Dear Community Members,

As the summer comes to a close and we prepare to begin the new year of 5772/2011-2012, we would like to inform you of an exciting new program that will be coming to our community. A joint committee of volunteers, represented by members of Beth Jacob  Congregation, B'nai David Judea, Young Israel of Century City, and YULA Girls School
has been working under our auspices to bring a Yoetzet Halacha to work in our community on a part-time basis.

For those who may not be familiar with this position, Nishmat, an Orthodox Jewish institution of higher Torah learning for women, based in Jerusalem, established the Keren Ariel Women's Halachic Institute in1997 to train Yoatzot Halacha, or Women Halachic Consultants. Women preparing to become Yoatzot Halacha are chosen for their
extensive Torah scholarship, leadership ability, and deep religious commitment, and devote two years (over 1000 hours) to intensive Talmudic and Halachic study with rabbinic authorities in Taharat Hamishpachah-laws of Niddah, Mikvah and family purity. They receive training from medical and health professionals who are experts
in modern medicine and psychology, including gynecology, infertility, women's health, family dynamics and sexuality.

Following comprehensive examinations administered by a panel of distinguished Roshei Kollel and Poskim, graduates are certified by a panel of Orthodox Rabbis to be a  resource for women with questions regarding Taharat Hamishpachah. Graduates of
this program have been working with great success in communities across Israel and in the United States to assist women who are more comfortable discussing very personal issues with another woman. As female Halachic advisors, the Yoatzot consult with  Orthodox Rabbinic authorities when approached with questions which demand a posek's discretion. For more information on Nishmat's program, visit http://www.yoatzot.org/
[http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=gheemacab&et=1107187309528&s=2315&e=001ExNbBtkUAIKFaAJbK03UAhjCPU0TR1NSPZwMj6ilbYCb-OXfnaawHU6OLvId1z3bCsmiaZxKtYEEYGGqK1Y1t5xHdfjWjWFyCbKgiQ_dQBeHQ-RrvXU5cA==].

With that background, we are very excited to announce that Shoshana Samuels, a recent graduate of Nishmat's program and a certified Yoetzet Halacha, will be making regular visits to our Los Angeles community throughout the upcoming year. She will present to small groups of women at the homes of our Shul members on topics related, but  not limited, to general understandings of Taharat Hamishpacha, women's health, marital intimacy, symbolism of mikvah, family planning, peri-menopause and menopause, and will also be available for individual one on one consultations.

Each of these individual events will be announced through our Shul bulletins and  will be open to members of all of our Kehilot. Between visits, Shoshana will be  reachable for consultation via phone and e-mail and will encourage women to reach out to her with questions related to her knowledge base. Shoshana will be living
 and teaching in Teaneck, New Jersey and will serve in the official role as a Yoetzet Halacha at Congregation Rinat Yisrael. She is not only extremely intelligent, but also outgoing, friendly and very approachable. She looks forward to putting her years of study into practice as a Yoetzet Halacha in the Los Angeles community.

In the coming weeks, we will send out further details for the first Yoetzet Halacha weekend program, scheduled to take place September 16-18th. We encourage you to attend one or more of the sessions as an opportunity to meet Shoshana, and become more familiar with what a Yoetzet Halacha has to offer the members of our community.

This one-year pilot program is being funded by private donations through the American Friends of Nishmat, and additional sponsorship opportunities are available upon request. Please feel free to contact Alison Anziska at amsa140@hotmail.com[mailto:amsa140@hotmail.com]
for more information.

We look forward to continued growth together as a community, and extend to all of you our sincerest wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.

Rabbi Kalman Topp, Beth Jacob Congregation

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, B'nai David Judea

Rabbi Elazar Muskin, Young Israel of Century City

Rabbi Avraham Lieberman, YULA Girls School

Beth Jacob Congregation
9030 West Olympic Blvd.
Beverly Hills, California 90211 | (310) 278-1911

Adeena Bleich and former Assembly Speaker
Bob Hertzberg at a bar mitzvah in Hancock Park.

If you want to really annoy Adeena Bleich, just ask her what it feels like to be a young Orthodox woman running for City Council. I know, because when we sat down recently for lunch at Shiloh's, the first thing I asked her is what it felt like to be a young Orthodox woman running for City Council.

She rolled her eyes like my teenage daughter Shanni does when I show off my knowledge of the latest music.

It's clear that Bleich is leery of being stereotyped, or worse, becoming some kind of political curiosity whose main calling card is her youth (she just turned 31), gender and Orthodox religion.

What she is, she says, is something a lot less dramatic: A hard-working individual who knows how local politics work and who wants to bring a new, practical attitude to serving the people.

All the people, of course.

Although she estimates that nearly half of the registered voters in her 5th District (which cuts a wide swath from West Los Angeles through Westwood, Pico-Robertson, the Fairfax area and right up to Sherman Oaks) are Jewish, she's savvy enough to realize that Jews alone won't carry her to victory. So Bleich, who is single and belongs to three Modern Orthodox shuls in Pico-Robertson (Young Israel of Century City, Beth Jacob Congregation and B'nai David Judea) wants to reach out.

She's not exactly a novice at this game. She spent years as City Council Deputy to Councilman Jack Weiss— and was knee-deep in the local dramas of neighborhood groups, pro-business groups and the maze of City Hall politics. She was also in the trenches with former Speaker of the California Assembly Bob Hertzberg when he ran for mayor of Los Angeles.

So she knows the lingo, and she also knows that she's up against some serious competition — from, among others, former city councilman Paul Koretz and neighborhood activist Ron Galperin. But she has no qualms about asking for your vote, because, as she says, she's got some great things cooking for your district and your neighborhood.

From Wikipedia:

General Robert Magnus, USMC (born April 28, 1947) is the 18^th and current Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. He assumed his current assignment on September 8, 2005.

Magnus was born April 28, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York.

Genial, no-nonsense and a bit professorial, Magnus, was born in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, the youngest child of a bookkeeper and a seamstress. When the family moved to the working class, post-World War II community of Levittown, Long Island, “a mile and a half from a potato farm,” his secular Jewish upbringing was “ideal and lower-middle class.” And while his cousins across town may have been raised more traditionally observant, Magnus was sent to a Conservative Hebrew school three days a week and celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Hicksville Jewish Center on Long Island.[1]

He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from University of Virginia and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He earned a Master's degree in Business Administration from Strayer College in 1993. His formal military education includes Naval Aviator Training, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College.

Magnus completing The Basic School at Quantico, Virginia in 1969 and then reported to the Naval Air Training Command, where he was designated a Naval Aviator. Gen Magnus’ operational assignments include: Intelligence Officer, HMM-264; Operations Officer, H&MS-15 SAR Detachment, Task Force Delta, Nam Phong, Thailand; Training Officer, SOES, MCAS Quantico; Aviation Safety Officer, Marine Aircraft Group 26 and HMM-263; Weapons and Tactics Instructor, Marine Aircraft Group 26 and HMM-261; Operations Officer, Marine Aircraft Group 29; Commanding Officer, HMM-365; Commander, Marine Corps Air Bases Western Area; Commanding General, MCAS Miramar; and Deputy Commander, Marine Forces Pacific (1999 – July 2000).

Gen Magnus’ staff assignments include Aviation Assault Medium Lift Requirements Officer; Chief, Logistics Readiness Center, Joint Staff; Executive Assistant to the Director of the Joint Staff; Head, Aviation Plans and Programs Branch; Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Aviation; Assistant Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies, and Operations (July 2000 – August 2001); and Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources (August 2001-September 2005). He was advanced to the rank of General on November 1, 2005 and began his assignment as Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps on November 8, 2005.^[1]

CHUMMY: George and Laura Bush with Donald and Paula Etra at Camp David.

What is particularly striking about Etra’s long friendship with Bush, and his reputation as one of the president’s closest Jewish associates, is the rather less publicized fact that Etra is, by his own description, a liberal Democrat.

As the Bush administration winds down, Etra spoke with the Forward about everything from the president’s take on Purim to why Etra remains fiercely loyal to Bush despite their political differences. A member of two Modern Orthodox synagogues in L.A.’s Pico-Robertson district, Young Israel of Century City and Beth Jacob Congregation, Etra boasts a star-studded client list that includes the likes of rapper Snoop Dogg and actress Fran Drescher. He recently represented the Spinka rebbe, a Brooklyn Hasidic leader, at a bail hearing related to charges that the rabbi defrauded the government of millions in tax dollars.

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, Hillel executive director at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a former client of Etra’s, described Etra as “a liberal Orthodox Jew with a very rational worldview.”

“My sense is that he’s a type of careful liberal, an-old style Democratic liberal,” Seidler-Feller said. “Meaning that on social issues, on abortion and so on, he follows the line, and he’s careful — meaning, he has limits.”

Seidler-Feller noted, however, that Etra is careful to keep a low profile on political matters. “He plays things close to the chest,” Seidler-Feller said. “He’s not out there.”