A plan by the Chabad group to build a new school, condos, bathhouse and stores is one of several Westside and Valley projects meeting increasing resistance from neighbors, many of them fellow Jews.
By Tami Abdollah
December 7, 2008
On most weekdays, young boys in yarmulkes can be seen hanging out with friends in front of the new kosher Subway sandwich shop, while Orthodox women in modest dress stroll past Judaica stores and synagogues along Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles.
Dubbed the "Kosher District" by some planners, this roughly 12-block stretch near Robertson Boulevard has exploded in recent years with restaurants, shops and religious institutions aimed at serving the neighborhood's growing Jewish population.
But growth has also spurred tensions within the community.
Neighbors are threatening legal action against Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish outreach organization whose Hebrew acronym stands for wisdom, understanding and knowledge, over its proposal to construct a new girls school, condos, a ritual bathhouse and retail stores between Wetherly and Crest drives.
Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, the head of Chabad of California, said his group has been battling neighborhood opposition in one form or another across the region for the last 40 years. But these days much of the opposition comes from its own Jewish neighbors.
"Oy vey, oy vey, is what they say," said Cunin, describing neighborhood concerns with a common Yiddish expression. "That's the song."
Earlier this year, a Chabad preschool in Pacific Palisades was forced to move from its location at Temescal Gateway Park after complaints from neighbors and the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy.
In Brentwood, a Chabad house is being constructed on Bundy Drive off San Vicente Boulevard despite concerns in the residential neighborhood that it will ultimately be used as a house of worship, violating zoning regulations and inviting a constant stream of visitors.
A development project in Valley Village north of Studio City has met with stiff opposition from neighbors over the height of the project and inadequate parking. And on Pico Boulevardin West Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, another Jewish organization, has become embroiled in a dispute with its mostly Jewish neighbors over its expansion plans for the Museum of Tolerance, a Holocaust memorial.
All of the projects are in Westside or San Fernando Valley neighborhoods prone to overdevelopment, traffic and parking problems.
But Lorrie Stone, a Pico Boulevard neighborhood spokeswoman who lives near the latest proposed Chabad project, thinks enough is enough.
"It's like, give us a break, there's no public transportation here, there's no parking here, and now you just keep making it worse," Stone said. "None of us are opposed to Chabad . . . Chabad is a wonderful organization; they do unbelievable things. They just can't do it all right here."
For Cunin, plans for a massive residential and retail project on Pico Boulevard between Wetherly and Crest Drives represent a major part of his grand vision of Chabad facilities in West Los Angeles. The new development, which would include a new girls high school, would be built directly across the street from a recently completed elementary and middle school for girls.
The existing building is an imposing neo-Gothic brick structure and one reason why the design for its proposed sister building is more sleek and colorful. But Stone said the area is already overbuilt and that residents worry about inadequate parking for another large structure.
"It's too tall, it's too dense, and there aren't enough parking spots," she said. "They have to park somewhere, and we know they'll end up on our block, just like the other building."
City planners are reviewing the project. But Stone and other neighborhood representatives have voiced strong opposition to the development, which they say would threaten their quality of life.
"Maybe all of us who live on the Westside are feeling the same thing," Stone said. "We don't want just uncontrolled growth. We understand it has to grow; we understand things have to be developed but just not completely uncontrolled. And that's exactly what every single one of these fights is about."
On a recent weekday, dressed in a long black coat, white shirt and black skullcap, Cunin stood in a conference room in the Bais Chaya Mushka School, completed about four years ago, and spoke proudly of Chabad's accomplishments.
"We're not dreamers, we're doers," he said. "Look what we've done." He gestured at the new school building he stood in: three stories of sparkling hallways, airy classrooms, computer rooms with sleek flat-screens and a large gymnasium.
"You should have seen what . . . this building looked like before," Cunin said. "They were studying in closets . . . like broken down shanties."
The project site across the street is currently occupied by four nondescript buildings that once held a jewelry manufacturer, a Jewish boys high school and apartment buildings. One of the aging structures now provides classroom space for Chabad's girls school.
"We've tried very hard to keep up the building," said Rabbi Danny Yiftach, a school administrator. "It's like an old person. If you fix one thing, the next thing is wrong; if you fix another thing, another thing is wrong."
Plans for the new girls high school call for a 108,000-square-foot building on a parcel nearly one-fourth that size. The structure would stand 80 feet high -- almost twice the maximum 45-foot height allowed under current zoning -- with two levels of underground parking, with space for 71 vehicles instead of the required 168.
"There is no zoning in this city to accommodate an institution," said Ben Reznik, an attorney for Chabad who has worked many land-use cases on the Westside. "The zone does not allow enough building height. If we had to build this school within limits of what the zoning was, you would not have any art classes, computer classes; you'd be literally squishing kids into small rooms. It would be a qualitative disaster."
But Daniel Fink, a member of the neighborhood council's board, said the new building would push the neighborhood over the edge.
"It would just damage beyond repair the residential neighborhood immediately to the north," Fink said. "The law is very specific, and they want an exemption . . . My personal goal is to preserve the quality of residential life . . . because if we don't have nice places to live, the rest of it isn't worth it."
The South Robertson Neighborhoods Council has held several meetings on the proposed development. In an August meeting its board members voted unanimously against the project, but the city will make the final decision.
For now city planners are working on a draft environmental impact report. Once they finish, the public will have a 45-day comment period.
"We are just going to lie the process out," Cunin said. "It's America. There's hearings. There's this, there's that. We'll just go with the flow. We've hired the best engineers, the best traffic people; we've done everything the right way."
Abdollah is a Times staff writer.
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Monday, December 08, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Tehrangeles: Starbucks, Sushi and Chabad House
Starbucks, sushi, Chabad House. Starbucks, sushi, Chabad House. A little Spanish, a lot of Persian, some Hebrew. That’s what Kamran and I experienced when we visited LA last Spring.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Chabad Pushes Big Development in L.A.
Los Angeles — The ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement is famous for multitasking, with its religious services, schools and museums, but a new development in Los Angeles is taking Chabad in an unexpected direction: the commercial and residential real estate business.
Chabad of California is angling to build a massive, mixed-use development that would include a girl’s high school with its own dormitories, 32 residential condominiums, and seven retail shops, in the heart of the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood. The proposed complex — which is raising hackles amongst some neighborhood activists — would dwarf other existing buildings that line the pedestrian-friendly stretch of Pico Boulevard.
Hasidic sects are not new to the residential real estate business. The Satmars, for example, have long managed housing complexes in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. But Chabad has gotten into the act more recently.
The most glaring difference between the Satmar community — which has spread beyond the confines of Brooklyn and established itself in the Catskill village of Kiryas Joel — and Chabad is that Chabad is staking its claim within the urban confines.
“Unlike the Satmars, who want to escape the city,” said David Myers, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, “Chabad wants the menorah in the public square.”
Nomi Stolzenberg, a professor at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, said that the Chabad proposal is part of a wider trend that has taken hold across the country. Religious groups, she said, have become far more aggressive in recent years when it comes to real estate development. Passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 gave religious organizations greater latitude to sue local zoning authorities if their permits were denied, she explained.
“A lot of religious groups have really been emboldened to pursue development plans that formerly they would have not been likely to get through the zoning process,” Stolzenberg said. “The basic reason for that is because of pretty significant changes in the law, but the changes in the law also reflect changes in the broader political culture with regard to attitudes about the relationship between church and state.”
Whether Chabad gets its permit has yet to be determined. A cadre of local residents is incensed by the sheer size of the proposed project, which well exceeds what the zoning laws permit. Chabad is seeking variances on building height and density and on parking capacity.
“They want to build this monolith, this huge structure that is out of character with the neighborhood,” said Lorrie Stone, a physician who has lived right behind the proposed building site for some 30 years. “They want three times the density than what’s allowed on this little plot of land.”
Benjamin Reznik, a lawyer who has long represented Chabad in its real estate dealings, said that because the area is zoned for retail, Chabad has no choice but to ask for variances in order to build a school.
“If you look at the Pico-Robertson area as a whole,” Reznik said, “where should institutions go?”
It appears to be the first time that Chabad — the Hasidic movement that sends emissaries across the globe — has conceived an entire communal village. While Chabad’s missionary reach has expanded outward, with outposts in such far-flung locales as Katmandu, observers note that this represents the first time that Chabad has established such a large, visible presence in the heart of L.A.’s symbolic Jewish center.
The proposed development, which would occupy the block between Westerly Drive and Crest Drive, would replace four buildings that currently sit on the property. Chabad is hoping to erect a building that is roughly 108,000 square feet and rising five stories high, which would include two levels of belowground parking and 9,000 square feet dedicated to retail shops. A girls’ high school, which now has about 100 students, would be nearly quadrupled — Chabad is seeking an occupancy permit for up to 400 — and a 150-bed dormitory would be added to house the students.
According to Chaim Cunin, CEO of Chabad of California, the 32 residential condominiums are being built with an eye toward affordable housing. Chabad hopes to use the units for various residents — teachers, school administrators, senior citizens and Holocaust survivors — who otherwise couldn’t afford the pricey Pico-Robertson neighborhood.
“This is being planned with our senior citizen community in mind, and our Holocaust survivor community in mind, that otherwise might be all alone in their homes or apartments,” Cunin said.
The Pico-Robertson area has seen explosive growth in recent years, as the Modern Orthodox community has expanded and retail shops and restaurants have proliferated to meet their needs. As a result of the neighborhood’s rapid growth, reasonably priced housing there has become a scarce commodity.
Chabad also owns the block directly west of the proposed development site. In 2003, the organization erected a large brick building modeled after the one in Brooklyn where the Chabad rebbe lived until his death.
Chabad of California is angling to build a massive, mixed-use development that would include a girl’s high school with its own dormitories, 32 residential condominiums, and seven retail shops, in the heart of the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood. The proposed complex — which is raising hackles amongst some neighborhood activists — would dwarf other existing buildings that line the pedestrian-friendly stretch of Pico Boulevard.
Hasidic sects are not new to the residential real estate business. The Satmars, for example, have long managed housing complexes in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. But Chabad has gotten into the act more recently.
The most glaring difference between the Satmar community — which has spread beyond the confines of Brooklyn and established itself in the Catskill village of Kiryas Joel — and Chabad is that Chabad is staking its claim within the urban confines.
“Unlike the Satmars, who want to escape the city,” said David Myers, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, “Chabad wants the menorah in the public square.”
Nomi Stolzenberg, a professor at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, said that the Chabad proposal is part of a wider trend that has taken hold across the country. Religious groups, she said, have become far more aggressive in recent years when it comes to real estate development. Passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 gave religious organizations greater latitude to sue local zoning authorities if their permits were denied, she explained.
“A lot of religious groups have really been emboldened to pursue development plans that formerly they would have not been likely to get through the zoning process,” Stolzenberg said. “The basic reason for that is because of pretty significant changes in the law, but the changes in the law also reflect changes in the broader political culture with regard to attitudes about the relationship between church and state.”
Whether Chabad gets its permit has yet to be determined. A cadre of local residents is incensed by the sheer size of the proposed project, which well exceeds what the zoning laws permit. Chabad is seeking variances on building height and density and on parking capacity.
“They want to build this monolith, this huge structure that is out of character with the neighborhood,” said Lorrie Stone, a physician who has lived right behind the proposed building site for some 30 years. “They want three times the density than what’s allowed on this little plot of land.”
Benjamin Reznik, a lawyer who has long represented Chabad in its real estate dealings, said that because the area is zoned for retail, Chabad has no choice but to ask for variances in order to build a school.
“If you look at the Pico-Robertson area as a whole,” Reznik said, “where should institutions go?”
It appears to be the first time that Chabad — the Hasidic movement that sends emissaries across the globe — has conceived an entire communal village. While Chabad’s missionary reach has expanded outward, with outposts in such far-flung locales as Katmandu, observers note that this represents the first time that Chabad has established such a large, visible presence in the heart of L.A.’s symbolic Jewish center.
The proposed development, which would occupy the block between Westerly Drive and Crest Drive, would replace four buildings that currently sit on the property. Chabad is hoping to erect a building that is roughly 108,000 square feet and rising five stories high, which would include two levels of belowground parking and 9,000 square feet dedicated to retail shops. A girls’ high school, which now has about 100 students, would be nearly quadrupled — Chabad is seeking an occupancy permit for up to 400 — and a 150-bed dormitory would be added to house the students.
According to Chaim Cunin, CEO of Chabad of California, the 32 residential condominiums are being built with an eye toward affordable housing. Chabad hopes to use the units for various residents — teachers, school administrators, senior citizens and Holocaust survivors — who otherwise couldn’t afford the pricey Pico-Robertson neighborhood.
“This is being planned with our senior citizen community in mind, and our Holocaust survivor community in mind, that otherwise might be all alone in their homes or apartments,” Cunin said.
The Pico-Robertson area has seen explosive growth in recent years, as the Modern Orthodox community has expanded and retail shops and restaurants have proliferated to meet their needs. As a result of the neighborhood’s rapid growth, reasonably priced housing there has become a scarce commodity.
Chabad also owns the block directly west of the proposed development site. In 2003, the organization erected a large brick building modeled after the one in Brooklyn where the Chabad rebbe lived until his death.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Chabad to leave Temescal Canyon
Robert Garcia, executive director and counsel for The City Project, sent in a posting early this morning to our blog about the ongoing Chabad saga we mentioned last week and what happened at last night's emergency meeting.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Board voted 8-1, and the Advisory Board voted unanimously, to keep Tesmescal [sic] Gateway Park open for all. The Conservancy upheld the decision by the Executive Director and Staff not to renew a non-renewable lease for a private day-care center at the Park, denying the appeal by a private Palisades group. Several hundred people attended the hearing at the Park July 7, which went from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.
Sandy Cooney, the state resources agency's representative on the board, was the sole dissenting vote in favor of renewing the lease, according to those at the meeting. We haven't been able to reach him today to ask about his vote, but we'll update this post when we do. *(Update: We were able to reach him Wednesday. His comments are at the end of the post.) His boss, Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman, wrote that letter to Chabad at the behest of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It includes guidelines on how to deal with the conservancy and suggestions (that Chabad took into account) on how to formulate an appeal for an extended lease.
Addressing the board last night, Chabad attorney Benjamin Reznik asked its members to be flexible with Chabad and allow the group five months to get its paperwork in order, noting that the conservancy for years has used Chabad's money to help pay for park upkeep. Today, Reznik was pretty matter-of-fact on the phone about the final vote.
"This is a lot of to do about nothing quite frankly," Reznik said. "I guess they’ll be looking for an alternative site in the interim."
He also said that whatever happened with the new Los Liones site for the preschool (which has riled the Getty Villa and a local Mormon church) will likely be "more exciting" and a "more interesting case." Reznik and Chabad plan to file paperwork (a conditional use permit) next week to allow them to use the site for the preschool. Meanwhile, they also are drawing up road plans to submit to the city.
"The city is not accepting dedicated roads these days because of a shortage of funds in some areas," Reznik said. "We’re going to offer to pay for it. So we're going through that process, designing plans -- Chabad is in the process of doing all that."
Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston, who denied the lease extension last month, was "gratified" that the board decided to keep to its word and not renew the lease.
"The board last year said no extensions under any circumstances, and they should adhere to what they said before," Edmiston said today. "We're not in the private rental business. We're in the public park area. How about five more months? Nobody believes they can do what they need to get done in five months. They're not going to leave in January ...
"And frankly in January, I'm just going to say it, there's not a highway patrolman born who will come in and evict the Chabad kids, holding a Torah in one hand and holding onto Rabbi Cunin's frock coat with the other. It's never going to happen."
Rabbi Zushe Cunin, who heads Chabad of the Pacific Palisades, said the organization would not appeal again and sounded resigned to the decision.
"The board did what it did," Cunin said. "It’s unfortunate. Our requests were very minimal. We will live with their decision, and we will immediately be identifying any other locations as necessary because we anticipate there may be delays in our CUP process" beyond Sept. 4, when the school's fall term begins.
"It would have been heartwarming to feel a sensitive partnership," he continued. "But it was not in the cards."
*New comments below:
Cooney, who was the lone dissenting vote on the Board at Monday night's meeting, said he'd voted in favor of Chabad's appeal, but had not made up his mind on whether the lease should be renewed.
"The item on the agenda put into motion in the discussion, and ultimately voted on, which was to grant Chabad an appeal, in effect overturned Joe’s denial of the lease extension, but it did not convey a new lease," Cooney said. "What it did was set into motion a new process through which a new lease could be potentially be granted."
He said the overarching conversation on public access versus private interest was not the "issue on the table to be voted"; especially since the Conservancy had previously allowed a non-renewable lease to be extended.
"Obviously I was completely outnumbered by the entire board …" Cooney said. "In the end, out of fairness and listening to all sides and trying to be as absolutely objective as possible, I felt that we should have moved to the next step, which is grant the appeal, then we should consider the remainder of the agenda and whether or not we should take those steps that would move toward a new lease."
-- Tami Abdollah
Photo: Rabbi Zushe Cunin, at the preschool's current site, is at odds with Getty Villa, state parks, the Coastal Commission and a Pacific Palisades neighborhood association. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
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As an American and as a Jew whose parents survived the horrors of the Holocaust, I was in complete shock when I read Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston's quote to the Los Angeles Times: "I'm just going to say it, there's not a highway patrolman born who will come in and evict the Chabad kids, holding a Torah in one hand and holding onto Rabbi Cunin's frock coat with the other. It's never going to happen."
It's 2008. As a public official, if Edmiston were to make such comments about a priest or a mullah, he would and should be called to task and severely reprimanded. Does the fact that Edmiston is Jewish give him a green light to make sinister and racist comments about a rabbi? I don't think so.
There is no place in our community for intolerance and racism, even against your own people. Period.
Posted by: Norman Sweetzer | July 08, 2008 at 08:30 PM
We appreciate the Times continuing coverage of Temescal Gateway Park.
Jane Ulman covers the July 7 hearing in the Jewish Journal:
"The vote upheld the unequivocal denial by Conservancy executive director Joe Edmiston on June 12 to extend Chabad's lease. It also confirmed the decision of the Conservancy in April 2007 to stop leasing the public parkland to private entities -- including Chabad's Palisades Jewish Early Education Center and Little Dolphins Preschool -- and to increase public access to the park, especially for underprivileged youth from congested urban areas. . . .
"And while Chabad supporters stressed that the school is using less than half an acre in a 140-acre park, the Conservancy's Edmiston said that the park is predominately covered by chaparral, while Chabad's site, which includes three trailers and a fenced-in field, occupies one of only two flat, grassy spots in the park that can accommodate large groups of children. 'It's a zero-sum situation. If you have trailers there, you're not going to be able to have kids playing there,' he said.
Amy Lethbridge, in charge of education for the Conservancy, told the group that more experiential programs have been planned for the coming year, including additional contracts with Los Angeles Unified School District to bring out more kids.
'I need space to serve the very programs the park was purchased to serve,' she said."
Posted by: Robert Garcia | July 08, 2008 at 08:31 PM
The most interesting part of this whole affair is the fact that Joe Edmiston must have gone through a major charachter change. Is this the same person that put up two fake stop sign violation cameras on the road of the "all access" park that he so proudly refers to in the article? Is this the same Joe Edmiston that is denying a tiny area of the park to a small school for a few months while continuing his crooked fund raising efforts via collecting $100 at least 5,000 times (by last count)from unsuspecting motorists whom are traveling legally close to a stop sign on the only road of his "open" park?
Posted by: Gary Solomon | July 08, 2008 at 08:46 PM
Joe Edmiston should be removed for his anti-semitic outburst.
Posted by: Commentator | July 08, 2008 at 10:14 PM
There is no justification for personal attacks here.
A board member emphasized at the July 7 heating that everyone was respectful and avoided personal attacks throughout the three hour hearing. This was true regardless of how one felt on the merits -- whether the lease should be renewed for a non-park use, or whether the parks should be kept open for all.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board voted 8-1 against renewing the non-renewable lease. The Advisory Council voted unanimously against renewing the non-renewable lease. As discussed at length at the three hour hearing on July 7, the Palisades group promised not to seek renewal of the lease. What does that have to do with any individual?
Some children and adults did indeed speak about their experiences in the pre-school, including the religious, spiritual, and cultural aspects. Some children and adults spoke about their experience in hiking and playing in the park, including cultural aspects of being in the Palisades and coming from the inner city. The history of discriminatory access to parks and recreation in Los Angeles was explicitly. There have been no sinister, racist, or intolerant comments.
I suggest that people remain respectful and civil here.
Posted by: Robert Garcia | July 08, 2008 at 10:27 PM
I'm sorry but Joe Edmiston and his remarks are no different than Rev. Wright, only Edmiston is paid for by California taxpayers. How sad and shameful. I am sick to my stomach. Edmiston should publicly apologize and then he should resign.
Posted by: Jennifer Malsat | July 08, 2008 at 11:22 PM
In my view Mr. Garcia is being disingenuous. In my view it was clear at the Board meeting that many participants from the inner-city "anti" coalition were misled into believing that the issue was a permanent privatization, rather than a short temporary lease extension. Further, if they had taken the trouble to read Chabad's appeal, one of the conditions Chabad stipulated was that the meadow surrounding the temporary site was to be released from any restrictions that interfered with public use. It was falsely represented that access to this meadow, a key flat area, would be unavailable to the public.
In this writers opinion what we saw was a naked political power play by a largely Latino non-mainstream coalition that was economical with the truth to achieve their objectives, and cynically used little children in pursuit of those objectives. The experience provided a valuable lesson on the political tactics of the left.
The Board, despite that, decided on the merits to deny Chabad's appeal on grounds that it did not comply with the SMMC Act, rather than on any political grounds. To their credit they were dispassionate, listened to all points of view with attention, and then voted based on the law.
Posted by: Commentator | July 08, 2008 at 11:31 PM
i agree. edmiston and his outrageous remarks must be rejected and cannot be tolerated. it's a dangerous and slippery-slope when public officials engage in divisive rhetoric and religious intolerance. the entire community must stand united when it comes to combating hatred and divisiveness.
Posted by: marco binecca | July 08, 2008 at 11:46 PM
Joe Edmiston has secured his bully pulpit over the last 25 years without ever having to face a public election. His actions are directly responsible for the recent fires that burnt in the canyons of Malibu which left so many good citizens in disarray. Talk about "zero sum", his bully tactics, and secured position make Joe more of a mafia man then a honest public servant.
Joe Edmiston has a badge and gun, his own police force, direct control of hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds and lands. He serves at the pleasure of a Board of Directors, also unelected. He is not accountable to the public who pays his salary.
People with such power should be required to be elected. They should be required to answer to the public for the actions that they take.
Preserving open space is important but education to children should take priority. And if they need a bit more time to move into their new location, is there not enough public outdoor space to fill the need in the interim? Shame on you Joe.
Steve P. Weiner
Malibu, CA
Posted by: Steve Weiner | July 08, 2008 at 11:55 PM
This is the same Robert Garcia who appeared at the Malibu City Council meeting to support Edmiston in his quest to force overnight camping into our box canyons and parks where fire to cook would be allowed. The residents, in fear for their lives and homes with three fires last year to cope with, were incensed. I guess Garcia and Edmiston are BFFs and so where Edmiston goes, Garcia goes to do his Hispandering. Sounds incestuous to me. It should be investigated.
Posted by: Susan Tellem | July 09, 2008 at 08:34 AM
Joe Edmiston and Robert Garcia teaming up, that is eco-terrorism in my opinion. Garcia uses a lot of jumbled jargon to inflame his "peers" and garner public attention, Edmiston uses public funds to boost his own ego. Both need to go, neither of them are worth the paper they push to gain power.
This statement by Commentator in response to Garcia's mumbling puts it all in perspective, Garcia USES poor kids to push his agenda and tries to say he does it for poor people.
"In this writers opinion what we saw was a naked political power play by a largely Latino non-mainstream coalition that was economical with the truth to achieve their objectives, and cynically used little children in pursuit of those objectives. The experience provided a valuable lesson on the political tactics of the left."
Posted by: marko peer | July 09, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Where does Chabad get the money for all this real estate, just from the telethons? Seems like they have a site in every community in the united states with a population of 5,000 or more.
Fires in the canyons. Good jobs Garcia and Edmiston. You two are rocket scientists.
Shame on you, Edmiston -- torah and coattails. Shame on you, previous commenter, for wrapping yourself in the holocaust. Shame on you, Chabad, for not sticking to the strip malls.
Posted by: Uncle Billy Went to Washington | July 09, 2008 at 09:29 AM
Joe Edmiston has always treated his post like a throne and the park like his personal property. He is callous, and in the view of many who know him in the environmental community, he is a bourgeois elitist. And aren't we suffering from a lack of schools and school sites to begin with?? How exactly is this helping that situation or moreover, how is it benefiting the site? He most certainly should be removed for his anti-semitic outburst, or at least flogged in the parking lot of the school he is evicting.
Posted by: R. Mills | July 09, 2008 at 09:39 AM
Where does Chabad get the money? From many thousands of contributors, large and small, in every community where they are located, over the entire year, not just at Telethon time, In addition, the Chabad non-sectarian programs receive Federal, State and local funding, and are scrutinized closely and regularly by those agencies to insure compliance with both the U.S. and California Constitutions, and associated licensing, certification, and other regulations. Chabad of California is audited by an independent CPA firm; in fact many of its grants require such an audit.
But the question is a red herring with, it seems to me, unworthy implications.. This discussion isn't about sources of 501(c)(3) charitable funds overseen by the IRS and other regulatory agencies. The IRS code is both explicit and strict. Instead the discussion is about the hearing on the Temescal Gateway Park.
In fact, the question of Chabad funding was raised as a red-herring argument by those leftists at the meeting attempting to create a straw man of "rich" Chabad vs. the poor children of the inner city. In fact the "anti" coalition is perfectly free to appeal for charitable funds to the mainstream Latino and broader mainstream community if they are a legal tax-exempt organisation. If they have not been more sucessful that is certainly not the fault of Chabad's contributors, but rather evidence of lack of support by the mainstream communities.
Posted by: Commentator | July 09, 2008 at 09:53 AM
What most people don't know is that Joe's wife runs a little camp of her own called Happy Trails (yep, stole it from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, it is not affiliated with that organization or foundation in the least). It is the ONLY link on the website for Joe's little fiefdom and purports to provide camping opportunities for underprivileged children. I find it highly suspicious that taxpayer funds are used to provide promotions for a spouse's boutique efforts and thereby garnering even more of the tax base for the Edmiston household to feed off of. Remove special favors and non-bid contract awards to spouses, but also clean house by removing Edmiston himself so that we don't find favors being gifted to any other "groups" such as the City Project. The hungry foxes have definitely gotten into the chicken coop, time for us Farmers to hike up the suspenders and load the shotguns to clean our land of the marauding varmits feasting on our efforts.
Posted by: Smokey Joe Needs to Be Put Out | July 09, 2008 at 11:40 AM
Forget everything I wrote above, I just realized that I am an idiot.
Posted by: Jennifer Malsat | July 09, 2008 at 10:52 PM
I apologize for my ridiculous remarks which were posted earlier. I have a very low income and haven't accomplished anywhere near the amount of things Joe has in his lifetime, so once again I am sorry and I am way out of line.
Posted by: marco binecca | July 09, 2008 at 10:59 PM
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Board voted 8-1, and the Advisory Board voted unanimously, to keep Tesmescal [sic] Gateway Park open for all. The Conservancy upheld the decision by the Executive Director and Staff not to renew a non-renewable lease for a private day-care center at the Park, denying the appeal by a private Palisades group. Several hundred people attended the hearing at the Park July 7, which went from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.
Sandy Cooney, the state resources agency's representative on the board, was the sole dissenting vote in favor of renewing the lease, according to those at the meeting. We haven't been able to reach him today to ask about his vote, but we'll update this post when we do. *(Update: We were able to reach him Wednesday. His comments are at the end of the post.) His boss, Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman, wrote that letter to Chabad at the behest of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It includes guidelines on how to deal with the conservancy and suggestions (that Chabad took into account) on how to formulate an appeal for an extended lease.
Addressing the board last night, Chabad attorney Benjamin Reznik asked its members to be flexible with Chabad and allow the group five months to get its paperwork in order, noting that the conservancy for years has used Chabad's money to help pay for park upkeep. Today, Reznik was pretty matter-of-fact on the phone about the final vote.
"This is a lot of to do about nothing quite frankly," Reznik said. "I guess they’ll be looking for an alternative site in the interim."
He also said that whatever happened with the new Los Liones site for the preschool (which has riled the Getty Villa and a local Mormon church) will likely be "more exciting" and a "more interesting case." Reznik and Chabad plan to file paperwork (a conditional use permit) next week to allow them to use the site for the preschool. Meanwhile, they also are drawing up road plans to submit to the city.
"The city is not accepting dedicated roads these days because of a shortage of funds in some areas," Reznik said. "We’re going to offer to pay for it. So we're going through that process, designing plans -- Chabad is in the process of doing all that."
Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston, who denied the lease extension last month, was "gratified" that the board decided to keep to its word and not renew the lease.
"The board last year said no extensions under any circumstances, and they should adhere to what they said before," Edmiston said today. "We're not in the private rental business. We're in the public park area. How about five more months? Nobody believes they can do what they need to get done in five months. They're not going to leave in January ...
"And frankly in January, I'm just going to say it, there's not a highway patrolman born who will come in and evict the Chabad kids, holding a Torah in one hand and holding onto Rabbi Cunin's frock coat with the other. It's never going to happen."
Rabbi Zushe Cunin, who heads Chabad of the Pacific Palisades, said the organization would not appeal again and sounded resigned to the decision.
"The board did what it did," Cunin said. "It’s unfortunate. Our requests were very minimal. We will live with their decision, and we will immediately be identifying any other locations as necessary because we anticipate there may be delays in our CUP process" beyond Sept. 4, when the school's fall term begins.
"It would have been heartwarming to feel a sensitive partnership," he continued. "But it was not in the cards."
*New comments below:
Cooney, who was the lone dissenting vote on the Board at Monday night's meeting, said he'd voted in favor of Chabad's appeal, but had not made up his mind on whether the lease should be renewed.
"The item on the agenda put into motion in the discussion, and ultimately voted on, which was to grant Chabad an appeal, in effect overturned Joe’s denial of the lease extension, but it did not convey a new lease," Cooney said. "What it did was set into motion a new process through which a new lease could be potentially be granted."
He said the overarching conversation on public access versus private interest was not the "issue on the table to be voted"; especially since the Conservancy had previously allowed a non-renewable lease to be extended.
"Obviously I was completely outnumbered by the entire board …" Cooney said. "In the end, out of fairness and listening to all sides and trying to be as absolutely objective as possible, I felt that we should have moved to the next step, which is grant the appeal, then we should consider the remainder of the agenda and whether or not we should take those steps that would move toward a new lease."
-- Tami Abdollah
Photo: Rabbi Zushe Cunin, at the preschool's current site, is at odds with Getty Villa, state parks, the Coastal Commission and a Pacific Palisades neighborhood association. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
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As an American and as a Jew whose parents survived the horrors of the Holocaust, I was in complete shock when I read Conservancy Executive Director Joe Edmiston's quote to the Los Angeles Times: "I'm just going to say it, there's not a highway patrolman born who will come in and evict the Chabad kids, holding a Torah in one hand and holding onto Rabbi Cunin's frock coat with the other. It's never going to happen."
It's 2008. As a public official, if Edmiston were to make such comments about a priest or a mullah, he would and should be called to task and severely reprimanded. Does the fact that Edmiston is Jewish give him a green light to make sinister and racist comments about a rabbi? I don't think so.
There is no place in our community for intolerance and racism, even against your own people. Period.
Posted by: Norman Sweetzer | July 08, 2008 at 08:30 PM
We appreciate the Times continuing coverage of Temescal Gateway Park.
Jane Ulman covers the July 7 hearing in the Jewish Journal:
"The vote upheld the unequivocal denial by Conservancy executive director Joe Edmiston on June 12 to extend Chabad's lease. It also confirmed the decision of the Conservancy in April 2007 to stop leasing the public parkland to private entities -- including Chabad's Palisades Jewish Early Education Center and Little Dolphins Preschool -- and to increase public access to the park, especially for underprivileged youth from congested urban areas. . . .
"And while Chabad supporters stressed that the school is using less than half an acre in a 140-acre park, the Conservancy's Edmiston said that the park is predominately covered by chaparral, while Chabad's site, which includes three trailers and a fenced-in field, occupies one of only two flat, grassy spots in the park that can accommodate large groups of children. 'It's a zero-sum situation. If you have trailers there, you're not going to be able to have kids playing there,' he said.
Amy Lethbridge, in charge of education for the Conservancy, told the group that more experiential programs have been planned for the coming year, including additional contracts with Los Angeles Unified School District to bring out more kids.
'I need space to serve the very programs the park was purchased to serve,' she said."
Posted by: Robert Garcia | July 08, 2008 at 08:31 PM
The most interesting part of this whole affair is the fact that Joe Edmiston must have gone through a major charachter change. Is this the same person that put up two fake stop sign violation cameras on the road of the "all access" park that he so proudly refers to in the article? Is this the same Joe Edmiston that is denying a tiny area of the park to a small school for a few months while continuing his crooked fund raising efforts via collecting $100 at least 5,000 times (by last count)from unsuspecting motorists whom are traveling legally close to a stop sign on the only road of his "open" park?
Posted by: Gary Solomon | July 08, 2008 at 08:46 PM
Joe Edmiston should be removed for his anti-semitic outburst.
Posted by: Commentator | July 08, 2008 at 10:14 PM
There is no justification for personal attacks here.
A board member emphasized at the July 7 heating that everyone was respectful and avoided personal attacks throughout the three hour hearing. This was true regardless of how one felt on the merits -- whether the lease should be renewed for a non-park use, or whether the parks should be kept open for all.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board voted 8-1 against renewing the non-renewable lease. The Advisory Council voted unanimously against renewing the non-renewable lease. As discussed at length at the three hour hearing on July 7, the Palisades group promised not to seek renewal of the lease. What does that have to do with any individual?
Some children and adults did indeed speak about their experiences in the pre-school, including the religious, spiritual, and cultural aspects. Some children and adults spoke about their experience in hiking and playing in the park, including cultural aspects of being in the Palisades and coming from the inner city. The history of discriminatory access to parks and recreation in Los Angeles was explicitly. There have been no sinister, racist, or intolerant comments.
I suggest that people remain respectful and civil here.
Posted by: Robert Garcia | July 08, 2008 at 10:27 PM
I'm sorry but Joe Edmiston and his remarks are no different than Rev. Wright, only Edmiston is paid for by California taxpayers. How sad and shameful. I am sick to my stomach. Edmiston should publicly apologize and then he should resign.
Posted by: Jennifer Malsat | July 08, 2008 at 11:22 PM
In my view Mr. Garcia is being disingenuous. In my view it was clear at the Board meeting that many participants from the inner-city "anti" coalition were misled into believing that the issue was a permanent privatization, rather than a short temporary lease extension. Further, if they had taken the trouble to read Chabad's appeal, one of the conditions Chabad stipulated was that the meadow surrounding the temporary site was to be released from any restrictions that interfered with public use. It was falsely represented that access to this meadow, a key flat area, would be unavailable to the public.
In this writers opinion what we saw was a naked political power play by a largely Latino non-mainstream coalition that was economical with the truth to achieve their objectives, and cynically used little children in pursuit of those objectives. The experience provided a valuable lesson on the political tactics of the left.
The Board, despite that, decided on the merits to deny Chabad's appeal on grounds that it did not comply with the SMMC Act, rather than on any political grounds. To their credit they were dispassionate, listened to all points of view with attention, and then voted based on the law.
Posted by: Commentator | July 08, 2008 at 11:31 PM
i agree. edmiston and his outrageous remarks must be rejected and cannot be tolerated. it's a dangerous and slippery-slope when public officials engage in divisive rhetoric and religious intolerance. the entire community must stand united when it comes to combating hatred and divisiveness.
Posted by: marco binecca | July 08, 2008 at 11:46 PM
Joe Edmiston has secured his bully pulpit over the last 25 years without ever having to face a public election. His actions are directly responsible for the recent fires that burnt in the canyons of Malibu which left so many good citizens in disarray. Talk about "zero sum", his bully tactics, and secured position make Joe more of a mafia man then a honest public servant.
Joe Edmiston has a badge and gun, his own police force, direct control of hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds and lands. He serves at the pleasure of a Board of Directors, also unelected. He is not accountable to the public who pays his salary.
People with such power should be required to be elected. They should be required to answer to the public for the actions that they take.
Preserving open space is important but education to children should take priority. And if they need a bit more time to move into their new location, is there not enough public outdoor space to fill the need in the interim? Shame on you Joe.
Steve P. Weiner
Malibu, CA
Posted by: Steve Weiner | July 08, 2008 at 11:55 PM
This is the same Robert Garcia who appeared at the Malibu City Council meeting to support Edmiston in his quest to force overnight camping into our box canyons and parks where fire to cook would be allowed. The residents, in fear for their lives and homes with three fires last year to cope with, were incensed. I guess Garcia and Edmiston are BFFs and so where Edmiston goes, Garcia goes to do his Hispandering. Sounds incestuous to me. It should be investigated.
Posted by: Susan Tellem | July 09, 2008 at 08:34 AM
Joe Edmiston and Robert Garcia teaming up, that is eco-terrorism in my opinion. Garcia uses a lot of jumbled jargon to inflame his "peers" and garner public attention, Edmiston uses public funds to boost his own ego. Both need to go, neither of them are worth the paper they push to gain power.
This statement by Commentator in response to Garcia's mumbling puts it all in perspective, Garcia USES poor kids to push his agenda and tries to say he does it for poor people.
"In this writers opinion what we saw was a naked political power play by a largely Latino non-mainstream coalition that was economical with the truth to achieve their objectives, and cynically used little children in pursuit of those objectives. The experience provided a valuable lesson on the political tactics of the left."
Posted by: marko peer | July 09, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Where does Chabad get the money for all this real estate, just from the telethons? Seems like they have a site in every community in the united states with a population of 5,000 or more.
Fires in the canyons. Good jobs Garcia and Edmiston. You two are rocket scientists.
Shame on you, Edmiston -- torah and coattails. Shame on you, previous commenter, for wrapping yourself in the holocaust. Shame on you, Chabad, for not sticking to the strip malls.
Posted by: Uncle Billy Went to Washington | July 09, 2008 at 09:29 AM
Joe Edmiston has always treated his post like a throne and the park like his personal property. He is callous, and in the view of many who know him in the environmental community, he is a bourgeois elitist. And aren't we suffering from a lack of schools and school sites to begin with?? How exactly is this helping that situation or moreover, how is it benefiting the site? He most certainly should be removed for his anti-semitic outburst, or at least flogged in the parking lot of the school he is evicting.
Posted by: R. Mills | July 09, 2008 at 09:39 AM
Where does Chabad get the money? From many thousands of contributors, large and small, in every community where they are located, over the entire year, not just at Telethon time, In addition, the Chabad non-sectarian programs receive Federal, State and local funding, and are scrutinized closely and regularly by those agencies to insure compliance with both the U.S. and California Constitutions, and associated licensing, certification, and other regulations. Chabad of California is audited by an independent CPA firm; in fact many of its grants require such an audit.
But the question is a red herring with, it seems to me, unworthy implications.. This discussion isn't about sources of 501(c)(3) charitable funds overseen by the IRS and other regulatory agencies. The IRS code is both explicit and strict. Instead the discussion is about the hearing on the Temescal Gateway Park.
In fact, the question of Chabad funding was raised as a red-herring argument by those leftists at the meeting attempting to create a straw man of "rich" Chabad vs. the poor children of the inner city. In fact the "anti" coalition is perfectly free to appeal for charitable funds to the mainstream Latino and broader mainstream community if they are a legal tax-exempt organisation. If they have not been more sucessful that is certainly not the fault of Chabad's contributors, but rather evidence of lack of support by the mainstream communities.
Posted by: Commentator | July 09, 2008 at 09:53 AM
What most people don't know is that Joe's wife runs a little camp of her own called Happy Trails (yep, stole it from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, it is not affiliated with that organization or foundation in the least). It is the ONLY link on the website for Joe's little fiefdom and purports to provide camping opportunities for underprivileged children. I find it highly suspicious that taxpayer funds are used to provide promotions for a spouse's boutique efforts and thereby garnering even more of the tax base for the Edmiston household to feed off of. Remove special favors and non-bid contract awards to spouses, but also clean house by removing Edmiston himself so that we don't find favors being gifted to any other "groups" such as the City Project. The hungry foxes have definitely gotten into the chicken coop, time for us Farmers to hike up the suspenders and load the shotguns to clean our land of the marauding varmits feasting on our efforts.
Posted by: Smokey Joe Needs to Be Put Out | July 09, 2008 at 11:40 AM
Forget everything I wrote above, I just realized that I am an idiot.
Posted by: Jennifer Malsat | July 09, 2008 at 10:52 PM
I apologize for my ridiculous remarks which were posted earlier. I have a very low income and haven't accomplished anywhere near the amount of things Joe has in his lifetime, so once again I am sorry and I am way out of line.
Posted by: marco binecca | July 09, 2008 at 10:59 PM
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Angels in the hood
By David Suissa
We've all seen these great organizations that help the needy and the hungry. We've been to their annual galas in Beverly Hills hotels, and we've applauded their celebrity endorsers and prominent honorees.
In the Jewish Orthodox world, we're familiar with of organizations like Tomchei Shabbat, a highly professional operation that distributes free Shabbat food to observant families. If you ever take your kids to their La Brea warehouse on any Thursday, you will see a distribution efficiency that rivals that of Wal-Mart.
So yes, there are all those great, big successful charity organizations. And then there is a married couple named Yaelle and Nouriel Cohen.
You won't find them on the society pages of the Los Angeles Times, receiving an award, or at a luncheon at the Luxe hotel, raising money for their cause. You're more likely to find them shlepping around town, gathering leftover food from weddings, bar mitzvahs, and kosher restaurants, and bringing it to their little house in Pico-Robertson to help the needy families of the hood.
It might surprise you, but there are more than a few families in the hood that have a hard time putting food on their tables. Yaelle and Nouriel estimate that they regularly help feed -- very discretely -- about 65 families in the neighborhood.
Discretion is a given in the Cohen chesed machine. Everyone is in on it, even their six children. No last names are ever used, and recipients usually stay in their cars while the kids bring them their food boxes.
Yaelle has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to answer the knock of a needy mother too ashamed to come while there is daylight. But not every recipient needs discretion.
The other day, Nouriel and his children took a haggard, grimy homeless Jew home with them on their way back from synagogue, much to the consternation of some people watching. When he got to their home, the man washed and got a fresh white shirt, and took a long nap before eating. The man has been coming back ever since, and often sleeps in their front yard.
The Cohens do more than give food. If you have clothes or furniture or anything of value that you want to donate, chances are they'll find a recipient. Their phones never stop ringing.
Ever since I moved to this neighborhood, I have been hearing about Yaelle and her family, usually from supermoms humbled by her selflessness. But nobody could tell me about the depth of the Cohens' motivation.
This I got when Yaelle, a sweet-looking, olive-skinned Moroccan Jew from Montreal, and her husband, a gentle Persian chasid, served me Moroccan tea on a recent Sunday night. A lot of the facts are known: They were living a comfortable life in Beverly Hills, thanks to a thriving beauty supply business.
Eventually, the business went south and they had to sell their house. To this day, they still struggle to pay their bills, and there's little doubt that this daily struggle has helped them connect with the pain of others.
But there's more to this story. Many years ago the doctors informed Yaelle and Nouriel that one of their daughters urgently needed a major liver operation. They agonized, and before doing anything, they decided to take their daughter to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe and get a personal blessing.
As they quietly recall the story, their lightheartedness is gone, their tone has sobered up. It's almost as if they are reluctant to tell me what happened -- their daughter miraculously healed, to the shock of the doctors -- for fear that no one will believe it. But my interest is in their motivation, and here, one thing is clear from looking at them: their limitless gratitude for the recovery of their daughter animates everything they do. This selfless love for others is one of the ways they say thank you to God.
In the end, though, does it really matter why they do what they do? For the father of four who called last week at 5 p.m. to say that he had no dinner for his children, it didn't matter why Yaelle immediately got on the phone with Jeff's Gourmet restaurant to get a full meal donated and delivered to that man's family. What mattered was that his family ate.
Still, I do marvel at how they do what they do. The Cohens have no mission statements or spreadsheets or strategic plans. Their business model is not old school, it's ancient school: Gather with your own hands from those who want to give, and give with your own hands to those who need.
Their marketing is from the Kevin Costner movie, "Field of Dreams": Build it and they will come. No press releases, no ads, no dinners. If the business plan is food to mouth, the marketing plan is word of mouth. Here in Pico-Robertson, quietly, discretely, the word has gotten out over the years that there are neighborhood angels named Yaelle and Nouriel who will do whatever it takes to bail you out, should you ever need it.
Can any organization do this kind of personal, hand-to-hand charity? I doubt it. Professional organizations do a lot of wonderful things at many levels of the community. But, inevitably, things and people will fall through the cracks. Some people don't know how to ask, others are too ashamed to ask. A caring neighbor with an ear to the ground is often in the best position -- literally -- to come to the rescue, with the only red tape being the one that wraps the food boxes.
It makes you wonder: How many Yaelle and Nouriel Cohens have come to the rescue of fellow Jews over our history? We hear a lot about the King Davids and the Queen Esthers, but could we really have survived as a people without the quiet angels of chesed that have graced Jewish neighborhoods since time immemorial? Thanks to people like Yaelle and Nouriel Cohen, we don't have to answer that question.
David Suissa, an advertising executive, is the founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.
We've all seen these great organizations that help the needy and the hungry. We've been to their annual galas in Beverly Hills hotels, and we've applauded their celebrity endorsers and prominent honorees.
In the Jewish Orthodox world, we're familiar with of organizations like Tomchei Shabbat, a highly professional operation that distributes free Shabbat food to observant families. If you ever take your kids to their La Brea warehouse on any Thursday, you will see a distribution efficiency that rivals that of Wal-Mart.
So yes, there are all those great, big successful charity organizations. And then there is a married couple named Yaelle and Nouriel Cohen.
You won't find them on the society pages of the Los Angeles Times, receiving an award, or at a luncheon at the Luxe hotel, raising money for their cause. You're more likely to find them shlepping around town, gathering leftover food from weddings, bar mitzvahs, and kosher restaurants, and bringing it to their little house in Pico-Robertson to help the needy families of the hood.
It might surprise you, but there are more than a few families in the hood that have a hard time putting food on their tables. Yaelle and Nouriel estimate that they regularly help feed -- very discretely -- about 65 families in the neighborhood.
Discretion is a given in the Cohen chesed machine. Everyone is in on it, even their six children. No last names are ever used, and recipients usually stay in their cars while the kids bring them their food boxes.
Yaelle has been known to wake up in the middle of the night to answer the knock of a needy mother too ashamed to come while there is daylight. But not every recipient needs discretion.
The other day, Nouriel and his children took a haggard, grimy homeless Jew home with them on their way back from synagogue, much to the consternation of some people watching. When he got to their home, the man washed and got a fresh white shirt, and took a long nap before eating. The man has been coming back ever since, and often sleeps in their front yard.
The Cohens do more than give food. If you have clothes or furniture or anything of value that you want to donate, chances are they'll find a recipient. Their phones never stop ringing.
Ever since I moved to this neighborhood, I have been hearing about Yaelle and her family, usually from supermoms humbled by her selflessness. But nobody could tell me about the depth of the Cohens' motivation.
This I got when Yaelle, a sweet-looking, olive-skinned Moroccan Jew from Montreal, and her husband, a gentle Persian chasid, served me Moroccan tea on a recent Sunday night. A lot of the facts are known: They were living a comfortable life in Beverly Hills, thanks to a thriving beauty supply business.
Eventually, the business went south and they had to sell their house. To this day, they still struggle to pay their bills, and there's little doubt that this daily struggle has helped them connect with the pain of others.
But there's more to this story. Many years ago the doctors informed Yaelle and Nouriel that one of their daughters urgently needed a major liver operation. They agonized, and before doing anything, they decided to take their daughter to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe and get a personal blessing.
As they quietly recall the story, their lightheartedness is gone, their tone has sobered up. It's almost as if they are reluctant to tell me what happened -- their daughter miraculously healed, to the shock of the doctors -- for fear that no one will believe it. But my interest is in their motivation, and here, one thing is clear from looking at them: their limitless gratitude for the recovery of their daughter animates everything they do. This selfless love for others is one of the ways they say thank you to God.
In the end, though, does it really matter why they do what they do? For the father of four who called last week at 5 p.m. to say that he had no dinner for his children, it didn't matter why Yaelle immediately got on the phone with Jeff's Gourmet restaurant to get a full meal donated and delivered to that man's family. What mattered was that his family ate.
Still, I do marvel at how they do what they do. The Cohens have no mission statements or spreadsheets or strategic plans. Their business model is not old school, it's ancient school: Gather with your own hands from those who want to give, and give with your own hands to those who need.
Their marketing is from the Kevin Costner movie, "Field of Dreams": Build it and they will come. No press releases, no ads, no dinners. If the business plan is food to mouth, the marketing plan is word of mouth. Here in Pico-Robertson, quietly, discretely, the word has gotten out over the years that there are neighborhood angels named Yaelle and Nouriel who will do whatever it takes to bail you out, should you ever need it.
Can any organization do this kind of personal, hand-to-hand charity? I doubt it. Professional organizations do a lot of wonderful things at many levels of the community. But, inevitably, things and people will fall through the cracks. Some people don't know how to ask, others are too ashamed to ask. A caring neighbor with an ear to the ground is often in the best position -- literally -- to come to the rescue, with the only red tape being the one that wraps the food boxes.
It makes you wonder: How many Yaelle and Nouriel Cohens have come to the rescue of fellow Jews over our history? We hear a lot about the King Davids and the Queen Esthers, but could we really have survived as a people without the quiet angels of chesed that have graced Jewish neighborhoods since time immemorial? Thanks to people like Yaelle and Nouriel Cohen, we don't have to answer that question.
David Suissa, an advertising executive, is the founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.
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