North Valley Jewish Community Center

Benjamin Kadish, the little boy most seriously injured in last month's shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, is set to go home from the hospital today--and his friends in the Los Angeles Fire Department say they intend to make it an event he won't soon forget. After an 11 a.m. news conference at Kaiser Permanente Hospital here, Benjamin, his parents and some of his playmates will ride home in grand style with firefighters on a truck from Engine Co.

Not a day goes by that Mindy Finkelstein doesn't pause to remember the terrifying morning 10 years ago when a self-professed white supremacist went on a calculated rampage against Jews and ethnic minorities, killing a man and wounding others. "Every day, it crosses my mind," said Finkelstein, 26, who was shot in the right calf and thigh while working as a day-camp counselor at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills. But speaking on Monday, 10 years after the incident, Finkelstein said she wanted this anniversary to be different.

Gov. Gray Davis, Mayor Richard Riordan and Jewish community leaders will gather Sunday for "An Afternoon of Healing" in a show of solidarity in the aftermath of this week's shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills. The Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California will convene at 2 p.m. at the Cal State Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St., organizers said.

Rather than close its doors, a Granada Hills Jewish community center has decided to break away from its parent organization and reestablish itself independently. The financially ailing Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, which oversees seven facilities citywide, plans to close the North Valley Jewish Community Center on June 30 and sell its property.

In a show of community solidarity, three diverse organizations will join to protest violence against children in response to this week's shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center. The San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, the San Fernando Valley Branch of the NAACP and Em Habanim, a West Hills synagogue, are coordinating a march against violence Aug. 22 at 2 p.m., organizers said. The march will begin at Em Habanim, 7533 Fallbrook Ave.

For anyone who thinks last Sunday's Million Mom March was a one-day phenomenon, a feel-good rally, a Mother's Day picnic that ended once the last strollers were packed aboard cars, buses and planes, consider this: On the very next day, when march organizers and participants could reasonably be expected to collapse, a group from the San Fernando Valley hustled over to the Capitol to try to talk "common-sense" gun legislation with Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Santa Clarita).

On a lazy August morning in Granada Hills, a gunman sauntered into the North Valley Jewish Community Center with a 9-millimeter assault rifle and started shooting. He transformed the children's summer camp into a scene of horror, injuring a receptionist, a teenage camp counselor and three boys. This heartbreaking image of gun-wielding police leading a chain of children out of the camp attracted worldwide attention and reignited calls for gun control.

Five-year-old Benjamin Kadish, the youngest and most seriously wounded victim in last month's Jewish Community Center shooting, was transferred Monday to Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills, a hospital spokeswoman said. "He's here," said Linda Quon, public relations director for Kaiser Permanente in the Valley. "He arrived this morning around 11. He's in good condition. His parents are with him right now. Benjamin has been at Los Angeles Childrens Hospital since Aug.

U.S. District Judge Nora Manella has been selected to preside at the upcoming trial of Buford O. Furrow Jr., the white supremacist accused of shooting and wounding five people at the North Valley Jewish Community Center last year and murdering a Filipino American postal worker afterward. Manella, who previously headed the federal prosecutor's office in Los Angeles, replaces Judge Richard A. Paez, who was recently elevated to a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The parents of a boy badly wounded by a white supremacist in the August 1999 shooting rampage at a Jewish community center are suing the nonprofit corporation that owns it for failing to protect the children in its care.

After Buford O. Furrow Jr. shot up the North Valley Jewish Community Center in 1999, nursery school teacher Sylvia Rouss volunteered to work with the preschool children traumatized by what they had seen. Many were alarmed every time someone new came into the classroom. Every loud noise and disrupted routine made them tense and fearful. Because Rouss is a writer as well as a teacher, she found a way to comfort them with language.

A judge threw out a lawsuit against the North Valley Jewish Community Center on Tuesday, ruling there was no proof that the center had a duty to protect a 5-year-old camper from the sort of threat posed by Buford Furrow, who shot five people there in 1999. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William A. MacLaughlin said the family of Benjamin Kadish, the most seriously injured of the five, may amend its lawsuit within 20 days to address legal weaknesses in the case.

CELEBRATING PURIM: Several Purim carnivals are scheduled Sunday, all of which have free admission. These include: Temple Ahavat Shalom, 18200 Rinaldi Place, Northridge, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., (818) 360-2258. Temple B'nai Hayim, 4302 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., (818) 788-4664. The North Valley Jewish Community Center, 16601 Rinaldi St., Granada Hills, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., (818) 360-2211. Temple Judea, 5429 Lindley Ave., Tarzana, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

With lighted candles and heavy hearts, family and friends of victims of gun violence held a vigil in Granada Hills on Sunday to remember not only those who died but also those still grieving over their loved ones. The group of about 40--including Chief Bernard C. Parks of the Los Angeles Police Department and family members of the survivors of the North Valley Jewish Community Center shooting in August 1999--gathered at the Granada Hills center to observe National Victims Memorial Week.

Both sides in the murder case against white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. asked a federal judge Thursday to postpone his trial from February until April, citing, among other reasons, the need to prepare for "potential mental health issues that might arise." Furrow's lawyers have yet to say publicly whether they will claim that he was mentally impaired and, therefore, not legally responsible at the time of the crime.

His federal trial is months away, but it now appears that jurors will be able to hear Buford O. Furrow Jr.'s confession. It was given to the FBI in Las Vegas the day after the avowed white supremacist allegedly shot up a Jewish community center and gunned down a Filipino American letter carrier. The statement is lengthy--15 pages, typed single space--and its contents are largely unknown.

Thirty-three Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department employees were honored Wednesday for coming to the aid of more than 100 children evacuated from the North Valley Jewish Community Center after the Aug. 10 shooting that injured five people. The workers were recognized at an afternoon reception at the Sunland Recreation Center before the start of the Board of Recreation and Park Commission's regular meeting.

While a five-year-old fought for his life after Tuesday's shootings at the Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, San Fernando Valley residents struggled to repair their spirits in the aftermath of the day's horror. It wasn't an earthquake or fire but something even more incomprehensible: a hate-filled rampage that left a Filipino-American postal carrier dead on his Chatsworth mail route and three children and two community center day-care workers wounded. Buford O. Furrow Jr.