and then watch all those people lust after the creations. I reveled in hip.
Go Ahead—Read That Book in Shul
Independent readers -- who might pull out a book during a particular part of the service in which they lose interest -- are likely to be reading serious books, trying to deepen their experience of the holidays.
Marking Tisha B’Av Takes Many Forms
On Saturday night Marci Malat will sit in silence and darkness pierced only by candlelight, listening to the chanting of Eicha, or Lamentations, in her synagogue to commemorate Tisha B'Av.
Young at Heart Get a Turn at the Bimah
Rose Engel practiced her Torah and haftorah portions with an eager diligence. She studied with the rabbi and prepared an essay. Her passion and excitement matched that of most of the synagogue's bat mitzvah candidates, but at 87, she is far from their peers.
Engel is the most senior member of the 31 women who became b'not mitzvah on June 13 at Adat Ari El in Valley Village.
Nimoy’s New Trek
Nimoy said he was eager to participate because he finds current Israeli cinema to be "fresh, well-executed and relevant to the culture," compared to the "primitive" films he viewed in the early 1980s.
Yeladim
Yeladim
Kids Page
Kids Page
Add Inclusiveness to Your Seder Table
For non-Jewish partners, even with the best good will, the seder experience can be strange and unfamiliar. Jewish family members prioritize coming together at this time of year.
The Best of Passover Reading
The Best of Passover Reading
All Haggadahs Great and Small
Conducting the family seder, attorney Robert Hirschman became frustrated with commercial haggadahs, so he made his own.
Yeladim
Yeladim
Listen to What the Machers Are Saying
Jews have a deserved rep for being contrary, for being argumentative, for being curmudgeonly. And yet, today, we all seem to have a bad case of Jewish politically correct fever.
I’m Not Religious
"Please understand, rabbi. I'm very spiritual. I'm just not religious."
It is the anthem of a generation.
I'm spiritual: I wrestle with the meaning of my existence. I cultivate my inner life. I feel God is very close. I sense my connectedness to others and to the earth and I try to live compassionately.
But I'm not religious: I'm uncomfortable in the institutions and structures of organized religion. Formal religion binds my freedom and gets in the way. I'm eclectic. I take the best of all traditions but I belong to none.
Memo to Oscar: Just Say ‘No’ to Swag
The contrast was just too much. On one channel, I watched as tens of thousands of people struggled to survive the devastating impact of the tsunami that left more than 250,000 dead and countless others injured and homeless, and on another channel, presenters at last month's Golden Globe Awards leaving the ceremonies with their "travel-themed" gift baskets worth $37,890 each.
What Lies Beneath
"A man sat opposite me in my study one evening: 'Two weeks ago, for the first time in my life I went to the funeral of a man my own age.... He died suddenly over the weekend.... That was two weeks ago.
Teens Gear up for Bicycle Tzedakah
With their hands all but frozen, lips blue and feet soaking, nearly 50 South Bay teens and a large handful of adult volunteers braved the storm on Sunday, Dec. 5, to devote their afternoon to testing, cleaning and repairing bicycles.
Hip-Hop’s Jew Crew Takes Center Stage
Jews have been part of hip-hop since its beginning," said Josh Noreck of the Hip Hop Hoodios, a Latino Jewish rap group based out of Los Angeles and New York.
Welcome to Our Wedding!
A very nice added attraction to your ceremony is the wedding booklet. This is a personal supplement to your wedding that the ushers will give to each guest as they are taken to their seats. The bride usually chooses a white or ecru linen material with black ink.
The cover states "The Wedding of ... " and usually has both the English and the Hebrew dates. We recommend art of flowers and we added the quote "Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li" -- "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."
Applesauce Warms Holiday Celebration
On the day preceding the first night of Chanukah, I was too tired to make yet another trip to the grocery store for latke fixings, so we had warm bowls of soup, lit the Chanukah candles, and without much fanfare, my daughter opened her first present. But on the second day, I re-entered my kitchen and found one box of instant latke mix and a refrigerator drawer full of apples.
December Dilemma: Distorting Chanukah
Welcome to Chanukah and the December Dilemma. In Hebrew schools all over Los Angeles -- and in temple discussion groups for intermarrieds on how to survive the holiday season -- Chanukah is taught as a ritually dense Jewish substitute for Christmas that needs to elbow its way into some December shelf space, rather than a holiday that commemorates a group of Jews fighting against the forces of Hellenistic secularism to remain an insular, Torah-committed community.
Turning Evil Around
The Jewish Journal introduces a new weekly column: My Jewish Library. We've asked rabbis, scholars and thinkers to each pick the one book that was essential to their Jewish life. They will discuss the book and its impact, and explain why you need to add it to your Jewish library.
March Connects Students to Shoah
With 15 years of Jewish day school education under his belt, Marc Marrero had a plan for college.
All the ChildrenAll the ChildrenAll the ChildrenAll the Children
On the eve of Simchat Torah, many synagogues auction the three major honors of the day, with proceeds benefiting the synagogue or other Jewish institutions.
All the Children
On the eve of Simchat Torah, many synagogues auction the three major honors of the day, with proceeds benefiting the synagogue or other Jewish institutions.
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