Check This Out

• Foreign Accent Reduction
  January 13, 6:30PM
  Westwood Branch Library -310.474.1739
• Holy Rollers
  January 13, 7:15PM
• Cabaret Brunch starring Kari Howard
  January 16, 10:30AM
• The Relationship Between Law and Ethics: Taught by Elliot Dorff, Rabbi, Ph.D.
  January 18, Noon - 1:30PM

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On the Shelf

Books related to "A Day of Small Beginnings" available at the Ostrow Library

FICTION

The Red Magician, by Lisa Goldstein.
PS3557.O397 R4 1982

NON-FICTION

A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of its Survivors, by Michael Berenbaum.
D804.17 .B47 2003

COOKBOOKS

Holocaust Survivor Cookbook : Collected from Around the World.
TX724 .H65 2007

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Click to learn
a new Yiddish expression

Yiddish vignette by Estelle D. Abraham

A Word to the Wise

Hazard

This term evolved from the Arabic al zahr, which means "the dice". In Western Europe the term came to be associated with a number of games using dice, which were learned during the Crusades. The term eventually took on the connotation of danger because, from very early on, games using dice were associated with the risky business of gambling and con artists using corrupted dice.

BOOK REVIEW

A Day of Small Beginnings
by Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum

Reviewed by Jonathan Dobrer, author and authority on International Relations, Middle Eastern Politics, Comparative Religion and Islam.

I grew up in a literary family. My aunts and uncle were all writers and published many books and scholarly articles. I myself am a writer - with four published books to my credit (and maybe one to my shame). I have taught classes and conducted discussions for more than a decade centering on Jewish literature. This is not bragging but simply presenting my bona fides for asserting that A Day of Small Beginnings is one of the most compelling, literary and yet accessible novels I have read - Jewish or secular.
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AT THE LIBRARY

What's Cooking at the Library?

There is an old Jewish proverb that says, "Worries go down better with soup." Just one of countless examples of how food is intrinsic to Jewish culture and why it is not surprising that the Ostrow Library would have an extensive collection of Jewish cookbooks.

There are close to 350 different cookbooks, of which approximately 200 were formerly part of the Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles.  ... 
Also present is a wide array of cookbooks with American recipes that vary from coast to coast and celebrate the challenges and vicissitudes of Jewish cuisine: Shalom on the Range and The When You Live in Hawaii You Get Very Creative during Passover Cookbook.
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interview

One Author's Perspective

Gina Nahai is a best-selling author of four novels and professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. Her novels have been translated into 18 languages and have been selected as "One of the Best Books of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.
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