The 16th annual Los Angeles Sephardic Film Festival gala was a sold-out event, with 450 people attending at Paramount Studios on Nov. 9. Attorney Neil Sheff, who founded the festival, was very pleased with the community’s response.
“People called at the last minute and asked to attend,” he told the Journal.
Moroccan music greeted the guests, who enjoyed delicious Moroccan dishes and a screening of the French-Canadian comedy-drama, “Once Upon My Mother.” The film was adapted from the 2021 autobiographical novel “Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan” written by French lawyer and broadcaster Roland Perez, which centers on his experiences growing up with a clubfoot and a Sephardic Jewish mother determined not to let her son’s disability stop him from leading a full and successful life.
The film was selected to open several Jewish film festivals and participated in many others. Sheff, who created the festival in the late 1990s, said he wanted to offer an alternative to the typical fundraising events with long speeches.
“We wanted to make something more like a cultural and fun evening,” he said.
After enjoying the food and silent auction, which included lots of artwork, guests were
invited to the portion of the event that honored David and Jason Rimokh, whose parents, Jack and Joelle, were great supporters of the Sephardic Educational Center (SEC) in Jerusalem. Also attending the event was the family of one of the hostages, Yair Yaakov, who was kidnapped with his sons Or and Yagil. Yair was murdered and his body was returned to Israel in June this year after 614 days in Gaza.
By Ayala Or-El, Contributing Writer
Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills (TEBH) held its 22nd annual Texas Hold’em poker tournament on Nov. 9, raising approximately $15,000 for the Reform synagogue’s schools.
“For me and my two co-chairs, this was our 22nd year doing this event,” TEBH congregant Lew Rudzki told the Journal. “It started when our kids were at Temple Emanuel Day school. We’ve tried to keep the event haimish, where the community can come and enjoy year after year. While it is a fundraiser—we never worry or focus solely about the money. It’s kind of like ‘Build it and they will come’ over the years. We have two and three generations playing—both male and female. It’s become many people’s regular poker game, once a year.”
Gathering in the synagogue’s social hall, the approximately 60 players in attendance, including TEBH Senior Rabbi Jonathan Aaron, schmoozed over a deli spread, soft drinks, whisky and scotch before sitting down for the hours-long tournament, which kicked off around 6 p.m. and lasted until 10:15 p.m. The evening also included raffles for items such as bottles of wine, large bottles of sake, half cases of wine, multiple wine assortments, aviator sunglasses and much more.
At 6 p.m., with a full room, the evening started with the call to all tables to “Shuffle Up and Deal.” Over the course of the evening, “The blinds started to increase, the stakes started to rise, and a few players started to have better luck at the buffet table than the poker table,” Rudzki said.
The players who made it to the final table were John Adler, Ken Dreshfield, Tom Fouladi, Jordan Tuchin, Abrahan Arouesty, Robert Silverman, Greg Proper, Grace Deukmejian, Karl Thurmond and Rudzki.Ultimately, Adler took home first place, Dreshfield came in second and Fouladi finished in third.
As the card-playing protagonist says in the poker novel, “Shut Up and Deal,” “People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they’re wrong. The trick to poker is mastering luck.” At Emanuel, it was Adler—also the tournament’s 2016 champ—who was the game’s master and became the 2025 Temple Emanuel No Limit Texas Hold’em champ.
Those involved with organizing the evening included Susan Jackson, Holiday Products, Stone Construction, Lee Ziff, Canon Equity Partners, Jeff Pop, Scott Schlechter, Brian Fortman, Rabbi Aaron and TEBH Co-President Farhad Novian.
Rudzki, for his part, led a committee that consisted of John Stone and Brad Kesner, and Fortman curated the eight bottles of scotches, bourbons and ryes that comprised the inaugural scotch and whiskey tasting experience.
The poker tournaments at TEBH are for a worthy cause. Past tournaments have raised funds for hostage families and for an ambulance provided to Israel through American Friends of Magen David Adom. This year, the funds benefited TEBH’s religious school and early childhood center.
