Jewish History & Culture
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Life vs. Death
In college, I wrote the same literature essay over and over again. Regardless of the novel, its plot or its country of origin, I found that I could always work up four pages on the subject of “Life vs. Death.” My ideas on this subject were not particularly original. In a high school English class, […]
A Little Respect (for Jewish journalism)
For the 20th anniversary issue of The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, it was suggested that I write a column about Jewish journalism. Herewith the result: Jewish journalism is a much-maligned enterprise — it cries out like the late Rodney Dangerfield for respect. No one really admits to reading a Jewish newspaper. “It comes to […]
Schimmel's Summer School (Paul Schimmel & MOCA)
Paul Schimmel, the Museum of Contemporary Art”s (MOCA) chief curator, wants us to spend our summer looking back — 50 or so years to around the time of his birth, and to the city where he grew up, New York, to focus on the remarkable work of a young, poor and not-yet-famous Robert Rauschenberg, who […]
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Great Scott: Scott Steindorff's Excellent Adventure in Hollywood
Scott Steindorff is a happy man. A successful movie and TV producer, his NBC series, “Las Vegas,” just got picked up for another season; he won a Golden Globe for the HBO miniseries, “Empire Falls,” starring Paul Newman, and produced the feature film of Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain” with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman. […]
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Zade's Road
How does an idea come to life? How is it that someone has an idea — an idea that he or she believes will help change the world — and it actually takes flight? I’m not sure anyone really knows how that process occurs, only that it does. Just ask Zade. Zade Dirani, 26, is […]
A Graham of Rock
Here’s a strange coincidence: Both my doctor and my rabbi share the same leisure pursuit: They are passionate about attending rock concerts. U2, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen — If they perform, my good doctors of the body and the soul will attend. They both say it’s their way of relaxing from the stress […]