Rebecca Spence
By Rebecca Spence
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News Wanting To Connect, Israelis Find Religion
Los Angeles – For Sarah Sela-Herman, an Israeli doctor, it took moving to Los Angeles from Haifa for her to finally undergo one of contemporary Jewish life’s most prominent rites of passage: a bat mitzvah. Sela-Herman, a 47-year-old pediatric gastroenterologist who celebrated her bat mitzvah in January, is among a growing group of Israelis who…
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News Reform Camp’s Sale Irks Alumni
When Amy Miller, a California native who spent 16 summers at a Reform summer camp nestled in the Redwoods, heard that Bay Area Jews were angling to transform the defunct camp into a Jewish retreat center, she was elated. Then, last winter, the Reform movement killed her joy when it announced that it had plans…
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News S.F. Federation Puts Liberal Social Activist at the Helm
Los Angeles — When the head of California’s Jewish activist network, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, was first tapped to lead one of America’s largest Jewish federations, he politely demurred. After all, what could a dynamic young leader with a growing reputation as a visionary bring to a staid Jewish institution with a reputation for isolating…
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News L.A.’s Main Jewish Thoroughfare Threatened by Looming Traffic Plan
Los Angeles – When Aviva Krieger needs a loaf of challah or kosher groceries to feed her Orthodox Jewish family of five, she routinely visits the stretch of Pico Boulevard that has become this city’s central Jewish shopping district. Now, with the threat of a new city-mandated traffic plan looming over the area, many, including…
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News University of California Names Jewish President
In the same month that the debate over Israel-bashing at a California state university reached a fever pitch, the Board of Regents of the University of California announced the appointment of the second Jewish president in the system’s history. On March 27, Mark Yudof was unanimously elected by the California Board of Regents to serve…
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News Theater Mag Prompts Boycott Debate
When American Theatre Magazine asked a small group of theater artists to pen statements on their views of a proposed Israeli cultural boycott, representatives of the magazine thought they were asking a mere dozen or so people. But when one of the respondents took the survey a step further, circulating it to an e-mail list…
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News Sole Jewish Nursing Home in Fast-Growing Phoenix To Close Doors
In the wake of an ongoing funding crisis, the only Jewish nursing home in one of America’s largest Jewish communities is shutting its doors. The Kivel Campus of Care in Phoenix, a not-for-profit skilled nursing facility offering kosher meals and a staff rabbi to the Sun Belt city’s elderly residents, announced February 25 that ongoing…
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News Young Hollywood Finds Fertile Networking Ground at L.A. Federation
Los Angeles – When Geoff Silverman, a Hollywood literary manager, made his first foray into Jewish charity work, the draw was not purely philanthropic. The program he joined, the Entertainment Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, offered an enticing component that few other Jewish philanthropic endeavors could match: the chance to network…
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