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Editorial Cartoon: The First Offering
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The philanthropist
Eli Broad’s new book is called “The Art of Being Unreasonable.”
The pragmatists
Yehuda Avner arrived in Israel in 1947 from his native Manchester, England, as an idealistic religious Zionist. His keen intellect landed him a post in the foreign service, and his English proficiency almost guaranteed that he would be the designated note taker as he traveled with four prime ministers from the earliest days of the State to the aftermath of the Lebanon War.
Riot/Ride
Last Sunday, my wife, our daughter and I hitched our bikes to our car, drove toward downtown and parked just across from MacArthur Park, otherwise known as Langer’s Deli adjacent.
My war on drugs
When medical marijuana became legal in the state of California, I went out and got some. I say this not because I am cool, or like to get stoned — I’m not, and I don’t.
All in
Two years ago, before our very eyes, a liberation movement of great courage and hope began to unfold halfway around the world. Blood ran like water in the streets of distant capitals, and still people fought, flesh against tanks, citizens against infantry, poets against police.
Again
Many, many years ago I sat down at my computer and decided to write a fictional story about what would happen if “Never Again!” became “Again.”
Syrians need us
It’s time for us to act for Syria. It’s been one year since the start of the Syrian revolution, and the organized Jewish community is still sitting on its collective thumbs, acting as if the turmoil is not its issue, and in any case, we can do nothing. It is, and we can.
Bad religion
Religion should take election years off. As soon as the presidential campaigns get under way, religion should just go to Cancun and wait them out. Otherwise, inevitably, it gets used.
President Jacobs
For many years now, a central narrative of American Jewish life has been the resurgence of Orthodoxy. Surveys show booming populations. Orthodox adults are nudging Jewish voting patterns to the right. In Israel, black-hat baby-making is as productive as a Chinese iPad factory. As American (and European and Middle Eastern) culture experiences a fundamentalist reawakening, so, it stands to reason, would Jewish culture.
Dream big, y’all
In synagogue last Friday night, just after her sermon, the rabbi announced she had invited a special guest in honor of Jewish Disabilities Month. The woman next to me leaned over and whispered. “What’s Jewish Disabilities Month?” “That’s for Jews who get B’s in school,” I said.
The embrace
At the end of Shabbat services last Saturday, I watched a 7-year-old boy recite the blessing over the wine, the Kiddush. His voice was pure, the Hebrew, a learned language for him, flowed fast and flawlessly from his mouth. His face shone.
Opinion: Save Los Encinos
Things change; I get it. My favorite diner — Benice, in Venice — closed this week after 24 years in business. Life goes on. They pave paradise. Joni Mitchell is 67, for Pete’s sake.
Bridge to empathy
If you like your satire dark, I mean jet black, you probably love the scene from episode four, season four of “Weeds,” in which Len Botwin, played by Albert Brooks, gives a history lesson to his young nephew Shane.
Opinion: History lessons
Imagine you are a developing country in the heart of the Middle East. The entire world suspects you are starting to build nuclear weapons, but you deny it. The one country in the world that has the diplomatic, economic and military might to stop you — the United States of America — has made it clear, over at least three administrations, that it will not permit you to go nuclear. Fearful of its retaliation, you give your solemn promise that your nuclear development is entirely peaceful.
Opinion: Stop the Stalinists
First, can we all just acknowledge the obvious hypocrisy? Imagine that over the past year Israel had slaughtered 5,000 Palestinians. The Arab reaction would be massive street protests, suspension of all diplomatic ties, demands for expulsion from the United Nations, calls for outright war, the launch of the mother of all BDS movements and unrelenting terror attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets anywhere and everywhere.
Opinion: Lord Shmuley?
The first time I met Shmuley Boteach, it was 2 p.m. on a Thursday; he was sitting in the lobby of the Luxe Beverly Hills, and he asked me if I wanted to go outside for a beer and a cigar. My kind of rabbi, I thought.
The Shtarker
Of all the eulogies and essays about Christopher Hitchens that have appeared following his death Dec. 15 at age 62, one is particularly pernicious.
Opinion: Guilt trips
I wish I had gone out with Sofa Landver last Thursday night. Not for a hot date, but for a cold reality check.
Opinion: A Jewish vote?
The election to replace the termed-out Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa isn’t until March 2013, but already candidates are out raising cash, taking meetings, locking up supporters. I’ve run into City Controller and mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel at so many pro-Israel banquets, you’d think she was making aliyah.
Rob Eshman: On Iran, one voice
I don’t know who will win the presidential election in 2012, but I know whom I don’t want to win it: Iran.
Opinion: Proud bastards
A few weeks ago we sent out one of our regular e-blasts with the following headline: “Poll: One in five Americans believes Jews have too much control of Wall Street.”
Opinion: Like crazy
Events over the past week provide a case study in extremism.
Opinion: Poor sports
Eventually, there is one thing every aspiring American political writer must do: write a long feature story about how Jews are turning Republican.
Opinion: My lunch with Lefsetz
Do you know about Bob Lefsetz? He is a middle-age guru living in Santa Monica. For 25 years, he’s been commenting on our culture in an idiosyncratic independent newsletter — first in hard copy, then in an e-mail newsletter and now in an online blog.
Letters to the Editor: Nissan Leaf, Israel’s economy, UN Bid
Rob Eshman’s open admission about a failed venture in green investment was a welcome change of pace from an editor who has generated some heated controversy among readers (“My 2011 Nissan Solyndra,” Oct. 28).
Opinion: Shalit.com
What makes this prisoner swap different from all other prisoner swaps? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to exchange Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Gilad Shalit for more than 1,000 Arab prisoners instantly became the biggest story of the year out of Israel.
Opinion: You and the UN
If you care about Israel, you have one very clear assignment over the next two months. In about eight weeks, the U.N. Security Council could vote on whether to recognize Palestinian statehood.
A Very Korean Sukkot [VIDEO + RECIPE]
Opinion: Who’s sorry now?
Some big Jewish ideas really get around. Over the past year, New York Times columnist David Brooks devoted one column to the value of Torah study, another to the big idea behind the word haimish. His colleague Roger Cohen weighed in on Aug. 11 with a column on Jewish identity, which was, improbably, also the focus of the season opener of “The Good Wife.”
Opinion: The big picture
Patrick Goldstein writes “The Big Picture,” a column for the Los Angeles Times.
Good year, good food
Opinion: UN-vote
The threatened U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood has pundits and politicians apoplectic.
Opinion: 9/11, 10 years later
When I was in New York last week, I prowled Ground Zero.
Opinion: Face to face
I asked Aatekah Ahhmad Mir, a journalist from Lahore, Pakistan, and Emal Naweed Haidary, a journalist from Kabul, Afghanistan, what sights they wanted to see while in Los Angeles.
Opinion: Count-less
Here’s the dirty little secret about organized Jewish life in Los Angeles: We literally don’t know who we are.
Rob Eshman: The seer
One evening last February, long before 300,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv to march for economic justice, I joined a handful of well-heeled Israelis and Americans for a private dinner.
Norway tragedy: A new twist on hate
In 1980, for the umpteenth time, someone asked the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal whether “it could happen again” — “it” being the Holocaust. “You take hatred and technology and you add in a crisis, and anything can happen,” Wiesenthal replied. Last week, something tragic, horrific, almost beyond words happened.
The Rough Guide
In Barcelona’s Old City, there’s a narrow street off the well-trod tourist path that leads to what was once the Jewish quarter. In 1391, 100 years before the official start of the Inquisition, Barcelona massacred many and expelled the rest of its Jews, who historians say made up as much as 20 percent of the population. The City Hall in Plaça Sant Jaume was built on land taken from some of these families.
Opinion: Goodbye, California
The scariest conversation I’ve had recently was with a college counselor at a local high school.
The Face of Israel
When the thousands of delegates, journalists and observers drive to the United Nations this September for the General Assembly, I’d like to suggest that on their way they swing by the intersection of 10th Avenue and 35th Street.
A new leaf
It was Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who finally convinced me to buy the Nissan Leaf. Almost a year ago, I heard about the car — an all-electric production vehicle that would deliver 100 miles per charge, had all the room of a Prius and cost, after $16,000 in government rebates and subsidies, less than a cheap Kia. I immediately logged on to the Nissan Web site and plunked down a $99 deposit.
Letters to the Editor: Domestic workers, extremism, the pro-Israel divide
Letters to the editor
The pro-Israel divide
Every week, an e-mail circulates among hundreds of Jews in Los Angeles calling for my immediate firing. The subject line of a recent one was, “The L.A. Jewish paper needs a new Editor-in-Chief.” I know when this happens, because the author is always kind enough to copy me on the campaign. The author is usually one of a group of people who reads my editorials, or another essay or headline in the paper and decides that the fate of the State of Israel depends on ridding the Jewish community of what another anti-me organizer called my “über-left anti-Israel perspective.”
I’m a believer
I was a Jewish school skeptic. When it was time to send our first child, our son, to school, my wife, a rabbi, insisted it be a Jewish school. I wondered, like a lot of parents, whether the quality of the education would be so superior to the local public school, or a similarly priced private school. I worried that he wouldn’t get the diverse social exposure pubic school provided. I doubted a school that divides its day between Jewish and general studies could excel at either.
June 5, 1967
Levi Eshkol was one of the greatest Israeli heroes you never heard of. Eshkol was Israel’s prime minister during the Six Day War, which began 44 years ago this week, on June 5, 1967.
Street smarts
An organization of which I think very highly e-mailed a poorly worded headline this week. “Arab Mobs Attack Israel on All Fronts,” screamed the subject line of a May 15 e-mail alert from The Israel Project. The attached story reported how “tens of thousands of Arab protesters marking Palestinian Nakba Day (the day of the catastrophe) have marched on Israel, from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.”
SinoSoul’s Tony Chen Names Foodaism a Favorite Blog
I Miss Us
Here are my complaints about the annual Israel Independence Day Festival:
An Israeli named Juliano Mer-Khamis
Two competing narratives define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Juliano Mer-Khamis represented the troublesome third.
An open letter to my son
This column will appear online just about when you arrive in Poland.
Civility 101
When you get a moment, go online and read the account by our reporter Jonah Lowenfeld of the April 11 J Street debate at Temple Israel of Hollywood. Jewish Journal columnist David Suissa squared off against Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of the self-annointed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group J Street. About 600 people filed in.
The Arab Seder
This has been a good year for freedom.
Michal Ansky celebrates spring’s bounty on Passover
Here’s the first thing you notice about Michal Ansky: She’s beautiful. Tall, with long black hair and a strong, lean Israeli build. In the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, where we meet, people do double takes. She’s not quite famous here yet, though Fox TV selected Ansky from among all the cooking experts in the world to be one of three judges on its hit program, “MasterChef.” Padma Lakshmi, watch your back.
Just awards
I would like to be able to tell you that the most inspiring words spoken at the 2011 Bet Tzedek annual Dinner Gala, held on Jan. 20 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, were mine. But they weren’t.
When Syria falls
The writer Leon Wieseltier opened his keynote address at the Daniel Pearl Memorial lecture at UCLA last month with a telling joke.
B’tayavon, Tony
Television is littered with lousy food shows. I know I risk sounding like some grumpy old coot wondering whatever happened to Jack Paar, but I do wonder what the spirit of the great Julia Child would make of the utter mediocrity, the sheer lack of aspiration, the game show approach and personality-driven fluff that has become the norm in food TV. Thank God for Anthony Bourdain.
Letters to the Editor: Gibson Scale, Glenn Beck, Aaron Liberman and Latino-Jewish Coalition
The best reasons that I read The Jewish Journal are because of great Americans like Dennis Prager and David Suissa. It is nauseating to see columns by leftist slimebags like Marty Kaplan and Rachel Roberts (the doctoral student — OMG) (“Muslim Criminals, Jewish Activists,” Feb. 18). Maybe the two of them can get together and hate Israel and America together!
The Gibson Scale
The sheer volume of anti-Semitic spoutings and sputters in the past couple of months poses a serious question for Jews: When should we laugh? When should we worry? When should we fight back?
Zenga Zenga
On Sunday, I posted a blog about a video on YouTube that had captured the attention of the Libyan resistance movement and become the unofficial anthem of its youth.
Christopher Hitchens, David Wolpe, Sam Harris, Brad Artson on the Afterlife [VIDEO]
Is there an afterlife?
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Film
Filmmaker writes from experience for post-Holocaust drama ‘Mighty Fine’
Filmmaker Debbie Goodstein has taken to heart the adage, “Write what you know.” Her 1989 Holocaust documentary, “Voices From the Attic,” recounts her mother’s years of hiding in a garret where snow descended through slats in the roof, a baby died and food was scarce.
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