Holocaust 'revisionism' in Ventura County

From: The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

The way Jews in the Conejo Valley describe it, Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the propaganda proffered as academic discourse at the Goebel Senior Adult Center last month. That's when John Bravos, a commissioner of the publicly funded facility, focused a lecture in his comparative religion series on the Holocaust. The first question asked by a flier for the event was: "Did it happen?"

When about a dozen seniors showed up, Bravos began by talking about deniers who use the phrase "so-called Holocaust," comparing the atrocities of World War II to other genocides and saying that far fewer Jews were murdered by the Nazis than historians have long believed.

"I was devastated and irate and just very insulted and offended," said Honey Bencomo, a 67-year-old Jewish woman from Agoura Hills who attended the lecture with her husband, who is Catholic. "He was talking about something that is a very significant part of Jewish history and was saying it didn't happen."

Word of the June 19 lecture spread slowly through the Jewish community of eastern Ventura County at first, and then gathered momentum last week after Thousand Oaks resident Dina Adler heard what happened and notified local and national Jewish organizations. On Friday night, Rabbi Ted Riter of Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks, a shul where Bravos once lectured on being involved in counter-intelligence during World War II, noted from the pulpit that some contradictory information regarding the lecture was swirling around.

Many Jews already have branded Bravos, a veteran of the Allied Forces, with the distinctions of being a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite.

"To live long enough to see your family's suffering and martyrdom spat upon to your face, it is really something that -- I mean, we can talk about it, but I don't think we can understand how painful that really is," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

But what's unclear is whether a sincere but ill-prepared teacher found his words taken out of context by what one attendee called "a lynching mob," until -- thanks to e-mail blasts and a furious game of telephone -- one awkward lecture became a cause celebre.

In a phone interview, Bravos, who said he worked as a Nazi-hunting spy after the war, said he has long been a friend of Israel and of the Jewish people.

"This is just like the McCarthy era," the 81-year-old retired social anthropologist said, "where people call you a name and tarnish you with mud for the rest of your life."

Some of Bravos' Jewish friends -- like Rhoda Vestuto, whose Hungarian parents lost much of their family in the Shoah -- have come to his defense.

"I hadn't talked to him in a long time, and I called him because I was so upset with peoples' self-righteous indignation. There is no way he was calling the Holocaust imaginary, that it didn't happen," said Vestuto, 78, of Thousand Oaks. "He is not an anti-Semite."

The Conejo Recreation and Park District, which runs the Goebel center, is now scrambling to figure out what happened. The district launched an investigation to learn exactly what Bravos said, and to determine who approved it beforehand.

At a specially called public meeting Tuesday, recreational supervisor Steve Wiley apologized for the lecture and, more specifically, the incendiary flier that asked whether the Holocaust happened, if it constituted "ethnic cleansing or mass-murder" and what its "moral dilemmas" were.

"The first question -- did it happen? -- is the one I need to apologize for. We all know that it happened," Wiley said at the contentious meeting, which was attending by more than 200 people, including representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the Wiesenthal Center and local synagogues.

"That was a question intended to spur interest. It wasn't intended to deny that the Holocaust happened. ... I don't think there was any malice intended on the instructor's part," Wiley said.

What is known is that Bravos has volunteered for years at the Goebel Center and throughout the Conejo Valley and this spring was leading a series called "comparative religion." The first lecture focused on the origin of deistic worship. Discussing Islam dominated the second and third classes, and then Bravos was asked to dedicate the fourth session to the Holocaust.

"So I created a flier, that said, 'The Holocaust, did it happen? How many people died? Who did it?'" he said. "I wanted to get some of these naysayers to come into the class, so I put this on the flier, because I don't think we can ever talk enough about the Holocaust. It is 60 years old, but it's still a horrific event."

Bravos began the meeting by talking about deniers and then read a definition of the word "holocaust" and asked why Jews used that term when others had suffered, as well. Discussion was limited and a few in attendance left shortly after the lecture began.

Regardless of whether Bravos is a sincere philo-Semite who is sorely misinformed or a veiled Jew hater, the scope and highlights of his lecture bear a resemblance to tactics used by Holocaust deniers, particularly saying that atrocities did occur, but that they weren't as bad as succeeding generations were told.

Holocaust deniers, who prefer to be called "revisionists," play the part of truth-seekers, pseudo-academics on a quest to uncover the fallacies of history. But revisionism has become an important and powerful tool for anti-Semitism.

Bravos didn't claim Jews weren't killed during World War II. But he insisted that a major statistic historians agree upon -- that the Nazis exterminated about 6 million Jews -- has been proven wrong by recent research, information he said he found through a Google search.

"For 60 years, we knew those numbers; now new numbers are out," he said. "Based on the information I read, they said 3.5 million were killed in the Holocaust, which is still horrible."

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Orthodox Jews packing heat, getting mugged leaving shul

From: The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

Fifteen years ago, Mordechai Naor walked to Congregation Shaarei Tefila in the Fairfax district with a handgun as his companion. Six years after moving to the Pico-Robertson neighborhood and leaving those fears of mugging behind, Naor is considering re-kindling an old relationship.

"Since we moved over here, I always felt safe," said Naor, 60. "It's not extreme to go armed again, but I never even thought to worry about who was walking behind me."

His new sense of vulnerability stems from a recent spate of attacks against Jews in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood.

As dusk turned to dark on the first night of Shavuot, one rabbi, who asked not to be named, was mugged at knifepoint on Rodeo Drive near Olympic Boulevard as he was walking home after services. Eight hours later, five Orthodox men were walking down Pico Boulevard near Sherbourne Drive when a van pulled up and two men jumped out waving handguns. Less than a week later, another Jewish man was mugged in Beverlywood.

"All we want to do is be left alone and be able to go to shul and spend time with our families," said Cliff Alsberg, who handles security at Aish Los Angeles. "But these people are coming in and disrupting our lives."

Los Angeles police have attributed 11 robberies of about 30 people -- including many non-Jews -- to three teams of suspects. Five people, comprising two of the teams, have been arrested and charged; three men believed to be members of the third team have been arrested but not yet charged.

"The Jewish community was not the intended target," said Lt. Ray Lombardo of the West L.A. station. "They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when these suspects drove by."

But the apparently connected robberies have heightened fears throughout the Orthodox community. Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss organized two meetings in the past three weeks with Jewish leaders and police. Synagogues responded with blast e-mails telling members to be more cautious when traveling to shul; to pay attention to their surroundings, whether during the day or at night, and to walk in groups.

"But I'm not stopping any of my activities," said the mother of a 17-year-old boy who was jumped at gunpoint while walking home from a Friday night celebration of a newborn boy -- known as a shalom zachor -- in March. "And when my son went to another shalom zachor, he still walked home, but he went with a neighbor."

The robberies have evoked memories of what Naor and his family witnessed when they lived in the Fairfax District in the early 1990s. Observant Jews were targeted as easy marks, because they walked at night, sometimes alone, and even though they didn't carry cash, they often wore expensive jewelry.

"It was like an epidemic," said Isaac Naor, Mordechai's son. "Every week, somebody else was getting mugged. Everybody was walking to shul with a gun."

Among those attacked was the then-president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, who also was the leader of the Naor's synagogue.

On Shabbat, Cohen was walking near his home with his son when two strangers approached, one asking for directions.

"Before I knew what was going on," Cohen said, "he put me in a stranglehold and started banging my right arm across the sidewalk. Just kept smashing it and snapped it."

The attack, which Cohen thinks was aggravated by the fact he had nothing to give the men, sent a shockwave through the community. People were afraid to go to synagogue without protection Cohen said. Shalom zachors were rescheduled from Friday nights to afternoons.

"I really didn't want to go out at night anymore," said Cohen, now the spiritual leader of Aitz Chaim in West Palm Beach, Fla. "People who really wanted me to be at their home for a celebration at night, they would send a guard to escort me."
Carrying a gun on Shabbat is problematic for a few reasons.

"I've always had the feeling that the people with guns don't know how to use them," Cohen said. "I always felt that they would probably shoot themselves."

There also are nonreligious legal qualms about Jews carrying weapons to shul.

Except for the few people who qualify for a concealed weapon permit, carrying a gun is illegal.

"If people are carrying them, they are doing so at their own peril, because it is against the law," Alsberg said. "But one of these days, they are going to rob the wrong person, and it will cost them their lives, and that will be the end of the crime spree."

Another suggestion, posited before, would be for Jews to stuff a small amount of cash in their sock or hatband, with which they could appease a mugger. The late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said this would not violate the Sabbath.

"He had ruled that one would be permitted to carry on the Sabbath things which normally would be forbidden to carry," said Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. "This being a case of life or death, that would be permissible."

But Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the chair in Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School, said it would be better for Jews to travel to shul in large groups or simply stay home than to carry money or a gun.

"There are other ways for making sure people aren't as easy marks, rather than looking as first recourse for ways of bending the laws of Shabbat," he said.
Already, the frequency of street robberies has fallen.

"We don't live in a dangerous neighborhood, thank God, and we have to be very careful before we project that it is a panic situation," said Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City.

"You don't want to create public hysteria."

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Make love, not war, on porn

From: LA Daily News

LAS VEGAS -- If Craig Gross considers Jesus Christ his best friend, why is his arm around porn's leading man?

"We are the world. We are the children," Ron Jeremy sings as he and Gross draw a circus crowd at the Adult Entertainment Expo here.

During the past few years, the two -- a conservative Christian who considers masturbation a sin and a secular Jew who has performed in 1,900 porn flicks -- have grown close and, despite diametric career choices, have come to respect and appreciate each other.

"I have nothing against Ron Jeremy," says Gross, an ordained minister who leads the anti-porn crusade XXXChurch.com "I love this guy. I love hanging out with him."

Oh, how the war on porn has changed. The days of Christian groups prominently lobbying against obscenity are over. Enter the era of extending love and consolation to the adult industry and those touched by it.

Members of a Chatsworth church pray for the end of pornography and the healing of those it has harmed. Christian men gather to confess their Internet-fueled addiction. Rehab centers in Colorado and Kentucky provide short-term and months-long escapes more commonly used to treat drug abuse.

In the adult industry, it seems every dark corner has a ministry. The former strippers of JC's Girls. Hookers For Jesus. And XXXChurch, the Web's "#1 Christian porn site."

XXXChurch, which runs a Web site where people confess their struggles and offers free anti-porn software, has made the biggest splash, using gimmicks at adult conventions -- like Wally the Wiener, a 25-foot inflatable penis -- to lure eyes, and hopefully minds, away from depictions of depravity.

The message is simple: porn separates husbands and wives, defiles teenagers' minds and breeds lies. A tool of the devil, it can only be cured by God.

"People are blind to the consequences of this. They don't realize the problems this will cause down the line," Gross says, handing out Bibles. "This is a lie. This is not reality. Girls aren't like this."


`Not harmless fun'

In three decades, pornography has moved from a red-light industry reliant on seedy theaters and throw-away magazines to a multibillion-dollar enterprise piped into millions of American homes.

"I don't think America is 100 percent ready for porn. We're still a really puritanical society," actress Tera Patrick said. "But the business itself has definitely gotten a lot more popular in the five years I've been in it."

The daughter of an English-Jewish father and a Thai mother, the 5-foot-9 star with the DD chest and long black hair looks like a beauty queen. With her actor-director husband Evan Seinfeld, she owns the production company Teravision and is one of several stars credited with making the business mainstream. Last year, Patrick became the first porn star to grace the cover of FHM and also wrote a porn how-to column for the men's magazine.

But before there was Teravision, there was a cultural crisis, culminating in the mid-1980s with the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, which had been ordered by President Ronald Reagan.

``Under other circumstances,'' said commission member James C. Dobson, the conservative Christian who founded Focus on the Family, ``one would not willingly devote a year of his life to depictions of rape, incest, masturbation, mutilation, defecation, urination, child molestation and sadomasochistic activity.''

The 1,960-page report was rife with warnings about the negative social effects of pornography and allegations of adult-film stars being raped, kidnapped and tortured by employers.

But government pressure on the industry plunged when President Bill Clinton entered office in 1993, with then-Attorney General Janet Reno only concerned with child exploitation. Since then, the Department of Justice has struggled to confront Internet pornography, which has made it impossible for individual communities to keep out products they deem obscene.

``No one is seriously advocating the legalization of cocaine or heroin, but somehow the pornography industry has convinced a large segment of the population that viewing porn is not just harmless fun, but is also a fundamental right,'' Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family, said at a 2005 summit.

``By not calling pornography what it is -- highly addictive and destructive material -- we are heading for troubled times.''


Porn's pull

In six years of marriage, Kyle Paulson had kept his promise to abstain from watching pictures of naked women.

But work had been stressful and, over the course of 10 days, he surreptitiously visited pornographic Web sites.

``It ripped her heart out,'' Paulson, 41, of Westlake Village said of his wife's discovery five years ago.

He responded by installing filters on his computer and asking a friend to hold him accountable. Finally, Paulson confessed his struggles to the men at his church and started a Bible study for others like him.

``I didn't feel like I was addicted,'' he said. ``But I was afraid because it had such a powerful pull on me.''

Last summer, a poll by the online Christian marketplace ChristiaNet found that 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women are ``addicted'' to pornography. Christian ministers speak vaguely of surveys indicating 70 percent of men look at porn monthly.

But Nielsen/NetRatings detected only 42 million unique American visits to adult sites in November -- at most 14 percent of Americans.

XXXChurch claims worldwide porn sales top $70 billion, more than the gross domestic product of all but 54 nations. But Forbes magazine reported in 2001 that adult-entertainment industry annual revenues exceed no more than $4 billion, while other analysts have pegged it as an $11 billion or $12 billion business.

``Whether it is Christians talking about pornography or the media talking about pornography, the statistics talking about pornography consumption are the least reliable I have ever seen,'' Weiss said.

Anecdotally, though, anti-porn crusaders tell countless stories of men leading secret lives, of husbands learning to lie to their wives, of adults sacrificing their families to self-gratify.

``Pornography is intense pleasure, and when a man becomes addicted to intense pleasure, nothing else will satisfy him,'' said Steve Gallagher, president of Pure Life Ministries, a so-called sexual rehabilitation center in Kentucky.

``So what happens over time is he just becomes hollowed out as a person and he loses interest in interaction with other people -- wife, kids.

``He just becomes a zombie.''

Critics warn that porn glorifies extramarital sex, can be violent and can appeal to fetishes, to things God didn't design us to enjoy.

And it can be deadly, they say.

``Pornography, especially on the Internet, has become the crack cocaine of sexual addiction,'' said Ted Roberts, an Oregon pastor and author of ``Pure Desire: Helping People Break Free From Sexual Struggles.''

``Internet pornography takes someone from zero to full-blown addiction in two months.

``The implications are the disintegration of family, the loss of financial resources and, for a Christian man, it is the absolute craziness of him believing one thing and doing something else. It sets up a wrenching situation in the man's spiritual life.''

At Pure Life in Kentucky, self-enacted stays last six to nine months for men who feel enslaved by homosexual experiences, prostitute liaisons and pornography.


`A bondage to sin'

``It is a bondage to sin,'' Gallagher said. ``If it is a bondage to sin, only God has the power to break that bondage and replace that empty spot in their hearts. That really is what happens here. In simple terms: Their love for pornography and sex diminishes and their love for God increases.''

On a frigid Sunday morning in Chatsworth, two hours before the first service at The Church at Rocky Peak, a small group of prayer warriors treks to the property's apex.

This is a common occurrence, repeated the second Sunday of each month since January 2003. It began after Neil Johnson, the church's director of men's ministries, returned from a mission trip to Peru, where, he said, 700 people accepted Jesus as their savior.

Johnson was told that before his mission team's arrival, a group of women hiked to the mountains to pray for a spiritual awakening. That explanation made sense. In the Bible, the children of Israel often communicated with God from the mountaintops.

Why not, Johnson thought, do the same in a pocket of Los Angeles synonymous with sex?

With a panoramic view of the San Fernando Valley, the group members face the sun as it rises and sing praises to God, praying for their church, for spiritual revival below and for the end of pornography.

``Lord, we pray right now that we will be able to reach out to people in the adult(-entertainment) industry, that we will be able to love them, that we will tell them we love them but not what they do,'' Johnson's wife, Lynn, says.

``Lord, we pray right now for the marriages that have been pulled apart by pornography. Lord, we pray for restoration, we pray for healing.''


`Are you a sinner?'

At the four-day Adult Expo in Las Vegas, Gross and his XXXChurch carried the porn-ministry baton.

XXXChurch's booth was on the main floor, next to Gourmet Videos' 10-foot-wide poster board featuring 120 movie covers, from ``Tons of Fun'' to ``Over 50.''

Twenty feet away, fans posed with a 6-foot-1 transvestite in fishnet stockings, a pink bikini and 6-inch stilettos.

Nearby, actress Penny Flame, wearing a cut shirt that said ``Naughty American'' and tiny red boy shorts, collected money for breast cancer awareness by selling foam breasts signed by her, Patrick and other adult entertainers.

``Are you a sinner? Do you need redemption?'' Flame bellowed through a sheaf of papers rolled into a bullhorn. ``For $5, you can be redeemed.''

Fans surveyed the countless booths hawking niche films, erotic toys and photos with their favorite porn stars. Confusion was common when they passed XXXChurch and were handed the word of God.

The pocket-size Bible, written in contemporary language, is yellow and fuchsia with three stars, bubble lettering that states ``Jesus Loves Porn Stars'' and a sketched face that, with its aviator sunglasses, pencil-thin mustache and shaggy hair, most mistake for porn legend John Holmes.

``That might go against what you've heard, but it's true,'' the back of the Bible states. ``Jesus loves porn stars as much as he loves pastors, soccer moms, liars, thieves and prostitutes. We're all the same to Jesus. We're all just people who need God to save us from the mess we're in and lead us to a better way.''

Gross is an odd breed -- too much of a fundamentalist for liberal Christians and too provocative for theological conservatives. He sees himself as a minister cut from the same cloth as Jesus, someone unafraid to reach down into the gutter.

At a convention celebrating sin, porn patrons and performers not only accept the Bibles handed to them but ask for extra copies.

``What have we here?'' asked Adam Gilad, a fan from L.A.

``This is the real New Testament,'' J.R. Mahon, a XXXChurch pastor, responded.

``This is how you reach out?'' Gilad asked.

``We're not about shutting down the industry. We're about helping people,'' said Mahon.

``So you're real Christians? They're real Christians,'' Gilad said in a gee-whiz way.

He stuffed the Bible in his bag of adult toys and walked away.

Long Beach MSA leader supports suicide bombings

From: The Jewish Journal

Ahmed Billoo is the product of an upper-middle-class Alhambra home. He grew up going to the local mosque on Fridays and holidays, playing sports with friends and enjoying the blessings of a comfortable American childhood.

Twelve months from completing a business degree at Cal State Long Beach, Billoo, 22, is fully Muslim and American, the two locked hand in hand.

And yet, he believes the righteousness of suicide bombers needs to be evaluated on a "case-by-case basis."

"Muslim or not Muslim, we all fear death. Blowing yourself up is not something everyone can do or something that everyone has the courage to do," said Billoo, the outgoing president of Long Beach's Muslim Student Association. "But don't get me wrong: I'm not saying we should all go around America doing that; Palestine is a different situation. There is a huge difference between saying we should do it and saying I'm going to be a suicide bomber. I just think it is something that Islam justifies."

He is far from alone, according to a report last week by the Pew Research Center. In its first nationwide survey of Muslim Americans, about 26 percent of American Muslims ages 18 to 29 share Billoo's sentiment to varying degrees.

"I would have to say it's actually like 60 or 65 percent of the youth," Billoo added. "It's very rare that I meet someone who says suicide bombings in Palestine are not justified."

When Pew asked respondents whether "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies," 78 percent of all U.S. Muslims flatly condemned such attacks; 9 percent declined to answer or said they didn't know. But 8 percent of all Muslims -- and 15 percent of younger Muslims -- said attacks on civilians were justified "often" or "sometimes."

While a chasm separates such sympathies from actual martyrdom -- a leap Billoo said he wouldn't be willing to make -- news of the report has affirmed a deeply held fear: That the radical strain of Islam that has swept through Europe may be infecting this country.

"What you have is a low-wage jihad taking place, but people are not paying attention to it," said Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum. "These sentiments are seething, and at any time might erupt."

Overall, however, the survey of 1,050 Muslims was encouraging.

The Pew survey, conducted through telephone interviews from January through April, estimated 2.35 million U.S. Muslims -- far fewer than the 6 million to 7 million numbers many Muslim organizations use. Two-thirds of respondents are foreign born and are strong believers in the American way of life.

The majority think of themselves as American Muslims, not Muslim Americans; believe women are treated better here than in Muslim nations, and are worried about Islamic extremism. And 61 percent said Israel and Palestinian rights could coexist -- compared to 67 percent of the general American public.

"What the survey overwhelmingly shows is that the Muslim community is the one that we at PJA have experienced. It is not the one that some people have heatedly claimed constitutes a fifth column in this country," said Daniel Sokatch, executive director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, which recently created with the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) the interfaith dialogue, NewGround.

Muslim American leaders have highlighted these positive findings -- "mainstream and middle class and not monolithic," as MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati put it.

They said reported sympathies for suicide bombings sounded an alarm, but, as Hussam Ayloush of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) noted, they weren't any more extreme than the 24 percent of Americans who, according to a recent poll by the University of Maryland's Program on International Public Attitudes, believe attacks against civilians are "often or sometimes justified."

"The word suicide bombing is very loaded and creates images of terrorism," said Ayloush, executive director of CAIR's Los Angeles area chapter. "A lot of the young people, what I hear from them, it is not something that relates to our American scene, but it is a view about a people under occupation responding to an occupation, and it is not the civilians but the occupier."

Despite Middle Eastern fatwahs to the contrary, the Quran explicitly prohibits any transgressions against civilians, said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Islamic law professor at the UCLA School of Law. These limitations range from torching a noncombatant's tree to killing a rival warrior's wife.

But some Muslims miss this point, Abou El Fadl said, "because they confuse politics and ethics."

"Human beings have the remarkable ability to reach results that they want to reach," he said. "In the case of Islam, the argument goes something like this: Yes it is true that our prophet has all these prohibitions; yes it is true that our prophet acted in a fashion that respected the sanctity of civilians at war; yes it is true that the Quran prohibits transgressing, but -- and this is a big but -- we have a rule that says that in the case of dire necessity, what is prohibited becomes permissible."

Since before Sept. 11, 2001, prominent Muslim American leaders have repeatedly condemned terrorist attacks. Last summer, in response to accusations that one of MPAC's founders was a closet extremist who had referred to the "butchers" of Israel, the organization bought an ad in the Los Angeles Times that affirmed "we condemn terrorism in all forms, regardless of the identity of the victim or of the perpetrator."

But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bends black and white into shades of gray, because many Muslims don't consider Israelis, particularly aggressive settlers, to be civilians.

"Islam believes life is precious, but we also believe in justice. We are not just going to let someone come into our house and kick us out. We are allowed to fight back," said Billoo, who is of Pakistani descent. "Obviously, the more conventional combat is preferred. But suicide bombings is a last resort."

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A marijuana raid and a mezuzah

From: The Jewish Journal

Alex Grabiner was not a particularly religious Jew, but when he and a few friends opened a medical marijuana pharmacy last year in the San Fernando Valley, they invited an Orthodox rabbi to install three mezuzot in hopes that God would bless their business.

"We wanted to create a place where there was a drastically different energy inside than there was outside," said Grabiner, a 22-year-old Boston transplant.

"That is what the mezuzah symbolizes: That this is a house of people who believe."

But last month, the Karma Collective, as the pharmacy near Van Nuys Airport is known, was burglarized. The thieves didn't take much -- a few hundred dollars, no drugs -- but they cut through a steel security gate and knocked down the front door and another door that opened from the lobby to the cannabis shop.

The mezuzot were still hanging when the police arrived, Grabiner said. After the police were done, a mezuzah was on the ground, its sacred parchment removed from its plastic shell and from the safety wrapper.

Between those points in time, a burglary investigation turned into a narcotics raid, and Karma's Diana Hahn was placed in the back of a black-and-white over allegedly possessing illegal drugs. (The 23-year-old is now out on $100,000 bond; the district attorney was given an extension Tuesday to file charges by June 5.)

It's unclear what happened to the mezuzah. Grabiner and his colleagues -- they're hush-hush about titles and ownership of the pot pharmacy, which continues to operate -- claim Los Angeles police intentionally defiled the mezuzah. However, Capt. Jim Miller of LAPD's Van Nuys Division said, "To the best of my knowledge, whatever happened to that happened before our investigation."

"We don't just wantonly go through places and destroy property, and there is no reason we would have for destroying religious items," said Miller, who joined his officers at the Karma Collective investigation April 26. "If we had information that we believed narcotics was stored within an object and it was necessary for us to damage that object to recover the product, that would be fully documented -- and that didn't happen."

Whatever the case, Karma's tale underscores the broader reality that 11 years after California voters passed Proposition 215, implementation of the Compassionate Use Act, which legalized marijuana for medical purposes, remains mired in confusion.

Most cities and counties have done nothing to regulate cannabis clubs, which in Los Angeles have multiplied more than fourfold in the past year. While police are not proactively investigating the pharmacies, Miller said, they wouldn't overlook illegal activity of which they are made aware. In the case of Karma, he said, that was the sale of marijuana baked into edible cookies and chocolates, which Miller said are not protected by state law. The pharmacy contends that baked goods are protected by state law and continues to sell them, as do most clubs.

Additionally, the federal government does not recognize Proposition 215 or subsequent state legislation protecting medical marijuana and in January federal agents raided 11 L.A. cannabis clubs. Because of marijuana's purported lack of medicinal value -- last year, the Food and Drug Administration stated "no scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana," the Drug Enforcement Administration considers marijuana a Schedule I narcotic, as dangerous as heroin. Cocaine is a Schedule II.

But a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, found marijuana helpful in easing symptoms for certain cancer and AIDS patients, particularly those having problems eating.

Other studies have found cannabis eases chronic pain, relaxes muscle spasms, calms chemotherapy-induced nausea and promotes hunger in AIDS patients who are physically wasting away.

"Whether it is addictive, whether it has a negative effect on the mind -- all those things are irrelevant if you are talking about someone who is dying. What you are trying to do is alleviate pain," said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector of American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) and co-chairman of its bioethics department. "So the question about medical marijuana from a Jewish perspective is a slam dunk."

That might explain why Jews have been at the forefront of advocating the overhaul of marijuana laws. Many of Los Angeles' so-called "pot docs" are Jewish; so, too, is the local head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And one of the most prominent proponents of medical marijuana has been the Bay Area's self-styled "ganja guru," Ed Rosenthal.

A secular Jew who has spent the past four years fighting federal felony charges for running an Oakland pot club, Rosenthal's been convicted, seen his case overturned and is now being re-tried. Though authorities have agreed Rosenthal won't serve prison time if convicted, he at one point faced a possible lifetime prison sentence and millions of dollars in fines. All the while he has maintained not just his innocence but his moral obligation.

"When I was asked by the city of Oakland to become an officer to the city, I felt it was my duty, not just a civil duty but a biblical duty," he told the San Francisco Jewish newsweekly j. in 2003; he repeated the comment in a phone interview last week. "Not doing it would have been a sin of omission."

Laura McGee believes that. Growing up, the Santa Clarita Jewish girl was plagued by panic attacks so accute, she said that at times she was hospitalized almost monthly. Doctors tried Prozac and Celexa and Klonopin and more drugs than she can remember. Some helped, but not without inducing unbearable mood swings.

When she graduated last year from New Community Jewish High School in West Hills and moved from her family home, the walls closed in. Her mother tried what she considered her last resort and took McGee to a pot doc. It seemed to work. On a recent visit to the Karma Collective, McGee, who now works there and lives in Karma's Woodland Hills commune, was calm and articulate and yet indignant about the difficulty of legal access.

"Life and saving your own life and saving another life is the most important thing in Judaism. So I don't understand how this could be wrong," said McGee, 18. "It allowed me to live a normal life. To be happy. I never thought I would reach this point."

Fears of Islamophobia

NORTHRIDGE - The Muslim university student was listening to his biology professor when the lecture sharply digressed from evolution.

"Don't talk to Muslims about religion," the California State University, Northridge, teacher reportedly said. "Because they turn to a different animal."

The unidentified student reported the incident to CSUN's Muslim Student Association, which sent a letter to university President Jolene Koester, demanding that the teacher apologize and that the university conduct sensitivity training.

"The school needs to provide a safe environment for our students' education," said Zabie Mansoory, Muslim association president. "It is a biology class, for God's sake. Religion shouldn't be anywhere close to a biology class."

The incident last month, which CSUN is investigating, illuminates a broader concern among the United States' estimated 5 million Muslims. With increasing frequency, Muslims are talking about an "Islamophobic" culture that is inciting violence and discrimination - more than five years after 9-11.

In February, a hacker entered the Web site for the council that oversees Southern California mosques and wrote a hateful obscenity aimed at Muslims on the mosque-finder page.

Three times in the past two months, the Islamic Center of Upland in San Bernardino County has been vandalized.

And in December, Keith Ellison, who was about to be sworn in as Congress' first Muslim, was widely criticized for wanting to take the oath on the Quran.

Hate crimes against Muslims have constituted about 11 percent of religious-bias incidents since 2002 - after spiking to 26 percent in 2001 from only 2 percent in 2000, according to the FBI. But religious-discrimination complaints filed with Muslim organizations have been climbing.

And some worry that could lead to broader problems. Marginalized Muslims in France rioted two years ago, bombed subways and buses in London, and bombed a train in Madrid.

"Islamophobia is a root cause of radicalization," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"As we are trying to counter extremism, we are coming up on Islamophobia as a major barrier to integration of Muslim Americans into the larger society."

Biology digression

At CSUN last month, biology lecturer Haig Kopooshian had been talking about evolution when he digressed into discussing religious perspectives on science.

An Armenian Christian who lived most of his life in Lebanon, Kopooshian said his discussion of humans as the "most complex animals" caused him to unconsciously refer to Muslims as animals.

"I don't know what the problem is. You are an animal and I am an animal," he said, adding that he immediately apologized in case he had offended anyone in the class.

While Kopooshian said he harbors no ill feelings toward Muslims, plenty of Americans do.

In the film "Borat," a Virginia rodeo organizer asks Borat, whom he thinks is a Kazakh journalist, whether he is Muslim.

"I see a lot of people," the organizer says, "and I think, `There's a dadgum Muslim. I wonder what kind of bomb he's got strapped to him."'

Prejudicial feelings

It's an uncomfortable moment because while Borat is a film character, John Saunders, the rodeo organizer and assistant director of the Salem Civic Center, is a real person.

Last summer, a USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 39 percent of Americans have "at least some feelings of prejudice against Muslims" and 34 percent said Muslims living in the United States were "sympathetic" to al-Qaida.

"There are elements of truth (to that)," said Daniel Pipes, a Middle East expert and visiting professor at Pepperdine University. "That is not to say it is a broad-brush indictment of all Muslims. But there is a segment of Muslims who are alienated from the United States.

"Were Muslims unequivocal and consistent in condemning not just terrorism but the perpetrators and the ideology that support terrorism, the American public would feel much more confident."

The term "Islamophobia" was coined in 1997 by the British think tank Runnymede Trust. But before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it had little use in the American lexicon.

Kevin J. Hasson, president of the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said growing suspicion of Muslim Americans isn't surprising.

"It isn't surprising people were fearful of Japanese-Americans in World War II, and it isn't surprising they decided to put them in internment camps," he added. "But it's still appalling."

Media voices blamed

Muslim leaders blame Islamophobia on voices in the media such as syndicated columnist Ann Coulter and politicians such as Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Virginia, who criticized Ellison's use of the Quran for taking the oath of office.

"The underlying issue is the growing anti-Islamic sentiment that is being fueled by the industry of hate in America," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization that has been accused of having links to terrorist groups, most recently in The New Republic.

"It's an industry that benefits financially and otherwise from policies of war, policies of division and policies of demonization of American Muslims."

But Ayloush also added: "America has its way of eventually accepting and integrating all segments of the population. It is just a matter of how long it takes. We are, as American Muslims, fully committed to integrating through dialogue and creating trust, no matter what attacks we are subjected to."

Pastors feel the pressure on Easter morning

The senior pastor of Shepherd of the Hills hasn't been seen in two weeks.

Cell-phone mailbox full, voice silent to the 10,000 who attend his Porter Ranch megachurch, the Rev. Dudley Rutherford had escaped Los Angeles for deep prayer in the desert.

On Sunday, though, he will return triumphantly to a packed Pauley Pavilion at UCLA, where he will preach of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection during his church's relocated Easter service.

"It's a scary thought," he said in a phone interview from Rancho Mirage. "You know what is at stake: There will be someone in that arena making a spiritual decision for which the consequences are eternity. You multiply that one person by 13,000 people, and it is overwhelming."

So goes the pressure of being a Christian pastor at Easter, one of two days each year when pews swell with people who haven't seen an altar in months.

While Christianity couldn't exist without Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Christ, the faith's foundation is found in Easter.

On the heels of Holy Week, a time that drags Christians through the agonizing last days of Jesus' life and his death, pastors lead the celebration of the resurrection, which reminds Christians of their hope of eternal life.

"It is a journey through despair, meaninglessness, hopelessness, evil and the principalities of this world to some sense that God is still alive in this world," said John S. McClure, a professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "It's a big challenge."

It's not unusual, McClure said, for pastors to take a brief retreat, to collect their thoughts away from the clutter of daily life and the demands of leading a church. Others opt to stay at home but purposely adjust their schedule.

"My preparation is first of all through prayer," said Bishop Gerald Wilkerson, head of the San Fernando Pastoral Region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. "You've got to slow yourself down, let go of all these things and stop for a moment."

As a bishop, Wilkerson no longer endures the long hours he did as a parish priest - visiting the sick, speaking at Catholic school services, spending hours upon hours in the confessional box and celebrating special Masses for each day from Thursday through Sunday.

But he does still prepare a homily for Easter Mass, which he will celebrate at St. Finbar Catholic Church in Burbank.

Most pastors prepare weeks, if not months, in advance. With some churches putting on big Holy Week productions - Passion plays, services for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday - those ministers know that if they don't at least outline their sermon by Palm Sunday, they will be drowning in research and prayer the following Saturday night.

"There is a modicum of pressure, but it is not unbearable pressure. It is natural pressure," said Jim Tolle, senior pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, who preaches three Easter services on Saturday and eight on Sunday. "A woman giving birth has pressure. A man closing a big business deal has pressure. An athlete entering a championship game has pressure.

"But, truly, the Jesus Christ I serve carries the burden for us."

As of Thursday, Rutherford said he was 80-90 percent done. And that was after a period of study that would make a doctoral student blush.

Last week, he drove to Rancho Mirage, a resort community near Palm Springs, taking with him a basket of books, news articles, Scripture and anything else he found during the past year that involved the resurrection.

He rose early each morning, often before the sun, and pored through his notes, shaving the 2-foot-tall stack of books and papers into a 3-inch-thick sheaf of notes. Next, he honed in on the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John, identifying a few points from the text to highlight.

"Then, I take that three inches of material and I fill in all the blanks," he said.

"It is the most important topic of the year," he later added. "You've got one shot at some of these people. This is the only time they go to church all year. And I've got one shot at getting them to come back."

'People are ready for this'

CAMARILLO -- When Bill Lowe preaches his first sermon as a Catholic priest in May, he will be the only clergyman in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with his wife, children and grandchildren listening from the pews.

Lowe, 68, is about to become the first married priest in the history of the country's largest Roman Catholic diocese.

"People are ready for this. They are ready for some married clergy," said Lowe, who retired in 2001 after 29 years as an Episcopal priest and unexpectedly converted to Catholicism soon after.

Lowe does not represent a sea change for the centuries-old requirement that priests remain celibate. Instead, he is the benefactor of an obscure order that Pope John Paul II issued in 1980.

That Pastoral Provision has allowed about 80 married men, all former Episcopal priests, to continue utilizing their gift for pastoral ministry after Catholic conversion. (Married former Lutheran pastors also have been permitted through a different provision.)

"We see it as a gift, his coming to the Catholic Church," said Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who leads the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region, which includes Ventura County. "He has a lot of experience. He's ministered to a lot of people for a long time, and he's bringing all of that to the Catholic Church."

Growing up in a fundamentalist Baptist home in Pasadena, Lowe decided at 15 he would become a priest.

"No matter how miserable the day at the parish, I always felt like I was doing what I should be doing," said Lowe, who was known in Massachusetts as the "burying parson" because of his gift for consoling the bereaved.

Rethinking celibacy

As an assistant pastor at Blessed Junipero Serra Catholic Church in Camarillo, Lowe will again be able to use his gifts for comforting and preaching.

Some priests and parishioners, however, hope Lowe brings more than experience -- that his ordination will help fuel the discussion about whether celibacy should be optional, as it was for the church's first 1,000 years.

"This move is not only historic but prophetic," Monsignor Padraic Loftus, pastor of St. Mel Catholic Church in Woodland Hills, wrote in his parish's Feb.18 bulletin. "Having a married priest in our midst must surely make us pause and reconsider, at this time of rapidly diminishing priests, why this privilege given to this couple could not be more widely granted."

Since 1985 -- for various reasons not limited to celibacy -- the number of active U.S. priests has plummeted from 57,317 to 41,794, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

One proposed solution, rejected by the Vatican, is to drop the celibacy mandate. After John Paul died two years ago, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found 63 percent of U.S. Catholics thought priests should be able to marry.

Rule to protect land

The biblical basis for celibacy comes from the Gospel of Matthew: "Others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

But in the 12th century, when the Catholic Church adopted a celibacy requirement, it was as much about protecting property as it was committing priestly intimacy to God, said the Rev. Thomas Rausch, a Jesuit professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University.

"The church was worried about church property going to the descendents of priests," he said.

The internal drive against the celibacy requirement dates to at least the Reformation.

Celibacy has caused thousands of priests to leave ministry since the end of the Second Vatican Council 42 years ago, according to Corpus, an organization that pushes for priesthood reform.

"I am a married priest," said Russ Ditzel, the organization's president.

But to marry, Ditzel had to leave ministry in 1978, though he technically remains an ordained priest. Others, he said, have surreptitiously married and remained behind the altar -- "leading a double life."

Though Lowe agrees change is needed, he said he doesn't want to be a cause celebre. He just wants to get back to his calling.

'Where God wants us'

Lowe's journey began in early 2001, after retiring from the 100-family Parish of the Messiah in Newton, Mass.

Lowe and his wife, Linda, began celebrating Mass with friends at various Catholic churches. The liturgical experience was familiar, but he noticed the parish pews overflowing with Catholics, something he had not experienced in the shrinking Episcopal Church.

"I said to Linda, 'This is where it is happening,'" Lowe recalled.

And then, around Easter of that year, Linda told her husband they needed to make the switch official.

"We don't think of it as a conversion because we weren't changing. We were growing into something," said Linda, 66, who grew up in Glendale and was raised Presbyterian. "We feel very much now that this is where God wants us to be."

About that time, Lowe was finding retirement a bore. So, in 2002, he scheduled a meeting with Cardinal Bernard Law of the Archdiocese of Boston, whose nomination he sought for the Pastoral Provision.

But three days before the meeting, the Boston Globe broke the clergy sex-abuse scandal. That slowed the process for Lowe, as did his family's decision to return to California to care for Linda's ailing parents.

Pursuit of priesthood

They moved to Camarillo and joined Junipero Serra Church, which is known as Padre Serra Parish. Lowe continued his pursuit of the priesthood, which included reading 50 books in seven theological areas -- including ethics, church history and dogmatic theology -- a daylong psychological exam and an all-day oral exam.

"It was like getting a doctorate," he said.

On Dec. 1, he joined the church staff as a lay employee handling bereavement and counseling. Last month, amid much celebration, Curry ordained him a deacon.

"Everybody was grinning from ear to ear," said Anne Hansen, a two-decade parishioner of Padre Serra.

On May 6, Lowe's five-year pilgrimage from retirement to the priesthood will conclude when he is ordained by Cardinal Roger Mahony.

"It's finally happening," Lowe said, standing in his cramped office at Padre Serra, a Southwestern-style parish adjacent St. John's Seminary. "It is getting back to work and doing what I love to do.

"Yesterday, for example -- going to a funeral, to a hospital, visiting a baby, writing a sermon. It's getting back to what I love to do."

Higher calling

From: Los Angeles Daily News
www.dailynews.com (video posted)

HOLLYWOOD - The Rev. Craig X Rubin read aloud a passage from 1 Kings as the sun set and his congregation prepared for the Sabbath.

Flicking a lighter to the lone candle atop the podium, Rubin burned a bud of marijuana on the flame. He puffed it out, walked to each of the eight members sitting in the pews and waved the smoldering cannabis around them.

This, Rubin proclaims, carries the prayers of Temple 420 to God.

That's the God of Isaac and of Jesus, because members are Christians and Jews. That makes the congregation Rubin founded last summer unique.

But what really sets it apart - and the reason Rubin will be in court Friday - is the temple's use of marijuana as a religious sacrament.

"I am willing to preach the Bible and go to jail if it means getting my message out there," the 41-year-old Panorama City man said. And he knows how strange that sounds.

"I'm a Jewish kid from Beverly Hills who went to UCLA. I could have been a lawyer making $250 an hour like the rest of my friends, or a TV producer. Instead, I'm teaching the Bible, selling weed on Hollywood Boulevard, facing seven years in jail - of course I'm crazy."

The temple's problems actually began as a poisoning investigation performed by homicide detectives. One day last fall, a delivery driver and a security guard were given baked goods from Temple 420, said police spokesman Kevin Maiberger. Both became violently ill and almost died.

No charges came of that, but a few weeks later, on Nov. 3, an undercover officer joined Temple 420. Five days later, at 4:20 p.m., police raided it.

The temple's assets were seized, as were Rubin's. He, his 18-year-old son and another man were charged with one count each of selling or transporting marijuana and one count of possessing marijuana for sale.

"They were trying to set it up under the guise of a religious right and then be able to sidestep marijuana laws," Maiberger said. "The deal was for a $100 initiation fee and $100 annual fee, you could buy all the pot you wanted for quote-unquote `religious purpose.' That's bull----."

Rubin, however, continues to distribute marijuana six days a week to the temple's members - there are more than 400 who have paid the initiation and annual dues - for a "requested donation" of $60 for an eighth of an ounce.

He continues to burn marijuana as a sacrament at Friday night services and preaches on the weekends - Old Testament on Saturdays, New Testament on Sundays, always at 4:20.

His defense relies on his insistence that God wants people to enjoy cannabis - for recreation, religion and industry - and his belief that federal and state laws protect his religious practices.

"It's not a laughable argument," said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA School of Law professor and religious freedom expert. "It's just an uphill argument."

Temple 420 would need to demonstrate that its beliefs are sincere and that marijuana use is not the foundation of the religion but part of a broader ethical system, Volokh said.

Also, the organization would need to prove that its practices don't come at the expense of a compelling government interest.

"But it's not open and shut," Volokh said.

In 1996, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rastafarians, who believe marijuana is a sacrament, could use federal law to defend their use of the drug, but not to defend distribution or possession with the intent to distribute.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a small religious group in New Mexico could use a hallucinogenic drug in its services.

Groups often opposed to each other - from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Association of Evangelicals - had supported O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal in its defense against the government.

But the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, cited in the Rasta and O Centro cases, doesn't apply at the state level, and that's where the charges against Rubin will be heard.

California has not passed a law similar to the federal one, and the state Supreme Court has not clearly defined whether the state constitution provides greater religious protection than the First Amendment.

And, of course, there are plenty of Temple 420 skeptics.

"I would inherently be suspect ... of someone attempting to use the Bible as a justification of their desire to smoke marijuana," said Brad Dacus, founder and president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a legal defender of Christian values. "It's not unusual for people to try to use religion as a pretext for purposes of carrying out their pleasures."

Temple 420's tenets stem from Rubin's Jewish childhood, conversion to Christianity and experience taking peyote in American-Indian sweat lodges.

A pro-pot Republican partial to dark suits and red ties, Rubin hangs the American flag behind his podium and gushes about Ronald Reagan. He has been a marijuana activist since his days at UCLA in the early '90s.

A "roper" - who believes hemp is a medicinal marvel and a panacea for fiber, food and fuel shortages - and a "doper," Rubin was dubbed "Hollywood's Wizard of Weed" by High Times magazine and was a consultant on Showtime's hit "Weeds" for two seasons.

While undergoing a family crisis three years ago, Rubin began studying the Bible and, he claims, God revealed to him cannabis' status as the tree of life.

Last year, after the Supreme Court ruled on O Centro, Rubin reasoned he could openly practice his new beliefs, which he describes as "Judeo-Christian" and "Bible based."

In August, Scott Linden, a Pasadena attorney who has helped open several medical-marijuana dispensaries in the San Fernando Valley, filed paperwork with the Secretary of State's Office that registered Temple 420 as a religious corporation.

The organization, however, did not file for tax-exempt status, said Franchise Tax Board spokesman Patrick Hill.

Religious services began Aug. 26, and Craig Roberts, who added the X to his name after studying Malcolm X and changed his last name back to that of his Jewish grandfather, started going by "reverend."

Rubin did not attended a seminary but was ordained in 1990 by the Universal Life Church, an interfaith organization that offers "Free Instant Online Ordination."

"Using sacrament as a way to elevate my spirituality blew me out," said temple member Evan Goding, 29, of Orange, who drives to Hollywood each week with his Jewish girlfriend. "I was like, no way. It just clicked. It made so much sense.

"I've always believed that the world as a whole would be better if most people would just try marijuana. It brings out the better in people. And I'm sorry it's not legal; I'm sorry I can't use it for my religious beliefs without being persecuted."

Temple 420 is located in a strip mall at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, next door to an H&R Block and across the street from a Christian Science Church. Fifteen to 30 people stop by most days to pick up pot, said the cashier, who wouldn't give his name.

Rubin gets his stash from the same guys who sell it to medical-marijuana dispensaries, but he charges about 20 percent less per eighth of an ounce. Income goes to pay salaries and support the temple, he said.

He insists he turns away about half the people who try to join; new members must sign an agreement professing, among other things, that "the God of the Bible created cannabis ... for the healing of all nations."

"There are six medical-marijuana clubs within walking distance of here," Rubin said. "If you're a liar, you don't need to come here. Pretend you are sick."

But it is clear some of Temple 420's members aren't interested in the religious services. The sanctuary seats about 40. Some members have never attended.

"For me, it was worth it," David Donahue, 37, of West Hollywood said of joining the temple. "If I didn't get it through him, I would get it through one of my friends' dealers - and I don't know anyone here.

"Two hundred bucks, to some people, it's a lot. It's a lot to me, don't get me wrong. But we pay for convenience."

Ownership of Torah scrolls disputed

From: LA Daily News

Torah scrolls are the centerpieces of Jewish religious services. The written word of God, they are kept in arks like the tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai and are revered above all Jewish symbols.

But for the past decade, Beth Midrash Mishkan Israel in Sherman Oaks has been "praying on stolen Torahs," said Rita Pauker, whose late husband, Rabbi Norman Pauker, lent the Orthodox synagogue four Torahs in the late 1990s.

Since her husband died in 2002, Pauker has repeatedly implored Rabbi Samuel Ohana to return the Torahs so she can give them to two nephews, rabbis in Florida and New York.

Ohana has refused, saying the scrolls belong to the congregation. In a brief phone interview Monday, he said Rabbi Pauker gifted the Torahs years after he closed his North Hollywood synagogue, similarly named Congregation Mishkan Israel, in 1994.

"He called me in front of his wife and he said, `Rabbi, I cannot bear having these Torahs gathering dust in my garage. Take them. Please,"' he said.

Ohana said he would return the Torahs if Pauker's widow could prove she was going to give them to another synagogue and not sell them. Three of them are likely worth about $10,000 to $20,000 each.

The dispute, deadlocked for the past two years, seems ripe for civil court. But it likely won't go there.

The only attorney Pauker can afford is Jeffrey Bohrer, a longtime member of her husband's synagogue (and coincidentally a former yeshiva student of Ohana's). But Jewish law prohibits Bohrer from bringing a lawsuit regarding a religious article in secular court.

Pauker could take the case to beis din, a rabbinical court, but neither she nor Bohrer has faith in the tribunal process.

"It has been my experience that the beis din is more interested in compromise than in the word of Jewish law," Bohrer said. "... The truth is the beis din probably is going to split the baby. Rabbi Ohana has no claim to these, and Rita has all claim. So it is unfair for Rita to settle for half."

Lending a Torah to a synagogue is a common way Jews fulfill a mitzvah, or a good deed, said Rabbi Nachum Sauer, who teaches Torah studies at Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles. "It is on long-term loan to their synagogue, but he still owns it," Sauer said.

"It would be the same as lending any property to anybody else," added David Olivestone, spokesman for the Orthodox Union. "It would be like lending a book to a synagogue. If I wanted it back, it would still be mine. Or if I lent a chair. There is no real difference."

Except Torahs are worth much more, literally and physically, than common books.

When a scroll is damaged and can't be restored, it must be buried. The focal point architecturally and liturgically of Jewish services, said Elliot Wolfson, professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, "the Torah is described in rabbinic literature as the Princess of God."

New Torahs take nine months to a year to ink and cost from the high $20,000s to high $40,000s, said Avrom Fox, owner of AllTorahScrolls.com, an online retailer. Containing 304,805 letters and 245 columns of God's word on roughly 60 sections of parchment, Torahs are made with varying degrees of decoration and aesthetics.

Rabbi Pauker's Torahs were originally donated decades ago by his sister to Young Israel of the Bronx. When the organization closed, the scrolls were given to Pauker.

Toward the end of his career, his congregation began to shrink. At least once, it joined with Ohana's for High Holy Days services at Valley Cities Jewish Community Center near Valley College.

When he retired in 1994 and closed his synagogue, Pauker transferred ownership of most of the assets to Ohana, including the ark, prayer shawls and religious books.

But the Torahs, according to a handwritten contract between Pauker and Ohana, were to be loaned for two years. At the bottom of the page is Ohana's signature.

However, Ohana said the contract was for insurance purposes, and five years later Pauker asked him to take the Torahs and put them to good use.

"He is disrespecting everything Jewish," was Rita Pauker's response. "He is operating on a lie. It's all a lie."

Golden Rule

(This is an article I wrote for the December issue of Malibu Magazine.)

This was almost another cliché Cinderella story borne on card-table felt: Total unknown gets hooked on poker; enters the World Series of Poker for the first time; has an unfathomable run of cards and wins $2.5 million, $5 million, $7.5 million or, in Jamie Gold’s case, $12 million. The Malibu man and entertainment executive even added a heart-warming touch when he pledged during the tournament to use the money to make his father, who has Lou Gehrig’s Disease, as comfortable as possible. “I’m so lucky. I’ve had the greatest parents, and to be able to give back to them is the ultimate win,” Gold told ESPN during the tournament, which ended Aug. 10.

But the fairly tale faded in a flash. For the first time since the World Series was inundated with amateurs four years ago and practically became a $10,000-a-ticket lottery, people were saying far worse things about the world champ than that he just got lucky.

First, the gossip website Defamer claimed the former talent agent had padded his Hollywood resume. “Lies, lies, lies,” according to a post by Defamer Special Correspondent on Onetime Agents Who May Have Bluffed About Their Client Lists. “He was an ASSISTANT, and then a very very junior agent at a small agency in the early 1990's who MIGHT have taken messages from some of these people, before forwarding them to their real agent. He is a classic Hollywood liar - other people's successes become his own, and his own failures become somebody else's. He has always had a pathological relationship with the truth … which makes him ideal for poker.”

Gold’s former colleagues vouched for his experience and success, and, though openly annoyed, he brushed it off. “It is so funny to me that somebody would think that after winning the tournament that I would then go and rewrite history,” he said. “What do I have to prove to anybody? I could just be the champion of poker. Why do I need to say I even had a life before that?”

But 11 days after the $12 million win, Gold encountered a far bigger problem – a $6 million problem.

A struggling TV producer named Crispin Leyser sued Gold in Nevada for half of the massive poker prize. The two had met in Las Vegas in early August through Leyser’s wife and had begun talking shop. (Gold had recently become head of production for a new boutique studio, and Leyser had some reality TV ideas to sell – for instance, “Mrs. Robinson,” a dating show where older women would seduce younger men).

At some point, the lawsuit claims, Gold told Leyser that Bodog.com, a Costa Rican-based gambling site, had offered to buy Gold’s seat into the World Series if he got celebrities to wear Bodog gear during the tournament. He offered to split his winnings if Leyser secured a few Hollywood stars, the lawsuit claims, which he did in the form of Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard.

But then Gold won, and he refused to transfer $6 million to Leyser. The poker world buzzed with gossip that Gold couldn’t play by gamblers’ rules regarding verbal agreements – generally good as gold (little “g”). It appeared legal exoneration might not be enough to spare the world champ a leper’s treatment.

“The operative words here, of course, are ‘as a matter of law,’” the blog Wicked Poker Chops remarked in response to a comment Gold’s lawyer gave The New York Times. “Because if it was ‘as a matter of Jamie’s word,’ or ‘as a matter of principle,’ or ‘as a matter of not f---ing with poker’s longstanding tradition of handshake deals,’ then Crispin Leyser would likely have his half, and we’d be able to watch the Main Event on ESPN with at least some sense of enjoyment and a modicum of respect for Jamie Gold’s confident table talk and spectacular big stack play (and yes, his fortunate flops).”

Then in early November, Gold’s attorney filed a response, arguing Leyser wasn’t entitled to any of the $12 million purse. No surprise. The shocker was this: Gold had promised Leyser a share of the winnings.


“I’m not worried. I always do the right thing – and I’m doing the right thing in this situation,” Gold told me in late September, when I met him in the lobby of the Sofitel Hotel, across from the Beverly Center.

Other than those words, Gold didn’t want to talk about his legal problems. He had just returned from Johnny Chan’s invitational tournament in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he finished 17 out of 163 pros. He wore blue jeans, a tan, untucked dress shirt and a black Bodog cap that read “Play Hard.”

Gold planned to remain at the Sofitel for a week. Afraid to return to Malibu after winning the World Series, he spent at least six weeks hotel hopping around Los Angeles. “I was getting a little too much attention. There is no problem now,” Gold said. “I wasn’t worried: Things were happening. When people are lurking outside my home and banging down the door at five a.m. and taking pictures like paparazzi, taking pictures of my ex-girlfriend when she is driving out of our place.”

His safety concerns began during the tournament when a friend warned Gold to watch his back; instead he asked Bodog to hire two burly bodyguards to stand by while he played. “I was the only thing in the way of everyone winning $12 million,” Gold told me. “Think about the Tonya Harding situation – and poker players are not known to be the most secure, stable community.”

He’s still adjusting to the new attention, albeit mostly benign or even enjoyable. People who see him (baseball stars past, Reggie Jackson, and present, Alex Rodriguez, to name a few) are excited to meet him, and every amateur poker player he crosses wants to beat him. The night before our interview, Gold threw the first pitch at a Dodgers game. And daily he had been taking calls from media outlets big (USA Today, The New York Times, CNBC) and small (a Jewish student newspaper). Twice he made the cover of Card Player magazine. “I don’t remember a day without interviews or appearances, and it doesn’t seem it is going to slow down,” he said.

Now 37, Gold grew up in Paramus, N.J. He was fond of magic, good at tennis and participated in Olympics of the Mind. “He was really superior in math,” his mother, Jane, said. “His teacher would complain that he didn’t know the steps to getting math, but that his mind just worked like a computer and he would get the answers.” Along with the family’s intelligence came an interest in card playing. Jane Gold’s father was a masterful gin rummy player, and her son learned to count 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-jack-queen-king-ace. “He was like a prodigy,” said cousin Dr. Glenn Eisen, a gastroenterologist. Gold claimed that at his mother’s urging he took the PSAT in fifth grade. He told me he scored in the 1200s and told ESPN.com he got a 13 something – compared to the average Pepperdine freshman’s 1240 as a high school upperclassman.

Gold’s childhood dream, though, was not to be a gambler but a Hollywood agent. Throughout college at the State University of New York at Albany, he interned for J. Michael Bloom, a high-profile New York agent, and he moved to L.A. three days after graduating. Within a year he was a full agent for Harter Manning Woo, soon representing the likes of Felicity Huffman, James Gandolfini and Jimmy Fallon. He became friends with his clients, and Fallon slept on Gold’s couch in Malibu for six months.

Gold had arrived beachside in 1993, two years after moving west. Cruising PCH with his college fraternity president, Gold saw a “for rent” sign where Coastline Drive hits the beach. “And I’ve never left,” Gold said of the two-bedroom townhouse with a 40-foot balcony perfect for watching the sunset.


Early this year, when it seemed time for a career change, Gold went into TV development as president of production for BuzzNation, a small firm completing the yet-to-be-purchased “Hottest Mom in America.” But before that, he had set out to become a part-time poker pro. He began at the $200 no-limit tables at Commerce Casino, then moved up to the $400 and $600 tables, and notched a few tournament wins in L.A., including a $54,000 payout at the Bicycle Casino in spring 2005. Before going to Las Vegas for the World Series, he was part of a weekly home game in Beverly Hills with a $10,000 buy-in – hardly an excuse for beer and peanuts with the boys.

“I took it really serious. I was playing 30 to 40 hours a week. Every moment I was awake basically that I wasn’t working I was playing poker,” he said.

Along the way, Gold got some help from Johnny Chan, the poker pro known as the “Orient Express,” who won back-to-back World Series titles in 1987 and 1988. In exchange for Gold working with Chan to develop a poker TV show that never caught on, Chan helped refine Gold’s poker chops. “He’s smart. He’s got a killer instinct. And he wants to win every tournament that he plays,” said Chan, who has called Gold the “Malibu Express.”

A more fitting nickname during the World Series would have been “Gold Rush.” Down early to half the $10,000 in chips he started with, Gold went on a tear, accumulating more than $100,000 by the end of Day 1 and taking the tournament lead at the end of Day 3, something he didn’t lose for the final seven days of the Texas hold ‘em main event.

Chan was there throughout the last hand, acting like a boxing manager. After Gold would play a hand, particularly after winning, he would return to the rail to boast to Chan and get some encouragement. “From the third day on. I treated those chips like my chips and I told him what needed to be done,” Chan said.

But etiquette was something Chan may have neglected to share. In addition to his hyper-confident table-talk, common of younger poker players, World Series commentators at times criticized Gold for trying to negotiate deals with his opponents. On one occasion late in the tournament, Gold raised the bet pre-flop with ace-jack and his buddy, Lee Kort, called with queen of diamonds and jack of hearts; the flop came four-jack-seven, all diamonds, giving Gold the best hand and Kort a flush draw. Kort acted first and moved all-in. Gold moaned, “Oh Lee, come on man. I’ve got top-top,” meaning he had top pair with the best kicker. Kort responded: “Me too.” Gold called the all-in bet thinking they had the same hand and would chop the pot, pardoning Kort for at least one more hand. Gold looked mortified when he saw he was about to knock his friend out of the tournament. “You said top-top. I wouldn’t have called you,” Gold said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I thought you said we were chop-chop.”

Gold joined the final table Day 10 with $26.65 million in chips, almost 50 percent more than his nearest opponent. At 10:52 that morning, according to Leyser’s lawsuit, Gold left Leyser a message about the prize money. “Hey, it’s Jamie. Thank you for your message. I slept pretty well, so we should be fine. … I promise you – you can keep this recording on my word – there’s no possible way you’re not going to get your half … after taxes … You’ve trusted me the whole way, you can trust me a little bit more. I promise you there’s no way anybody will go anywhere with your money.”

Sixteen hours later, after Gold had pummeled his opponents hand after hand, he and his ex-girlfriend mugged for the camera in front of a cool $12 million. Entering the picture with their arms around them were Crispin Leyser and his wife, Jules – no doubt wanting a photo with the mound of cash they believed was half theirs.

But now, determining who deserves what is an order for Clark County District Court. In Gold’s response seeking dismissal of Leyser’s lawsuit and the release of the $6 million being held by the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Gold claims, through proof of his contract with Bodog, that he was not obligated to secure celebrities for his sponsor. He only offered to share his winnings with Leyser because he felt sorry for his new friend, who had told Gold he was going to lose his house in Los Angeles and another home in his native Britain. After Gold took the chip lead, Leyser began hounding him and pressuring him to sign a contract about their agreement, which Gold denied. On the last day of the tournament, the harassment had pushed Gold to a breaking point, so he left Leyser the message about getting “half … after taxes.” But even half of $12 million minus Uncle Sam’s was not enough for the eagerly rich Leyser, who insisted on $6 million and no less. Once Leyser filed the lawsuit, Gold decided, according to his legal response, that he didn’t want to give a non-obligatory “gift” to such an ungrateful chum.

For Gold, it remains to be seen if those talent agent skills that have been so valuable on the poker felt – the ability to read his opponents, to protect his assets, to bluff, to befriend and bisect – could prove golden yet again.

“Sometimes the best plays I have ever made are plays where I have lost the hand but I’ve just lost the minimum,” Gold told me, explaining his poker intuition. “Sometimes it’s not how much you win when you win but how little you lose when you lose. I think that is the mark of a great player.”

Well, maybe he’ll settle.

Throwback Christians

From: Los Angeles Daily News
www.dailynews.com

SIMI VALLEY - The twenty-somethings trickle into the tiny apartment.

They laugh loudly and share the previous week's stories about their spiritual struggles. Two slide into the bedroom to hash out a disagreement while the host busily places snacks on the table. Then the group gathers in the living room to pray.

This scene is not unlike a typical Bible study. No altar, no stained-glass windows, no pastor in a purple robe - simply the message of Christ in a small-group format.

But this is not Bible study. For these eight refugees of traditional Christianity, this Tuesday night is like Sunday morning. This is their sanctuary. This is where they pray and sing and study and take Communion.

This is house church.

"You walk into church and people are like, `Hey, how are you? God bless, man.' Really, inside, you could be completely dead, dying, rotting inside. But you are never going to share that because there is no authenticity about doing life with people in mainstream church," said Mike Dickran, 25, of Camarillo.

"What is so exciting about doing small-group house church is just the chance to be real."

At a time when megachurches are blooming, when the yardstick for success seems to be the fullness of pews and the weight of offering plates, a growing number of Christians are casting aside institution for intimacy and gathering weekly in homes, apartments, parks or wherever the Spirit moves them.

"It's not about where we meet or how big the sound system is or even how many seats we fill," said Chris Burton, a former college pastor at Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village who left seven years ago to begin a Simi Valley house church that has grown into five separate gatherings, including the one Dickran attends.

"Those things are not indications of success for us - rather, personal commitment to the Lord and life transformation."

House churchers view themselves as throwback Christians. They express a nostalgia for pre-Nicean Christianity, before the canons and creeds and clergy.

The most oft-cited depiction of first-century Christians comes from the New Testament book of Acts, Chapter 2:

"Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Just how quickly house churches are multiplying is a source of debate.

A Ventura-based Christian polling organization reported last summer that house-church attendance had grown about tenfold during the past decade, to 20 million, or 9 percent of Americans, up from about 1 percent in 1996.

"More believers are going back and looking at the early church, looking at the book of Acts and seeing these people who had such a vibrant faith," said George Barna, founder of the Barna Group.

"There were no positions, there were no salary scales, there were no programs. It was just people meeting in living rooms."

The Center for Missional Research, with the help of Zogby International, followed with its own study that found that most people who attend weekly house gatherings also attend traditional churches. Only 1.4 percent of those surveyed attended house church only.

Although registered house churches are tracked by various Web sites, countless others operate under the radar. They are structured to spin off new groups as they grow beyond about 20 members.

Observers agree the house-church movement is spreading, thanks largely to what they call a post-modern Christianity that has left behind the confines of church walls and traditions.

"It is going to be around for a long time and may provide an example for institutional Christianity," said Todd M. Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. "But it's not going to take over."

Long the norm in Asia, Africa and Soviet-era Russia - where Christians met in homes out of necessity - only recently has house church (also dubbed "home church" and "simple church") become an American phenomenon.

"It is about authenticity," said Brian McLaren, a post-modern Christian leader and author of "A New Kind of Christian." "Church services have succeeded at being more characterized by excellence, but one of the consequences of that excellence is artificiality and the feeling that everything is produced and that it is a show."

House church is one of a number of alternatives to traditional church services. It raises questions about the long-term spiritual health of members, said Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and co-author of "Emerging Churches."

"This kind of doing your own little thing means you are separated from Christian tradition and wisdom over the centuries," Gibbs said. "Who is it you are gathering into these groups? Are you gathering malcontents or are you genuinely reaching out to your neighbors and friends who never got involved in the church?"

There also is a lack of accountability to outside leadership, critics say. And groups are prone to implosion if leaders burn out or fail.

In Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, the groups spawned by Burton and Adam Finlay gather two Saturdays a month to remain connected and accountable and meet separately each week for church services.

With a bachelor's degree in theology from The King's College, a small Pentecostal school in Van Nuys, Finlay planned to be a professional minister. Instead, the 27-year-old newlywed said, God guided him to installing home-entertainment systems by day and leading a house church Tuesday nights.

After reading through the Gospels, the church at Finlay's - he intentionally doesn't call it his church - began studying Acts.

Finlay led a recent discussion, but everyone was encouraged to add his or her own religious experience and theological understanding.

"Um, if I can just interject something real quick," Dickran said before drawing a parallel between God's selection of the Apostle Paul for a specific mission and the divine calling of modern-day Christians to certain tasks.

This is one of the benefits of house church. Another Barna study, published last month, reported that house churchers are dramatically more satisfied than traditional churchgoers with their group's leadership, faith commitment, level of personal connectedness and spiritual nurturing.

"I really can't think of anything that is lacking here that a larger church has because of the intimacy and close fellowship," said Jeff Savage, 28. "So I really couldn't say I miss anything about a large church."

Smells like an onion ...

From: Los Angeles Daily News
www.dailynews.com

NORTH HILLS - The Onion is peeling.

The Sepulveda Unitarian-Universalist Society, long a voice for peace and against war, is at war with itself.

The society - recognizable by its bulbous sanctuary - voted last fall to sell about half its property to a developer of senior artist colonies. The congregation's board and minister envisioned harmony between young and old and a solution to the Onion's dire finances.

With only 96 members and 4.84 acres on Haskell Avenue, Meta Housing Corp.'s offer to pay at least $3 million for the Onion's parking lot and vacant land behind it seemed like a perfect fit.

"I wasn't looking to be rescued," said Gloria Burr, congregation president. "I was looking to do something that would fulfill a vision - to help others and to utilize the land."

But after the congregation voted 36-15 to approve Meta's offer last October, a few members took a closer look.

They didn't like what they saw.

The contract allows Meta to decide whether to enact Plan A on 2.4 acres or Plan B on about 2. Plan A would absorb the entire parking lot and force the Onion to build a new one on the front lawn.

Opponents also worried the construction of about 130 apartments would drag on for years and disturb their spiritual lives.

"We were simply aghast at the amount of land that was being taken by Meta, and we felt the Congregation was not allowed to be aware of this when the vote was take(n)," Ida Hurt, who has attended since 1966, wrote in a letter to the board. "Now that we have read the contract, we consider it completely one-sided and unfair."

That led to another congregational meeting on Sunday, when members voted 39-30 against the contract.

"Quite frankly, I'm not only not optimistic it will go through," board member Don Ordway said of the development he supported. "I'm not optimistic the congregation will survive as anything more than a shadow of what it is."

Uncertain future

It's unclear what will happen next. Burr, a 26-year member, warned the congregation that breaking its contract could result in penalties of $250,000 - something the Onion can't afford.

"They did not rescind the contract," said the Rev. Bob McDill, the congregation's minister. "They cannot. The contract has been signed. It is a done deal."

Meta has been widely recognized for its senior-housing developments, particularly the award-winning Burbank Senior Artists Colony, which landed laudatory New York Times coverage in September.

Thirty percent of those units are designated as below market, which appealed to McDill and the Onion's board. So did the idea of encouraging artistic expression of aging minds and the aesthetic pleasantry of Meta's landscaping.

"The toughest first battle we had - who knows what the next will be - was the idea of whether the congregation wanted to sell their valuable piece of property," said Meta President John Huskey. "We were able to convince them at least some of our mission is to provide activities that will keep people healthy longer."

Huskey was unaware of the turmoil being caused by the land sale.

The strife has spread into spirituality. McDill's reaction to last Sunday's vote has opponents of the land sale complaining that the minister, a retired Presbyterian pastor used to more top-down church governance, is ignoring the pleas of the people.

"He was the king of the roost in his last church and everybody had to do what he said," said Mike Dickson, the Onion's newsletter editor. "But it's not that way in the Unitarian Church, where the people decide."

Several moves

The Onion traces its history to 1943, when a small group of religious free-thinkers met in a Van Nuys house. The United Liberal Church of the San Fernando Valley moved several times before buying ranch property at 9550 Haskell Ave.

In 1964, architect Frank Ehrenthal, who had slept for two weeks in the homes of the congregation's members, completed a truly unique sanctuary - large and round, with no corners where people could hide, and a tall, pointed roof.

"The Onion is not a building, but a state of mind, a philosophy of life, an attitude toward people," Muriel Lustica wrote in a short, comb-bound history of the early years.

Unitarianism and Universalism both came to the United States in the 1700s with those who settled in New England.

Those churches considered themselves descendents of Protestantism but with profound doctrinal differences: They believed in God but not the divinity of Jesus and in the salvation of all humans, regardless of their saviour.

As the liberal religions, which merged in 1961, spread across the country, they increasingly sloughed their Christian roots. Places like the Onion associate no more with Christianity than with Hinduism and Humanism. That's why it is a society, not a church.

With some 220,000 American members, the religious movement has been famous for its social activism - for fighting slavery and opposing the Vietnam War, for promoting suffrage and advocating gay rights.

In 1970, when students at University of California, Los Angeles, and California State University, Northridge, were prohibited from inviting William Kuntsler - a virulent anti-war protester who defended the Chicago 8 - to speak on campus, the Onion offered its arena.

Eleven years later, the North Hills congregation decided to spend $2,800 needed for a new roof to instead qualify a state ballot initiative calling for a "freeze" on basing U.S. nuclear missiles in Europe.

Membership, though, has been dwindling for years, down from 220 two decades ago.

The landscaping also has seen better days. The lush green lawn and beautiful flowers pictured on the "Save Our Onion" badges have browned and wilted.

"We don't have money to fix the sprinklers and we can't pay for the water," said McDill, a part-time staffer. "And the gophers are having a field day."

The Onion lacks air conditioning and hot water, and the religious education facilities are dismal, something the board hoped to solve with the influx of Meta's money.

"Unitarians are famous for splitting or going to another church," said Art Dell, a 81-year-old former congregation president. "And there probably will be some of that now, no matter what happens."

A History of Newsprint

Here is an article I wrote for UCLA Magazine about the history of the Daily Bruin.