As Angelinos, we drive by dozens of murals everyday. There’s the barely-there LA marathon runners along the 110 in downtown, the giant street-art-esque Campbell’s soup spray can that recently went up on La Brea near Romaine, and the beautifully intricate woman’s portrait on Pico near Fairfax (to name just a few). Since public murals really took stride in conjunction with the civil rights movements during the 60s and 70s, it is no surprise that most of us associate this art form with Black and Hispanic communities. But, did you realize this city also has some significant...
Since the creation of the State of Israel, the relationship between Israelis and Jews living abroad was based on the tacit agreement that Israeli's would build and defend Israel while Jews abroad would sustain it through financial support. With globalization transforming mass communication and Israel maintaining one of the strongest economies in the world, does this tacit agreement make sense today? How can Israel and the Jewish People build a stronger and more appropriate relationship for the next generation?
Countless books are filled with many fascinating stories about our past as a people. But emerging studies into our DNA also have stories to tell us, about who and where we come from and what it may mean for us today. How do we access this information and what does it tell us about our history, our ancestors and ourselves? This talk will use DNA to tell one such story.
The world collectively promised “Never Again” after the Holocaust. But since 1945 we have stood witness to countless genocides and the intentional murder of millions. Find out why it’s happening, where it’s happening, and what we all can do about it.
In the United States, the majority of Jews consider themselves Jewish by religion and their family's country of origin (American / Israeli / Russian, etc.) their nationality. This is not the case for the Jews of the former Soviet Union -- Jews who fought for their equality for over 100 years, helping to create one and to bring down two empires in the process, but losing most of their culture and religion along the way. For these two million Jews such as myself, what was considered a stigma for hundreds of years may now be key to our survival as a Jewish people in a post-Soviet world.
For the majority of world Jewry, home in the 21st century is either in Israel or the United States. Yet still for thousands upon thousands of Jews around the world, there are communities that dot faraway lands. Small and old, with biblical rituals and Hebrew names holding the Jewish traditions to heart; new and thriving, building new Jewish life in new corners of the globe. Discussing these communities in far-flung places, through pictures and words, may inspire the traveler or excite a history-buff and remind us that Jewish life still exists the world over.
Would Israel exist without the Holocaust? The modern rebirth of Jewish self-governance gives some people a justification for the worst event in Jewish history. Why is this cause-and-effect relationship compelling? Why does it profoundly weaken Israel's credibility in the marketplace of nations? What is Israel's relationship to the Holocaust?
Wagner said Jews are incapable of creating great music because, having no homeland, they pull sounds from all traditions into the "motlyest chaos." Could such an anti-Semite be even partially correct? And if he was, how is it that Jewish composers from Leonard Bernstein to Phillip Glass have dominated America’s "classical" new music scene since it began? We'll trace a century of "serious music" to see if there's any consistency to the Jewish Aesthetic. And at the end, we'll uncover who the next generation of Jewish composers are – and why haven’t you heard of them.
A new global language is being developed, inspired by “new media,” the surge in technology and the ubiquity of new symbols and images that have replaced traditional words. This language is forming as the market demands it, the consumer craves it and will inevitably affect traditional language use as we know it. It is a visual vocabulary with great benefits. As you who use the most cutting-edge icon-enabling technology (that the West takes credit for) ask yourself: Does any of this sound familiar? Are you as cool, hip, and innovative as you think?
