October 21, 2007 | 12:20 pm

Thank heavens for hot pastrami

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Today I am writing a short piece for UCLA Magazine about Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly food critic and author of the LA food guide “Counter Intelligence.” Coincidentally, I found a story in The New York Times Magazine called “A Counter History,” which deals with one of my favorite topics out there: Jewish delis.

It’s a fascinating profile of the Lebewohl family and the Second Avenue Deli in Manhattan that Abe opened in 1954, his brother took over in ‘96 when Abe was murdered and that closed last year after a dispute with the landlord. The deli is reopening in November in Midtown, and now will be run by Abe’s nephews.

The Jews who immigrated here during the first half of the last century ate at delis — most of them kosher — regularly. Eventually they moved to the suburbs and traded salami for salad. In the 1960s there were 300 kosher delis in the city and suburbs and a Greater New York Delicatessen Dealers’ Association. That group is long defunct, and you can count the number of marquee delis left in Manhattan on one hand: Carnegie, Katz’s and Stage, none of them kosher. Assimilation is one reason; also, the need to separate dairy from meat limits menu choices (kosher meat is more expensive besides), and New Yorkers do not like limits. The staples of deli food, like matzoh-ball soup and corned beef, migrated in nonkosher form to diners and coffee shops decades ago; you need to be Jewish to eat deli the same way you need to be Italian to eat pizza. But for aficionados of the real thing, the high-quality, old-school kosher renditions of brisket or flanken or center-cut tongue like silk, the Second Avenue Deli was it.

I don’t care about kosher, but there is something spiritually inspiring about finely cut pastrami, like the kind Langers serves up a short drive from my office.

October 21, 2007 | 11:17 am

What does evil look like?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In a piece about the war criminal’s best friend, Jacques Verges, the NY Times Magazine asks today what evil looks like, and passively dismisses belief in God as passé:

For much of history, when an ironclad trust in a divine maker still prevailed (however many plagues or earthquakes he might have arranged), the question of “evil” was contained by one of two rationales: that people deserved it because of wicked behavior or that it was part of a larger, unknowable celestial plan. That attitude, gullible as it now seems, had the benefit of keeping this particular epistemological dilemma outside the human purview. It held steady until the emergence of a philosophical tradition that, beginning with Immanuel Kant’s questioning of God’s pivotal position and reaching an apogee of unbelief with the arrival of Nietzsche, put the concept of evil right in our laps. As Susan Neiman says in “Evil in Modern Thought,” from the Enlightenment on there have been two views: “The one, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands that we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Jean Améry, insists that morality demands that we don’t.”

Hannah Arendt predicted that, post-Auschwitz, the problem of evil would be a primary focus of contemporary life. And it might have been, except for the fact that, in a destabilized and reflexively ironic age, we are always checking to make sure we haven’t overlooked a mitigating circumstance or an admirable principle gone wrong. Fearful as some of us are about exhibiting a too-primitive and “demonizing” attitude — the kind of macho Us-versus-Them, Axis-of-Evil line of thinking that has made Bush and Company figures of easy derision — we have become increasingly tentative about assigning this stark designation. (In “The Myth of Evil,” Phillip Cole says that his book “asks the question whether evil exists at all and one possible answer I take very seriously is that it does not.”) Few of us would be hesitant to use the word to describe the genocidal regimes, for example, of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Milosevic. But for the most part, we post-Manichaean postmodernists are more like Neville Chamberlain hoping to win over Hitler with a bit of coaxing than like Winston Churchill, who committed his country to fighting him. Given our a tradition of broad civil tolerance, it makes uneasy sense that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the half-buffoonish, half-demonic leader of Iran, was invited to speak at an ivy-towered bastion of learning, where he gave voice to his hate-mongering views.

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October 19, 2007 | 2:52 pm

Why is Joel Stein going to Hell?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I often used to wonder what I’d go to hell for. Not giving my money to the starving and homeless? Eating animals? Dumping girlfriends? Being a journalist? Then I checked out the Bible and realized how capricious God is: He’s down with slavery, slaughtering children during war and turning people to salt for pitying gays who are being burned alive. I gave up riddling out what ticks off the Almighty.

That’s Joel Stein being a little snarky about the vengeful God of the Tanakh. Based on past columns, of which I am a fan, I’d say God has plenty of reasons to chose from. But we know God is also forgiving, even if Stein doesn’t live biblically like A.J. Jacobs, whom he was dining with for this column.

The Bible, it turns out, is much like other long books, in that reading it apparently turns you into a huge dork.

I sinned by using a credit card (taking on debts, per Romans 13:8), not giving thanks after—not before—my meal (Deuteronomy 8:10), telling the waitress that “I’ll have the burger” without adding “God willing” (James 4:13-15) and “cursing the ruler of thy people,” George Bush (Exodus 22:28). The Republicans should focus more on that Scripture instead of putting so much emphasis on Leviticus and sodomy.

But Jacobs was only truly appalled when I told the waitress that yes, thank you, I enjoyed the burger. “That was terrible!” Jacobs yelled. “That was a flat-out, bald-faced, dishonest fib. Proverbs say that people appreciate frankness more than flattery.” He wouldn’t let it go, mimicking me with a very squeaky, high-pitched tone that I’m sure Leviticus has something to say about. “‘The burger’s good! Oh, it’s dee-licious!’”

At the end of the meal, I asked Jacobs what I was going to go to hell for. “It’s your evil tongue,” he said. I had apparently “slandered” (Leviticus 19:16) the guy who created the 43 Folders organization system by calling him “crazy” even though I know nothing about him, and I made fun of Miss Teen South America. Plus, even though he didn’t know it, I was scribbling notes about Jacobs’ irritating moral superiority.

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October 19, 2007 | 2:50 pm

Quote of the day

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“In Jerusalem, they want to disturb the bones of dead Muslims, and here, they want to disrupt the lives of living Jews.”

Activist Daniel Fink told my colleague, Tom Tugend, that, referring to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s efforts to expand their facilities just west of Pico-Robertson.

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October 19, 2007 | 10:57 am

Refugees in their own land

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Another story from Najaf, Iraq, not about how the drop in killings is hurting gravediggers, but about the sad lives of those stuck in a Shi’ite refugee camp.

The men gather somberly at midday on soiled straw mats under a makeshift canvas canopy in a valiant effort to simulate the traditional Arab formal reception room, but here they have no fans to keep the flies from landing, no sweets or tea to offer strangers.

They hoped that this city, holy to their Shiite sect, would welcome them and begin to heal their grief. But instead they have found themselves in a refugee camp outside the city, far from jobs and shops, squeezed five to a tent, sleeping on squalid blankets smelling of sweat, and drinking cloudy brown water hauled from a nearby ditch.

Most galling for these Shiite refugees is that they feel abandoned by the government, which is run by fellow Shiites. “When Maliki came to Najaf he didn’t even come to see the camp; he didn’t even visit his own people,” said Issa Mohammed, 47, a dignified man wearing the black checked scarf favored by tribal sheiks, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The scope of sectarian killings in Iraq and the relocation they have caused have yet to be publicly acknowledged by the Iraqi government. But a visit to Najaf, whose refugee population is typical of the southern provinces, lays bare the vast needs of displaced Iraqis and the rough road ahead for the project of national reconciliation.

Last week, a reporter for The Washington Post was killed while speaking to Iraqis about sectarian violence. One can hope, dream and even pray—especially pray—but it’s hard to imagine things getting better in Iraq. Sectarian violence is not the kind of conflict that fades over days or even a few years.

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October 19, 2007 | 9:25 am

Six-figure Persian weddings

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My pal Karmel had a story in last week’s Jewish Journal that has irritated a lot of his fellow Iranian Jews. It’s a good story about cultural expectations that highlights the tension between Tehrangeles’ older Jews and those who are now coming of age. It’s about the pressure the younger feel to splurge on six-figure weddings with 500-plus guests.

Somewhere between keeping Iranian hospitality traditions and one-upping displays of wealth, a growing number of Iranian Jewish families today are inviting upward of 500 guests to weddings, with budgets in the six-figure range—typically from $150,000 to $300,000.

The strain of such expectations has led to infighting between families over who should cover the cost. Young professionals are also postponing marriage plans or opting instead for a destination wedding to avoid the financial pressures of holding the event in Los Angeles.

Most local Iranian Jews acknowledge the situation, but few in the community are willing to advocate for change. Rabbi Hillel Benchimol, associate rabbi of the Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills, wants a greater dialogue on the issue.

“The problem is we are taking out the spiritual and emotional aspect of the marriage and instead it’s become a business with all the unnecessary spending,” Benchimol said. “People forget the spirit of the wedding—all you need is love, and everything else falls into place.”

Some young Iranian Jewish newlyweds say that while they did not necessarily want a large wedding, they feel pressure from their parents and extended family to put on a more lavish affair. Their parents, they say, feel an obligation to invite people whose parties they have attended.

“Persians have much more of a tight-knit community, and it’s very respect oriented—that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it leads to 300- to 400-person weddings,” said Ario Fakheri, who was married last year. “People get upset if you don’t invite their kids or grandmothers, they look at it as disrespecting them—there are so many ways to disrespect them.”

Fakheri said that while he and his fiancee invited almost 600 people to their wedding due to family pressure, many of his friends in the community are opting to have destination weddings.

“You can tell how bad they don’t want people to come to their wedding by how far away they go,” Fakheri said. “It’s basically code for how bad you want to have a normal wedding.”

Is your wedding really worth the cost of a pre-housing-bubble home? My wife and I thought our wedding, on the water, was perfect, and it barely cost five figures.

And I thought hosting a bar mitzvah was expensive.

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October 18, 2007 | 6:26 pm

Springfield: sister-city of Chelm

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Simpsons are a typical Middle-American Protestant family in a typical city, Springfield (named after another famous television city from the 1954-1960 series, Fathers Knows Best). They say grace at meals, read and refer to the Bible, pray out loud and, on Sundays, dutifully attend services at the First Church of Springfield, part of an invented denomination called the Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism Church.

But running beneath the Father Knows Best veneer is a busy, ever-moving religious world in which there is much to explore. One noteworthy path, albeit circuitous, through this world is the Jewish one, which, like much of the show, holds surprises. One Sunday evening, when a door to the cluttered storage closet in the Simpsons’ house swings open, it reveals, for just a fleeting moment, a shiny object seemingly out of place amid the suburban detritus: a Hanukkah menorah. What is this ritual candelabrum doing in the home of a Gentile, lower-middle-class family in a small, overwhelmingly Christian city? A home we thought we knew so well …

Moment magazine gets its “Simpsons” fantasizing on, Chelm reference and all, courtesy of Mark I. Pinsky, the Jewish author of “The Gospel According to the Simpsons.” (Hat tip: DMN religion blog.)

The town’s small Jewish community is misunderstood in ways that are still common in small Protestant communities. Homer, for instance—our bald and overweight, “D’oh”-spouting everyman—laughs when he first hears Hebrew, thinking it’s a made-up language. In another episode, when he needs $50,000 for a heart bypass, he goes to the rabbi, pretending to be Jewish in the only way he knows how. “Now, I know I haven’t been the best Jew, but I have rented Fiddler on the Roof and I will watch it.” (All he gets from the rabbi is a dreidel.) And at the elementary school, Principal Skinner fields an angry call from Superintendent Chalmers. “I know Weinstein’s parents were upset,” he stammers. “But, but, ah, I was sure it was a phony excuse. I mean, it sounds so made up: ‘Yom Kip-pur.’”

Then there is Bart, the ever-scheming son, who in one Simpsons comic book is drawn to Judaism, like a moth to a menorah, for the eight nights of Hannukah presents. He visits a rabbi and argues that if he became Jewish, he’d be a “trash-talkin’ spiky-haired Seinfeld with a Fox attitude.” But the rabbi predicts the boy won’t like the religion because “so much Judaism is like opera, the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Atkins Diet, all rolled into one.” Bart gives it a shot nonetheless, especially pleased that he no longer has to do chores during Shabbat. But eventually, Bart decides not to convert, reporting to his sister Lisa: “Love the religion but, oy … I can’t handle the guilt.”

 

I never saw that comic book. I didn’t even know there was a “Simpsons” comic book. Anyway, the Moment article goes on to talk about Springfield’s “model Jew”—Krusty the-heavy-drinking-gambling-money-squandering-and-womanizing Clown. D’Oh!

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October 18, 2007 | 2:56 pm

Stanley Gold: ‘I don’t get ulcers - I give ulcers’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Jewish Federation of LA is set to have a new swashbuckling sheriff, and he’s wasting no words describing the umbrella organization for Jewish charities.

“It is largely irrelevant,” Stanley P. Gold said last week. “I’m gonna make it relevant. Gonna make it relevant to the donor community. Gonna make it relevant to the Los Angeles community. And gonna make it relevant to most of the Jewish community. The alternative is a slow dissipation. I’m not going to let that happen.”

I was amazed when Gold, the chairman of the board of trustees at USC and a former director of Disney who saved the company from corporate raiders and canned Michael Eisner, made this statement. Not because many LA Jews disagree with it, but because it came from inside The Federation walls.

I profiled Gold and The Federation in this week’s Jewish Journal. Here’s the end of the 4,000-word piece:

Cynical or realistic, a few veterans of The Federation’s inner workings were skeptical about the likelihood of Gold—or anyone—reshaping the organization.

“Stanley Gold is not a pushover, but how much hands-on will he have at The Federation?” asked one board member. “John Fishel tends to put people in places where they are yes-men. Is John going to be telling Stanley what they’re going to do, and he is just going to be a rubber stamp?”

Fishel said that is not his plan.

“Change is never easy, but sometimes change is absolutely necessary to change your future viability,” The Federation’s president said. “There, Stanley is going to play a vital role because he is going to force us to ask some hard questions.”

Regardless of what obstructions or challenges arise, Gold seems unwilling to be stifled. A visit to 1984 helps demonstrate why.

The Magic Kingdom was under attack. Corporate raiders were attempting a hostile takeover of the Walt Disney Co., lusting for control of the company so they could strip mine its studio and real estate holdings and hang onto the profitable theme parks. Stock prices plummeting, it was the end of innocence for Disney—some would say an allegory for the United States—and somehow the man who had long been known around the office as “Walt’s idiot nephew” got a chance to be the hero.

At Roy Disney’s behest, Gold began buying hundreds of thousands of Disney shares to add to the 1.1 million his boss already owned. Then he and the brain trust, a roundtable of Roy Disney and his advisers, began working to ward off the raiders and quell Wall Street’s anxiety.

It was obvious the current CEO had to go; Disney had just made it’s first profitable live-action film, “Splash,” since “The Love Bug” was released in 1968—16 long years before. But Disney’s board of directors, which included Gold and Roy Disney, couldn’t agree on who should replace him.

Gold’s selection to run the company—a combination of Paramount No. 2 Michael Eisner and former Warner Bros. chief Frank Wells—was opposed by 10 of the board’s 13 members. As autumn approached, Gold had a week to convince four directors to support his candidates. He was told it couldn’t be done; even members of the brain trust were beginning to worry.

“We’re going to run it my way,” Gold told Mark Siegel, a partner at Gang, Tyre and member of the brain trust, according to John Taylor’s book, “Storming the Magic Kingdom,” the definitive account of the affair. “We’re going to run it right down the middle of the street, where they’re uncomfortable and where I’m comfortable. We’re going to put on a political campaign right out there where everybody can see us. I’m tired of being told to be quiet because somebody’s feelings are going to be hurt.”

By Saturday morning, Gold’s men were voted the new heads of Walt Disney Productions. He celebrated by ordering vanity license plates that said “10-3.” Two decades later, Gold and Roy Disney proved just as formidable when, fed up with Eisner’s management, they resigned as directors of the company and single-handedly led a shareholder revolt that resulted in Eisner’s resignation.

“The most important thing to know about me,” Gold said when I asked if he was worried about spinning his wheels at The Federation, “is I don’t get ulcers. I give ulcers.”

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October 18, 2007 | 12:00 pm

Gravedigging down with deaths in Iraq

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

NAJAF, Iraq — At what’s believed to be the world’s largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn’t good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that’s cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .

“I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead,” said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. “People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don’t talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more.”

 

This story from McClatchy Newspapers, courtesy of Luke Ford, puts a macabre twist on all that bloodshed. It reminds me of one of the best stories I’ve ever read: “Angels of Mercy and Death,” by LA Timeser Bruce Wallace in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.

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October 17, 2007 | 5:29 pm

Conversations with a Pharisee and a Christian

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

In 1964, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “I am ready to go to Auschwitz any time, if faced with the alternative of conversion or death.” The prominent Jewish theologian was protesting a reference to the future conversion of the Jews in a Vatican II working document on Catholic-Jewish relations. Both The New York Times and Time magazine picked up on Heschel’s letter, which alienated many of his Christian friends.

That was 1964. This is 2007. Jews still find the subject of conversion extremely painful. For them it is, as Heschel said, tantamount to annihilation. Christian hopes for conversion can be a deal breaker in interfaith friendships.

Yet a few Christians and Jews have found a way to be friends despite this Christian hope (Romans 11:25ff). Among them are R. T. Kendall and Rabbi David Rosen. In their book, The Christian and the Pharisee (Warner Faith), they model a warm friendship as they “debate the road to heaven.”

This is from Christianity Today. What follows is a sampling of the interview CT editor in chief David Neff did with the two.

In your first meeting, it was your different understandings of Pharisee that sparked conversation. What understanding do you each now want Christians to associate with the word?

Rosen: My hope would be that Christians would associate Pharisee with a good Jew, one who lives in the sense of the divine presence and seeks to fulfill the divine Word and will in his or her daily life. But I think we’ve got too many centuries of negative indoctrination.

Kendall: So one of the major reasons you had for writing the book was to make Pharisees look a lot better?

Rosen: It was to take away the unfair stigma. The argument between Jesus and some of the Pharisees is a legitimate family dispute. This is like when the ancient prophets condemn the children of Israel. They talk about the bad behavior, but they don’t disassociate themselves from Israel. They see themselves as part of it.

So I believe that Jesus was a Pharisee who knew that there were wonderful Pharisees around, probably the majority, but there were some who were actually desecrating the name, the message, and the tradition they were meant to be the custodians of.

Kendall: When we started the book—don’t laugh—I wondered if he was a secret believer. I mean, his spirit is so great. I thought, You certainly do make Pharisees look a lot better. But then, halfway through the book, when you stopped debating Scripture and started putting forward the rabbinic authorities instead, I said, “Ah, you’re somewhat like the Pharisees after all.”

Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You make the Word of God null and void through your traditions.” And they only quote the authorities; they didn’t want to quote Scripture.

Rosen: I think that Jesus would have understood—as all Jews would have understood—that it is not possible to understand all of the biblical text totally literally. Interpretation is necessary.

As you wrote this book, both of you remained firm in your own traditions. Why is it important in inter-religious dialogue for people to be rock solid in their beliefs?

Rosen: I believe that a real dialogue is most authentic when people are deeply committed to their faith. To say that my truth is my truth does not mean that my truth is the only truth, but it is truth.

Kendall: I don’t see this as only dialogue. I had one sincere desire, and that was to present the gospel to David with the love I feel for him so that the Holy Spirit would arrest him like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

Who knows whether God can use a man like this to precipitate the lifting of the blindness described in Romans 11. I know that’s grandiose, but I thought what if, somehow, God got to this wonderful, learned, world-famous man. Of course, I annoyed him a bit along the way, though we stayed friends.

Rosen: Our motives were different. For me, dialogue doesn’t mean, as some people suggest, any kind of relativism. And it certainly doesn’t mean any weakness in one’s own tradition. Communication is a value in and of itself. But I want R. T. to be a good Christian. I don’t want him to change. I just want him to let me be a good Jew and to be satisfied that that’s my way to God and that God is very happy with me living the way I live.

(skip)

Many Jews have a deeply negative view of Jesus’ followers. What would it take to rehabilitate that view for Jews?

Rosen: That rehabilitation has started to take place. Within the Catholic church, that happened with the Second Vatican Council and Nostra Aetate. After the visit of the Pope to Israel in the year 2000, for the first time Jews really began to understand that there is a change. What would it take? The answer is very simple for a Christian.

Kendall: And that is?

Rosen: And that is love. The more love Christians show Jews, the more they will be able to overcome the tragedies of the abuse of the past in their name.

But that’s very difficult for someone like R. T. to be able to do effectively, because even though he is genuine about demonstrating love on our personal level—I genuinely feel it—from a collective point of view as a religion, if he’s relating to me as someone who’s going to burn in hell, then I can’t really see that as genuine love toward my people and my faith.

I am suggesting to those evangelicals who could hear this, out of your sense of duty to the people from which your Savior came, and out of your sense of responsibility for the terrible abuse that’s been done in your name historically, suspend your proselytizing and allow the Almighty to do whatever the Almighty thinks in his wisdom is the thing to do in his own time.

Kendall: If I have failed you, it is because I haven’t loved you enough. As I re-read what I wrote, I think I was trying to make you see it intellectually. And that isn’t the way a person comes to Christ.

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October 17, 2007 | 5:03 pm

‘Reaper’ is spawn of sitcom satan

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I tried watching a new show on The CW last night called “Reaper,” about a 21-year-old guy who lives at home with the parents who sold his soul to the devil (pictured, left). I thought about offering a review or criticism of the show. But I’m not going to. It’s really not worth it. I give “Reaper” til mid-season, tops, until its sent back to hell.

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October 17, 2007 | 3:20 pm

Kicking butt in Jesus’ name—amen

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Mark Pedersen’s Tae Kwon Do students learn how to block, kick, punch and basically everything one would expect to be instructed in a martial arts dojo. But they also learn one other aspect at Might for Right Ministries that probably not too many martial arts experts place into training: The teachings of Jesus Christ.

That’s from the Orange County News in Texas and, with the headline “Kickin’ it Jesus style in God’s dojo,” the Bible Belt Blogger thought it earned that copy editor the headline of the day award. The article reminded me of a pretty lame piece I wrote for The Sun two years ago about the exact same thing. The OC News’ lead quote was, in fact, almost identical to my closing quote. Here’s my piece, which ran as a sidebar to a story about counterculture and off-beat ministries:

CHINO - About 15 students practiced dropping their attackers to the ground and breaking their elbows on a recent Thursday.

They closed their class with a Bible devotion and prayer.

Christianity and kung fu San Soo are taught together at Calvary Chapel of Chino Valley.  Children, teens and adults attend San Soo classes twice a week at the church. They are guided by Master Sam Silva, a student of the late grand master Jimmy H. Woo.

The class is an outreach to non-Christians, but Silva doesn’t questions his students’ beliefs.  It’s an odd combination, mixing a deadly martial art with the word of God.

“People ask, ‘How can you be in a church and do that?’’ Silva said. “The Bible doesn’t say anywhere that Christians need to be victims.’

Silva said that being jumped in an alley or attacked in your home is not the time to, as Jesus put it, “turn the other cheek.’

For that package of niche-ministry vignettes, I also wrote about a biker Bible study, street ministry and Hip-Hop Jazz Mass at a downtown mission:

SAN BERNARDINO - Alex Avila steps in front of the altar and starts rhyming and dancing.

This is the Hip-Hop Jazz Mass at the Central City Lutheran Mission.

Located in a poor, Latino and black neighborhood of San Bernardino, the mission’s goal is two-fold: help people escape the tortures of poverty teen pregnancy, STDs, drugs, gangs and bring them to a faith in Jesus Christ.

The stuffy chapel that doubles as a homeless shelter during the winter is a rhythmic playground for those who attend the youth-focused Mass.

Alex is free-styling some lines about the pain of growing up in the ghetto.

“I don’t know if I can make it to tomorrow. I’m scared to get up,” Alex raps as he collapses. “I think I’ll stay on the floor, stay on the floor.”

Two teenage girls join for a backup harmony.

Toure Curry jumps in and helps his Christian brother up.

“Together we can make it. Together we will. Now stand up!” Toure belts.

This is one of many performances at the Mass. The spiritual message is guided by the poems, songs, dances and prayers of 30 people in attendance.

“It’s a place I can go to reveal my feelings,” said Lajoii Dominguez, 15, of San Bernardino. “There is no negativity. It’s always positive. They encourage me to do better.”

No topic is taboo. Profanity is permitted.

The mission’s pastor, the Rev. David Kalke, opens and closes the Mass in prayer. He offers words from scripture and leads the taking of Holy Communion. Kalke even contributes his own poetry.

“Rise up, oh prophets of the desert. ... Rise and bring your words of life to those who chose death.”

As I told some new interns at the Daily Bruin last weekend, it’s always fun—and embarrassing—to read old copy that you thought was so good.

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