Jews California

Among California Jewish leaders, there may be as many opinions about the current political crisis in Israel as there are political parties in that country's Parliament, the Knesset. "I can't imagine anyone being happy" about the fall of the Israeli government, said liberal Peace-Now activist Stanley Sheinbaum. "Because if ever Israel should be in a situation to deal rationally with the problems it's facing, this kind of political turbulence precludes getting to the resolution of its problems."

Amid cracked and toppled headstones inscribed in Arabic, Haitham Bundakji dropped to the ground sobbing. He laid his hands on the moss-covered grave where, his parents had told him, his older brothers were buried five decades earlier. Two companions helped him to his feet, brushed the grass from his face and held Bundakji by the arms as he staggered around the weed-choked cemetery, reciting verses from the Koran and kissing the graves.

Jewish students at UC Berkeley have demanded a formal apology from their professor, prominent civil rights advocate Harry Edwards, whom they accuse of insensitivity for refusing to cancel an exam scheduled on Yom Kippur, the most sacred of Jewish holidays.

For nearly 50 years, Camp Swig has offered cultural and spiritual teachings to Jewish children. And since 1981 it has been the site of a Holocaust memorial. Now the Union of American Hebrew Congregations wants to sell the property, saying that the buildings are decrepit and that the septic and water systems need to be upgraded. The Rembrandt Group of Los Altos wants to buy it and turn it into a corporate retreat and winery.

Battling for the support of the state's Jewish voters, Sen. Pete Wilson and his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, traded charges Monday over whether either of them had ever supported creation of a Palestinian homeland in Israel's West Bank.

Some people apparently are able to postpone their deaths until after a major social occasion, say U.S. sociologists who studied mortality figures before and after the Jewish Passover holiday. In the British magazine Lancet, David Phillips and Elliot King of UC San Diego reported their findings in an article relating to Jewish and non-Jewish deaths around Passover in California from 1966 to 1984.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose last year in California, and across the country for the second straight year, according to an annual report by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. But in the category of vandalism against Jewish property, the numbers declined somewhat in California, largely because of vigorous prosecution of members of neo-Nazi "skinhead" gangs and other offenders, the report said.

In a critical move that could dramatically affect delicate relationships between the American Jewish community and the Vatican, the American Jewish Congress said Thursday that it will boycott a September meeting of Jewish leaders with Pope John Paul II in Miami because of the pontiff's decision to meet with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim next week. At the same time, two Southland rabbis said they will boycott the Pope's Sept. 16 interfaith meeting in Los Angeles. "We . . .

A growing conflict between Jews and Arab-Americans within the California Democratic Party surfaced Saturday as party leaders squelched a resolution calling for support of a Palestinian homeland. Although the executive board of the California Democratic Party rejected the proposal by a 4-1 margin, the fact that it was considered at all demonstrated growing strength of Arab-Americans within the party.

Two West Coast Jewish opinion makers called the attempt at rapprochement by Pope John Paul II and Jewish leaders in Italy a "disappointment" Tuesday, while a prominent rabbi said the meeting promised "a new understanding."

Forty years ago, after leaving the tenements of Brooklyn for a better life in California, a close group of Jewish friends and family members planned for their final move: They bought burial plots together in Mt. Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Jack Feuer, brothers Morris and Aaron Smith, Dave Lashinsky, Morris Antropol and their wives were young, they'd survived the Depression and World War II, and they wanted to have fun. The burial society became a club called the Amity Lodge.

Back in 1989 when Noah Alper opened his first Noah's New York Bagels shop in Berkeley, he decided to keep things strictly kosher. Now, to the chagrin of many kosher Jews, the chain, which Alper sold in 1996, has gone treif. In other words, Noah's is no longer kosher.

New history and social studies books proposed for California elementary and junior high schools contain many inaccuracies, misinterpretations and racial and religious stereotypes, a parade of speakers told a state curriculum review committee Wednesday.

Among California Jewish leaders, there may be as many opinions about the current political crisis in Israel as there are political parties in that country's Parliament, the Knesset. "I can't imagine anyone being happy" about the fall of the Israeli government, said liberal Peace-Now activist Stanley Sheinbaum. "Because if ever Israel should be in a situation to deal rationally with the problems it's facing, this kind of political turbulence precludes getting to the resolution of its problems."

Jewish students at UC Berkeley have demanded a formal apology from their professor, prominent civil rights advocate Harry Edwards, whom they accuse of insensitivity for refusing to cancel an exam scheduled on Yom Kippur, the most sacred of Jewish holidays.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose last year in California, and across the country for the second straight year, according to an annual report by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. But in the category of vandalism against Jewish property, the numbers declined somewhat in California, largely because of vigorous prosecution of members of neo-Nazi "skinhead" gangs and other offenders, the report said.

Forty years ago, after leaving the tenements of Brooklyn for a better life in California, a close group of Jewish friends and family members planned for their final move: They bought burial plots together in Mt. Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Jack Feuer, brothers Morris and Aaron Smith, Dave Lashinsky, Morris Antropol and their wives were young, they'd survived the Depression and World War II, and they wanted to have fun. The burial society became a club called the Amity Lodge.

Los Angeles area businessman Michael Goland, a pro-Israel activist who spent $1.1 million helping to defeat former Sen. Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.) in 1984, is the target of a federal election fraud investigation into $120,000 that was mysteriously spent in 1986 to aid the reelection of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).

Some people apparently are able to postpone their deaths until after a major social occasion, say U.S. sociologists who studied mortality figures before and after the Jewish Passover holiday. In the British magazine Lancet, David Phillips and Elliot King of UC San Diego reported their findings in an article relating to Jewish and non-Jewish deaths around Passover in California from 1966 to 1984.

Los Angeles area businessman Michael Goland, a pro-Israel activist who spent $1.1 million helping to defeat former Sen. Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.) in 1984, is the target of a federal election fraud investigation into $120,000 that was mysteriously spent in 1986 to aid the reelection of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).