If the bestseller charts are any indication, it’s become popular to condemn religion. Books such as Sam Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation” and “The End of Faith,” Richard Dawson’s “The God Delusion,” Christopher Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great” and Bill Maher’s soon-to-be-released film, “Religulous,” would have us see faith as antiquated, illogical and dangerous. […]
Located at the intersection of 11th St. and Santa Monica Blvd., a striking modern building designed by Santa Monica architect Renzo Zecchetto sits on the site of a former elementary school playground and looks to have risen out of the ground sui generis, almost as if the Starship Enterprise had decided to dock in the […]
August 12, 2008 Herb Gold, elder statesman of the Beat Generation, writes on By Tom Teicholz “Still Alive! (A Temporary Condition)” by Herbert Gold (Arcade, $25). Herbert Gold, who at 84 is among the elder statesmen of the Beat Generation, has a new book out, his 28th, a memoir titled “Still Alive! (A Temporary Condition).” […]
The movie, “Elegy,” which opens Aug. 8 and stars Ben Kingsley as David Kepesh and Penelope Cruz as the object of his desire, is the latest film to be adapted from the writings of Philip Roth. This one is based on his novella, “The Dying Animal.” Despite Roth’s long, successful career in American letters, his […]
Hatschek Bela. The very sound of my great-grandfather’s name brings a smile to my face. In Hungarian, last names go first, so although Bela was his first name, he has always been Hatschek Bela to me — all one name — a legendary figure in our family, a celebrated forebear about whom my mother and […]
BookExpo, the annual convention of booksellers and book publishers that took place in Los Angeles one recent weekend, is the book industry’s annual get-together, alternating among the publishing hub of New York and various other cities, such as Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Perhaps it’s the state of the book industry, the economy […]
The following opinion article appeared yesterday on the Op-Ed page of the Los Angeles Times: John Demjanjuk’s last appeal to avoid deportation was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 19. The 88-year-old accused Nazi concentration camp guard was stripped of his citizenship and ordered sent to Ukraine, his birthplace; Poland, the locus of […]
As everyone knows by now, Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” dives in where few comedies have gone before: The Middle East conflict between Arabs and Jews. Hollywood has a long tradition of preferring onscreen Jews to be Semitic-lite (or even better, portrayed by non-Jews such as Gregory Peck in “Gentleman’s Agreement”). Sandler, […]
It’s 2 a.m., and there’s a crowd on St. Peter’s Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter; people are waiting to see the Stanton Moore Trio play Preservation Hall. Midnight and early morning shows during Jazzfest are part of a new tradition initiated by Benjamin Jaffe, Preservation Hall’s creative director, the man charged with safeguarding New […]
What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world? For centuries, for Jews, the notion of living free in Zion was a dream. In Theodor Herzl’s famous essay, “The Jewish State,” the journalist and playwright transformed the dream of living in a Jewish state into a goal. “Next year in Jerusalem,” the […]
William Shatner is God. And Pharaoh. And Moses, too. Just in time for Passover, the Jewish Music Group (a division of Shout Factory) has released “Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts,” performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It is conducted by David Itkin, who created and composed the Oratorio, sung by baritone Paul Rowe and […]
Dutton’s Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles’ independent bookstores, will close on April 30. It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times. Over the past few years many local independent bookstores have gone the way of the local movie theater, the local hardware store and the […]