As tens of thousands of vaccines are distributed to healthcare workers and the elderly across Los Angeles County, faith leaders are not in either of the top tiers, keeping them sidelined as the pandemic worsens through the winter months. “I’m baffled,” said Rabbi Elazar Muskin, who leads Young Israel of Century City, an Orthodox synagogue…
On the morning of April 1st, 2020, about two weeks after the United States entered a national state of emergency and Governor Gavin Newsom issued California’s first statewide stay-at-home order, Alon Goldsmith slung his camera bag over his shoulder, hopped on his bicycle, and began pedaling through the quiet, empty streets of the Del Rey…
As the events unfolded yesterday on Capitol Hill, I like so many, was taken aback by the brazen and swift insurrection by domestic terrorists. Four people died, dozens of peace officers were wounded, the Confederate Flag, a symbol of hatred and racism, was paraded through statuary hall for the first time in U.S. history. It…
I’m not used to sitting during services, but this day was different. It was my daughter’s bat mitzvah and for one Shabbat I wasn’t the rabbi, I was the dad. I’ve been officiating at b’nei mitzvah ceremonies since the beginning of the pandemic. What started out as Zoom ceremonies has transitioned to outdoor, socially-distant, masked…
The latest guilty plea in the Chabad of Poway financial scandal has connected an additional religious leader to the scheme that rocked a community victimized by a 2019 terrorist attack. Rotem Cooper, 54, admitted Tuesday to defrauding the government and his employer by claiming thousands of dollars in false donations, becoming the eighth person to…
For a long while there, California had two Jewish United States senators at the same time, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. Boxer retired after four terms in 2017; Feinstein remains, as the oldest senator at 87. Now that Boxer’s successor, Kamala Harris, is about to become the next Vice President, California is getting her replacement:…
Not long after the Boy Scouts of America started letting girls in, Gabbi Stein felt her parents nudging her to join. Their sales pitch was hardly original: Their daughter was a junior in high school. It would look good on her college applications. “At first I was like, Oh my God, this is totally not…
Read this article in Yiddish. Yakob Basner may be 93 years-old, but that doesn’t stop him from doing a job he loves: teaching Yiddish. Since immigrating to Southern California from the former Soviet Union in 1980, Basner has taught the mame-loshn to over 2,000 people. “If you want to understand the history of the Jewish…
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