United States
Jessica Donath is a freelance journalist and writer. She covers arts & culture, the LGBTQ community, and religion in English as well as German. She lives near Los Angeles.
When Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's (HUC-JIR) Rabbi Aaron Panken died in a plane crash in 2018, the search committee to replace him suggested Andrew Rehfeld throw his hat into the ring. Rehfeld, 54, didn't take the request seriously. He's not a rabbi, and at the time he was the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St.
For the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking collection Lesbiot, JWA interviews editor Tracy Moore.
LOS ANGELES - Musician Leeav Sofer believes in the healing power of music and community. Crammed between a white IKEA desk, an industrial-style black floor lamp, and a brown piano, the 30-year-old son of a cantor welcomed viewers to his online Neighborhood Sing workshop on a Wednesday afternoon in early June.
Quadryya King, 38, came to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles for the drugs. On a recent chilly Friday evening, she stumbled upon several rows of white folding chairs set in a semicircle on the corner of Winston and Fifth streets.
Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, home to one of the largest homeless populations in the United States, stretches across 54 blocks. The no-to-low-income community borders some of the more affluent and gentrified neighborhoods in L.A. “Historically, people have always been treating Skid Row like it’s not a community,” says Leeav Sofer, co-founder and artistic director of The Urban Voices Project, a Skid Row community choir for marginalized individuals.
Local institutions spoiled L.A.’s museum-goers with groundbreaking exhibitions devoted to radical women artists in recent years. The Hammer Museum at UCLA celebrated radical Latin American women artists, and the California African American Museum reveled in the radical spirit of black women artists. The Medea Insurrection – Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain at the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City, now runs with this theme.
“If anybody ever tells you that they are an expert in homelessness, run!” cautions Christopher Mack, community outreach worker with the Wesley Community Health Clinic on L.A.'s Skid Row. Armed with a clipboard and an encyclopedic knowledge of available services, Mack, 65, traverses the tent- and garbage-littered streets, looking for people who need help.
Skid Row is a place like no other. Spread across a few square blocks in the heart of downtown L.A., many of its roughly 25,000 unsheltered homeless live in tents on the sidewalk. Blocks away, patrons shop at glitzy stores, dine at fancy restaurants or catch a show at one of downtown's world-famous cultural institutions.
March 9 started out like a normal day for Maria and Gabriela Gomez.* The 17- and 16-year-old high school students from a small town near Los Angeles were getting ready for school. Only two more days until the dreaded SATs. Their father, Juan, dropped them off at school and then headed to the San Bernardino office of U.S.
Ihre Flucht aus dem Iran vor mehr als 30 Jahren kommt Tabby Rafael (37) heute vor wie eine Szene aus einem Hollywoodfilm. Ihre ältere Schwester, die Mutter und der Vater atmeten erleichtert auf, als sich ihr Flugzeug nicht mehr über dem iranischen Luftraum befand.