Cantors

Juval Porat may be a trailblazer, but it's a title he embraces with all the zeal he exhibits for the transportation system in Los Angeles, his new hometown. Which is to say: Not much. "I never intended to carry that label," he said. "I just liked what I did." What he did, and does, is sing. Porat is a cantor, a Jewish leader of musical prayer. His distinction is being the first, and so far the only, cantor ordained in Germany since the Holocaust. On June 18, he was formally installed as the cantor of Temple Beth Chayim Chadashim, a Los Angeles Reform synagogue that is something of a trailblazer itself, claiming to be the world's first congregation for gay and lesbian Jews.

Frankie and Grandpa Ben huddled under Grandpa's big, black umbrella. They could hear tiny raindrops pitter-pattering above their heads like little cats' feet. Raindrops dripped from Frankie's tennis shoes, as he and Grandpa strolled toward the house. "Watch the puddle!" Grandpa cautioned, walking around the little pool of water. Frankie followed carefully, watching water drops bounce off the puddle and sail into the air like little spaceships. "Where does the rain come from, Grandpa?"

The No. 2 Republican in the House likened President Obama's plans for the auto industry to the policies of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, saying the White House has stripped credit holders of rights and given them to Democratic allies. "They said, 'Set aside the rule of law, let's strip secured creditors, bondholders, of their rights. Take them away outside of the bankruptcy process and give them to the political cronies and the auto workers' unions," Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.

Cantor Fitzgerald agreed to sell its BGC Partners brokerage unit to ESpeed Inc., a publicly owned electronic trading house controlled by Cantor, in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. The acquisition would enable Cantor, a New York bond-trading firm that lost hundreds of employees in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, to consolidate its interdealer broker businesses and end all revenue-sharing accords with ESpeed, which some ESpeed investors have criticized.

Cantor Index, a British unit of New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald, on Thursday was fined 70,000 pounds ($134,000) by Britain's Financial Services Authority for running an allegedly misleading campaign to promote its "spread betting" services. Cantor's spread-betting business lets customers wager on future movements of stock prices and indexes. The fine related to leaflets and other ads offering clients a free mobile phone and other gifts if they placed a minimum value of bets, the financial authority said.

Norman Frank Cantor, 74, an American medievalist whose books included "Civilization of the Middle Ages" and "Inventing the Middle Ages," died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Miami. Cantor was known for a fluid style of writing that made his books accessible to the general public as well as students. His recent books include "In the Wake of the Plague" in 2002 and "The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era," published earlier this year.

Billy Crystal, Bob Saget, Tovah Feldshuh and Dave Koz headline "Celebrating Chai for Chayim," an evening of music and comedy with cantors and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony Orchestra, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at UCLA's Royce Hall in Westwood. The concert will honor Cantor Chayim Frenkel for his 18 years of service to Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation of Pacific Palisades. Tickets are $54 to $180. Information: (310) 825-2101 or (213) 365-3500.

"Great Neck" is a big, brilliant, social novel swarming with laments. So many, I wonder whether Jay Cantor, having handed off the weight, is sitting up yet, sipping a little consomme. His book traverses several decades, opening in 1978, as six childhood friends from Great Neck, Long Island, reunite in a courtroom. One of them, Beth Kaplan, has been accused of setting bombs a decade earlier to protest the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Six cantors who got their musical start at a Valley Village temple will return there Sunday evening to pay tribute in song to the man who inspired them to join the Jewish clergy. Temple Adat Ari El has turned out nine professional cantors due in large part to the late Cantor Allan Michelson, a master teacher who was friend, mentor and disciplinarian to hundreds who sang in the children's choir. "It's quite unusual.