Luke Ford

Teresa Strasser writes:

There’s nothing more smug and insidious than a girl who has finally fallen in love and thinks she now has all the answers. She can save you from your sad, pathetic, damaged love life and cure you of your nasty man-repellant habits. No matter what condescending tip she’s giving you, it always drips with the self-satisfied knowledge that the spinster bullet she so artfully dodged is headed straight for you.

I hate that girl.

I can’t turn into her, and maybe that’s why I haven’t written for the past nine months, since I met and fell in love with the first man I’ve ever been sure about. When it finally happened, it felt much more like dumb luck than brilliant man maneuvering. More dice than poker. I can’t be gloating all the way to the altar because the fact is, I’m just a girl who left the house one Saturday night to have dinner with her girlfriends, saw a cute guy across the room and hit the jackpot.

The only magical insight I can share with you has to do with the leaving the house part. Even Eli Manning can’t throw a touchdown if he doesn’t break out of the huddle. That’s really all I can tell you for sure.

There’s always been a special place in my grudge greenhouse for those who peddle the idea that finding love is a skill that can be graphed, taught and sold. Books about love seem like a whole lot of mess to me, written largely by groovy grifters.

Teresa is the first female Jewish Journal singles columnist to get engaged.

From this week’s Jewish Journal:

Heroic parents, we salute you!
By Bruce Powell

Yes, you will get the "eye roll"; yes, you will get the "I don’t believe you are actually doing this to me"; yes, your teen might be upset.

But, in a private moment years hence, when reflecting on his or her teenage years, your child might say, "Well, yes, my parents embarrassed me at the time, but I certainly knew they cared about my well-being. My friends’ parents didn’t check up on them; they thought I was the lucky one."

L.A.’s Jewish high schools are all over the map
By Julie Gruenbaum Fax

In 1987, enrollment at the seven Jewish high schools in Los Angeles covered just 720 kids, about 100 of them in one non-Orthodox school, a predecessor to Milken.

Today, more than 2,600 teens attend 14 Jewish high schools in the Los Angeles area, with 1,000 students in two community schools. In addition to those in the Los Angeles area, a Chabad yeshiva in Long Beach has 55 students, and the trans-denominational Tarbut V’Torah in Irvine has 155 students.

More teens in Los Angeles are now enrolled in full-time Jewish education than in supplementary Jewish education.