Three years after members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed the Jewlicious festival, two granddaughters of the controversial congregation’s pastor appeared at the weekend event to give their first speech since defecting from the group, most of whose members are their relatives.
On June 14, employees at Bet Tzedek, a Jewish legal-service organization, demonstrated in front of the organization’s office at 145 S. Fairfax Ave., calling for higher wages. Bet Tzedek — which means “House of Justice” in Hebrew — is a nonprofit that provides free legal services to Jews and non-Jews in Los Angeles. The Bet Tzedek employees — lawyers, legal secretaries, paralegals and clerical workers — want pay increases of approximately 2 percent, according to Marc Bender, an attorney at Bet Tzedek and president of Bet Tzedek Legal Services Union, which has 54 members.
Protesters demonstrated outside the New York headquarters of several companies accused of conducting business with Iran. Demonstrators from Iran 180 and United against Nuclear Iran, two groups promoting a democratic Iran, rallied June 10 in Midtown Manhattan, booing a large papier mache construction of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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