Longtime Jewish communal professional Anita Friedman was honored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) during the museum’s 2025 Western Region Tribute dinner, held at the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, on March 19. “‘Never again’,” Friedman said, accepting her award, “means never again being in a position of not being able to […]
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I’ve always been drawn to the wisdom of a wide range of rabbis — each offering something meaningful to those willing to listen. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of learning from many and the blessing of counting some of them as friends, but Rabbi Eliyahu Fink stood apart. He had a rare ability […]
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Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize. And he may have decided that Benjamin Netanyahu can make that happen for him. Trump regards the Nobel Prize as the ultimate validation of his presidency. He believes that he deserves it, and he is fashioning his foreign policy agenda to allow him to make that case even […]
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Machu Pichu Imagine standing atop an ancient mountain fortress, your entire family’s eyes wide with wonder, mist dancing around centuries-old stone walls, and the profound silence of history around you. This isn’t just a vacation, it’s a transformation. There are few places on Earth that evoke the sense of wonder and awe that Machu Picchu […]
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Grateful to Zibby’s Bookshop for creating such a special space to celebrate books and conversations that matter! On March 26, 2025, join us for an inspiring evening with Jennifer Lang, author of Landed: A Yogi’s Memoir in Pieces & Poses. In this beautifully woven memoir, Jennifer captures the trials of returning to Israel—the country where […]
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Rabbi Eli Fink was one in a million. He was an Orthodox rabbi raised in the black-hat world of Baltimore yeshivas where Talmudic learning was the primary source of intellectual nourishment. His deep knowledge of Torah, however, was not what made him one in a million. What made him stand out was a genuine affinity […]
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Iris Bahr is bringing her seventh solo show to Los Angeles this month — and she wants you to “schlep to the East Side” for an entertaining evening. “Stories From the Brink,” which plays March 21 and 22 at The Lyric Hyperion Theatre, is a fast-paced, character-driven, 55-minute journey through Bahr’s life as a secular […]
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Hearing the Silent Aleph – Vayakhel ©️Rabbi Mordecai Finley, 2025 This week’s Torah portion, Va-yakhel, is the first of two Torah portions concerned with the building of the Mishkan. In next week’s portion, Pekudei, we find the actual dedication of the Mishkan. I would like to focus in these few words […]
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Perhaps it was accidental that Joel Nickerson was selected as the new senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple (WBT) on Oct. 6, 2023, the day, he noted, before the world changed forever. “A new level of access was open. I was empowered to ask questions that wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to ask previously. […]
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My first trip to Israel in 1977 was life-changing. I had come to learn in a yeshiva, but the experience ignited something much deeper. The land, the history, and the spiritual depth of Israel sparked a passion that I would carry with me for the rest of my life. Although I settled in Los Angeles […]
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