Yavneh Hebrew Academy, an Orthodox day school that sued the state of California in August for permission to reopen, has become the latest to shut down after confirming a number of Covid-19 cases on its campus. Yavneh had been one of several Orthodox schools in the area operating as a camp during county-mandated school closures,…
A lawsuit against the state of California filed by Jewish schools in the Los Angeles area has expanded their legal footing for in-person activities, enabling them to bring more students to campus even as coronavirus cases surge. But the schools have not escaped the record-setting spike in California that has continued apace into December, and…
The coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down or slowed down so many aspects of Jewish life, may have sped up another: synagogue mergers. In one of the biggest consolidations of recent years, University Synagogue, a Reform congregation with declining membership in the West Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, struck a deal this month with Wilshire…
Sharon Gillerman, scholar of German Jewish history, who wrote with exceptional depth, originality, and insight about the Jewish family, and the social, cultural and gender history of Jews in Europe and the United States, passed away Friday morning, Nov. 20, in Santa Monica, CA. She was 60. She held the Kutz Chair in Jewish History…
In late September, six months into a global pandemic that had devastated his city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti prayed. It was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and things were a mess. On his watch, more than 250,000 people in L.A. County had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. More than 6,000 had…
I grew up in the aftermath of the Holocaust. My fifth grade Talmud teacher had a tattoo from Auschwitz on his forearm. During the month of April, which commemorates the Holocaust, the lunchroom had photos from the ghettos and concentration camps hung on the walls. As a teenager, I visited the death camps and saw…
Southern California’s Iranian Jewish community has been in mourning following the violent stabbing death of an Iranian Jewish businessman on Nov. 3 at his jewelry business in downtown Los Angeles. According to a brief report from the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office, 62-year-old Eshagh Natanzadeh of Beverly Hills died after receiving multiple sharp force injuries…
We lived on the 6th floor. Cecilia Chiang lived on the 11th, the penthouse. It was a 1960’s building that looked like it belonged in Miami Beach, not at the top of a hill in Pacific Heights across the street from Lafayette Park in San Francisco. But it made sense that Mrs. Chiang lived there…
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