Judaism

The Survivor Mitzvah Project

How Mark Borovitz Went From Con Man to Rabbi

It seems like the setup for a corny joke: A rabbi and an ex-con walk into a room. Except here's the punch line: They're one and the same. Rabbi Mark Borovitz, 60, runs Beit T'Shuvah, a residential treatment center and Jewish congregation in an otherwise nondescript building in an equally average se ... More >>

Wilshire Boulevard Temple's Revolutionary Murals Get a Facelift

If you've ever cruised along Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Vermont, you've probably noticed a massive, domed structure at Hobart Avenue, kitty-corner to an indoor golf driving-range. That building is the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, aka the Best Jewish Reform Synagogue Built by Hollywood, acc ... More >>

L.A.'s Idea of Jewish Food vs. What Jews Really Eat

​Our latest attempt in Understanding Cuisine through Racial Profiling finds us examining the dietary habits of Jews. But what kind of Jews? One respondent wrote, "You meant to ask what American Jews eat, right? Otherwise you will get sucked forever into separating Moroccan Jews from Polish Jew ... More >>

Is Brad Sherman A Scientologist? Wikipedia Says Yes

​Brad Sherman is engaged in a political battle to the death with fellow Congressman Howard Berman. But over the last month, he's also been waging an epic struggle against some anonymous guy on Wikipedia.On Sept. 15, Mr. Anonymous changed Sherman's religion from Jewish to Scientologist. The new ver ... More >>

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness Review

​Brad Sherman is engaged in a political battle to the death with fellow Congressman Howard Berman. But over the last month, he's also been waging an epic struggle against some anonymous guy on Wikipedia.On Sept. 15, Mr. Anonymous changed Sherman's religion from Jewish to Scientologist. The new ver ... More >>

Ezri Namvar Is the New Bernie Madoff and the Most Reviled Man in Town

(And he speaks for the first time)

What's Up with Jews and Magic? Max Maven Lectures at the Skirball

Courtesy Skirball Cultural Center.​When we reported on the Skirball's double exhibits "Houdini" and "Masters of Illusion" a few weeks ago, there was one question that we didn't quite get to cover: how come so many magicians are Jewish? A few possible answers seem to present themselves right ... More >>

Passover

Courtesy Skirball Cultural Center.​When we reported on the Skirball's double exhibits "Houdini" and "Masters of Illusion" a few weeks ago, there was one question that we didn't quite get to cover: how come so many magicians are Jewish? A few possible answers seem to present themselves right ... More >>

Fiery Theft at 'Temple Israel of Hollywood' Marks Second L.A. Synagogue Attack This April

Temple Israel of Hollywood​Suspected synagogue bomber Ron Hirsch may be behind bars after allegedly planting a homemade explosive device in the Chabad House of Santa Monica, but the scares continue to roll in for the vast Los Angeles Jewish community this month: The Temple Israel of Hollywood ... More >>

Ron Hirsch, Synagogue Explosion Suspect, on a Greyhound to New York

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

Purim

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

Sukkot Family Celebration

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

ATONE AT HOME

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

Art Lecture

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

Passover Spotlight

Santa Monica Police DepartmentRon Hirsch is suspected of trying to blow a hole in the Chabad House​Update: Santa Monica police say they nabbed the suspect last night in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was lurking near another synagogue. More after the jump. The homeless man suspected of pla ... More >>

LAPD Officials Backs Off Linking Synagogue Shooting To Organized Crime

Deputy Chief Michael Downing.​Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief backed away from comments published in an Israeli newspaper last week indicating that be believed the North Hollywood synagogue shooting Oct. 30 was "a stern warning linked to a criminal organization." Two men were wounded in the a ... More >>

Bomb Squad At Wilshire Temple; Synagogues On Alert

Police today were questioning a 17-year-old boy in the shooting of two men at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in North Hollywood early this morning, police told LA Weekly. The attack, which wounded the men, was being investigated as a possible hate crime, and area synagogues and temples ... More >>

Boy Released In Synagogue Shooting

Police seemed dumbfounded by Thursday morning's shooting of two men at a North Hollywood synagogue. Officers at the scene of the shooting at the Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic synagogue in the 12400 block of Sylvan St. picked up a 17-year-old boy who loosely matched the description of the shooter. B ... More >>

Synagogue Violence Likely Personal

The shooting that shook L.A.'s Jewish community Thursday and provided flashbacks to the hate-fueled North Valley Jewish Community Center shooting a decade ago was likely a personal attack, according to reports.Google MapsThe site of the shootings.​ ABC7 and KTLA News state that police say the ... More >>

Rosh Hashanah Catering: A Guide to Timely Ordering

Photo Credit: Adam BakerCoconut Macaroons​While your internal clock may run on Jewish Standard Time, measuring by approximations instead of absolutes, restaurants don't. Making coconut macaroons and briskets for hundreds takes time and careful planning. So even though Rosh Hashanah is about a ... More >>

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN KVETCH?

Photo Credit: Adam BakerCoconut Macaroons​While your internal clock may run on Jewish Standard Time, measuring by approximations instead of absolutes, restaurants don't. Making coconut macaroons and briskets for hundreds takes time and careful planning. So even though Rosh Hashanah is about a ... More >>

Scroll Lock: Judge Rules on Disputed Torahs

The L.A. Times reports that the lengthening legal mystery of who owns Rabbi Pauker's Torahs took another inconclusive turn this week as a Superior Court judge overruled a rabbinical panel. For seven years Rita Pauker has claimed the four scrolls were loaned to Rabbi Samuel Ohana, then an assistant t ... More >>

Don't Pay to Pray

The L.A. Times reports that the lengthening legal mystery of who owns Rabbi Pauker's Torahs took another inconclusive turn this week as a Superior Court judge overruled a rabbinical panel. For seven years Rita Pauker has claimed the four scrolls were loaned to Rabbi Samuel Ohana, then an assistant t ... More >>

Adam Baum and the Jew Movie

The L.A. Times reports that the lengthening legal mystery of who owns Rabbi Pauker's Torahs took another inconclusive turn this week as a Superior Court judge overruled a rabbinical panel. For seven years Rita Pauker has claimed the four scrolls were loaned to Rabbi Samuel Ohana, then an assistant t ... More >>

Daniel Goldfarb's Adam Baum and the Jew Movie

Real jews don't eat kitsch

The Boychick Affair: The Bar Mitzvah of Harry Boychick

Real jews don't eat kitsch

The Boychick Affair

Real jews don't eat kitsch

The Cavalier Jew

Real jews don't eat kitsch

Wendy Graf’s Lessons, on Grief and Faith

The Kaddish Dilemma

To Forgive or to Shun

A child-porn-convicted rabbi tries to make amends as rabbi sex-abuse cases roil the Jewish community

Such a Nice Young Man

Super, even

Rainbow Rabbi

Denise Eger

The Xxxorcist

Luke Ford

The Haunted Stage

A journey through Poland reveals ghosts of the past and hopes for the future

Yahweh-Approved

A journey through Poland reveals ghosts of the past and hopes for the future

Hollywood and Kvetch

Is there room for three performing-arts synagogues in L.A.? Apparently not

Jewish Resurrection

A deal’s within reach to save community centers in Silver Lake and Sherman Oaks

Undone by Debt and Negligence

Bills, not bullets, killed the community center that survived a racist attack. Other centers are trying to hang on.

Marked

The transgressions of a nice Jewish girl

Rough Road, Messy Map

The all-too-human comedy of The Holy Land

Bean & Nothingness

The Believer’s creator is an observant Jewish agnostic

All of Me

Trembling Before G-d’s warm ideal of Jewish practice

Cry Freedom

Time of Favor in a season of unrest

Abandoning the Kids

Money problems close doors of beloved community centers

Search and Restore

Sharon Spiegelman and her irrepressible destiny

JAM on It

Radical Jews and the abstract truth

On Granada Hills

And the arsenals of the anomic

Central Americans Invade Beverly Hills

Labor Victory at the Summit

Rumble on Rodeo

Beverly Hills meets the new labor movement