For those theatergoers who attended the opening of ‘Agamemnon’ at the Getty Villa last week, and couldn’t hear ‘the news’ because of the disruptive music blaring from the surrounding neighborhood, Tr d the unfaithfulness of his wife Clytemnestra during his absence”but foreshadows the tragic events to come. The power of this play resides in the inexorable force of Fate, which the chorus suggests is not absolute. Fate confronts man with a choice, and if man chooses wrongly, the sin is his. A little history refreshes our memory and serves us well in enjoying the action that ensues. Agamemnon inherited the throne of Argos and, with it, the curse that had settled on the family (his father, Atreus, slaughtered his brother’s sons and got away with murder, but the debts were not forgotten). Agamemnon goes to war to avenge the seduction of Helen, but must appease the anger of the virgin goddess Artemis by sacrificing his virgin daughter Iphigenia. The action, simple and direct, opens in Argos a few hours after the capture of Troy and reaches its climax with the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra. Director Stephen Wadsworth, in collaboration with Robert Falges’ clear and precise translation, allows the play to proceed along a clear trajectory, with nuance and color provided by the chorus. Working with a simple, uncluttered set’a rampart atop a fa’ade proscenium, a box and a chariot, Wadsworth encourages the audience to attend t nestra is the most powerful figure in the Oresteia trilogy, appearing in all three plays. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and twin sister to Helen. A complex character, Clytemnestra rejoices in her husband’s return, praising his success while sewing her tapestry of loyalty and faithfulness with the threads of deception. Actor Tyne Daly manages to convey a complexity of emotions, from the rage against her husband that has smoldered over the years, to realizing her own power and insistence on being taken seriously as a woman. Daly’s performance commands increasing intensity as she deftly fulfils her fateful mission. Agamemnon’s character is clearer. Known as ‘every inch a king,’ he nevertheless has shown deep-rooted weakness of will and lack of confidence in his own authority’an unfortunate trait when mated, by fate, with Clytemnestra. Actor Delroy Lindo certainly looks the part of the king, but alas, he lacks mastery of the tools of classical theater. Perhaps he was suffering from bronchitis opening night, but his voice remained uni-dimensional and his diction muddy. Ancient audiences, who sat at some distance from the action on stage and who had to decipher the narrative delivered by actors behind masks, relied on clear diction, projection and few voices on stage. These skills are as important today as in the 5th century. It seems that Aeschylus also employed silence for dramatic effect. And this is exemplified most by the role of Cassandra, the prophetess who is brought to Argos as a trophy of war. At first, in the Agamemnon-Clytemnestra confrontation, her first appearance on stage, Cassandra does not say a word. Nor does she again in the next scene, when Clytemnestra attempts to speak with her one-on-one. When she finally speaks in the most riveting scene, Cassandra (Francesca Faridany), possessed by Apollo, whom she rebuffed and thus was condemned to be disbelieved, unsheathes the blood passion that has smoldered in the play from the start. Blood that will be revenged in the second part of the trilogy (‘The Choephori’), when Agamemnon’s son will be obliged to avenge his father’s murder. ’Agamemnon’ plays at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through September 27. For tickets ($38-$32), call 310- 440-7300 or visit www.getty.edu.
Baked ‘Alaskan’
Former Palisadian Writes about Alaska from His Desert Home
Alaska has been in the collective consciousness often of late. Between ‘Men in Trees,’ ’30 Days of Night,’ and a much-discussed GOP running mate you may have heard about over the past couple weeks, the Last Frontier is everywhere. On Thursday, September 18, former Palisadian Tanyo Ravicz, a champion of Alaskan-set literature, returns to town to sign his latest collection of short stories, ‘Alaskans,’ at Village Books. ‘There is a great mystique to Alaska,’ the 1979 Palisades High graduate tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘You’re closer to a lot of archetypes. The size of the place, the scope of the place, it isn’t just more land. It’s not just quantity, it’s qualitatively different.’ Born in Mexico in 1961, this thoughtful son of anthropologists grew up near the beach in the Castellammare area. Currently a Palm Springs resident, Ravicz is no stranger to Alaska, either in life or in literature. After graduating from Harvard, he lived in the Great Land for 15 years, working as a firefighter, a day laborer, and a schoolteacher. Ravicz’s first publication, ‘Ring of Fire and Other Stories’ (2004), was Alaskan-set. In his 2006 novel, ‘A Man of His Village,’ protagonist Florentino, a Mixtec (native Oaxacan), accepts a job in Alaska that implodes on him. Ravicz based that novel on a real-life event in which a Seattle restaurateur had duped and abandoned four Guatemalans. ‘Mainly, I wanted to give a voice to one of these campesinos, to show him as a human being,’ Ravicz told the Post back in 2006. ‘I’d had worked in low-end jobs where you’re not seen as a person at all; you’re simply two arms and a back.’ So how did Ravicz’s fascination with Alaska begin? With a class assignment’at age 10! You know, one of those ‘choose a state’ book reports? ‘I chose to do Alaska,’ he says. ‘I suspect at that point the seeds were planted.’ After college, Ravicz sowed some wild seeds there ‘seeking adventure and something different, more real, certainly the splendor of the place and the wilderness.’ Ravicz, 47, married his college sweetheart, Martina, and the couple have two children, Miranda McKinley, 15, and Kodiak, 11, both born in Fairbanks. The stories in ‘Alaskans’ span the early 1990s to early 2000s, and ‘One Less Black Bear,’ displaying the tension between three military men encamped in the wilderness, gained Ravicz entry into UC Irvine’s writing program in 1993. However, due to his father’s death and other personal issues, Ravicz dropped out and headed back to Alaska, where he homesteaded land in 1998. In 2000, Ravicz came back to California ‘largely due to my wife’s desire to come back to the sunbelt’ but continued to spend summers on Kodiak Island. The author says that every story in ‘Alaskans’ has its roots with a real-life experience, such as ‘Naomi,’ a 2001 piece about a man’s frustrating encounter with the titular half-Chinese ing’nue that was ‘inspired by a conversation I had with a young woman in Kodiak.’ But these are merely starting points. ‘Please don’t confuse me with the characters,’ he says. From the opposite terrain and temperatures of Palm Springs, Ravicz is currently dreaming Alaska again crafting his next book (‘I think of it as my homesteading novel’). ‘There is something absolutely unique about Alaska,’ Ravicz continues. ‘All of the extremes are more extreme there. It offers more than just a setting, it conditions people in a different way.’ Ravicz signs ‘Alaskans’ on Thursday, September 18, at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. Visit www.tanyo.net.
Restored Film ‘Goya’ Screens at Villa Aurora
The West Coast premiere of the restored East German film ‘Goya’ will be screened on Thursday, September 18, 8 p.m., at Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades. Konrad Wolf’s acclaimed 1971 adaptation of Lion Feuchtwanger’s novel, ‘Goya oder Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis,’ was digitally restored by the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ‘Goya’ tells the story of painter Francisco Goya’s conflicted loyalties as he travels from the opulent court of King Carlos IV through the countryside, where he witnesses the sufferings of the Spanish people. When he begins to depict their experiences in his work, the painter faces threats and persecution from the Inquisition. One of the few East German productions shot in 70mm, the film stars the great Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis (‘Solaris’). The 134-minute film will be presented in German with English subtitles. An exhibition of rare Goya materials from the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, including the movie’s screenplay and production photographs, will accompany the screening. Professor Barton Byg of the DEFA Film Library will introduce the film. To reserve a ticket by September 16, e-mail infola@villa-aurora.org or call (310) 573-3603. Admission is free for Villa Aurora members; $10 for non-members. Parking is available on Los Liones Drive off Sunset Boulevard, two blocks east of Pacific Coast Highway. Shuttle service begins 7 p.m. on Los Liones.
Revere, PaliHi Show Best API Gains
All the public schools in Pacific Palisades improved their Academic Performance Index (API) scores this year except Palisades Charter Elementary, according to results released by the California Department of Education last Thursday. Palisades Elementary dropped by 11 points to a score of 904, but still exceeded the state standard of 800. ‘Of course, every school is disappointed when its score goes down a little bit,’ said principal Joan Ingle. ‘We are going to focus more on the kids that need extra help. Being in the 900 club is good, but of course we want to keep growing.’ The staff plans to target students who require individual attention and provide more one-on-one and small group instruction. Ingle attributed the API decline partially to the changes in leadership this spring, when principal Tami Weiser unexpectedly resigned. ‘Now, we have a solid, stable leadership,’ Ingle said. She added that she is impressed with the high API scores of all Palisades schools, and said it’s a testament to dedicated parents. API measures every public schools progress from year to year and is based on test results from the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program (STAR) and the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE). API scores range from 200 to 1,000 with the goal that all schools statewide reach 800. All the Palisades schools made No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which measures whether students are scoring at the proficient level or above. CANYON ELEMENTARY Canyon Elementary School posted the highest API score of the schools with 938, nine points higher than last year. Principal Carol Henderson attributes the improvement to her teachers who consistently challenge themselves to improve their craft. ‘It’s a lot of hard work on behalf of the staff,’ Henderson said. ‘We really work hard together to reflect on our practice and collaborate to find new and improved ways to meet the needs of our students. For every decision we make, we ask ourselves ‘How will this benefit the children?’ We are very fortunate to also have the support of our parents and community in our endeavors to raise the bar.’ MARQUEZ ELEMENTARY Marquez Charter Elementary School improved its API score by nine points to 879. ‘All in all, last year was an exceptional year, being named California Distinguished School,’ said principal Phillip Hollis, who came aboard two years ago. ‘I am very proud of the gains we have made.’ Striving for more improvement, Hollis plans to expand the CATCH (Caring Adults Teaching Children How) program to include third- through fifth-grade students. Last year in the program’s first year, the school did not include the fourth grade. CATCH volunteers work with at-risk students one-on-one. ‘Marquez looks at each and every child individually,’ Hollis said. ‘If a child is judged to be at-risk, scoring basic, below basic or far below basic, he or she is immediately recognized and brought to an individual teacher’s attention.’ Two other schools in the Palisades Charter Complex also had good results. Kentor Canyon Elementary improved by six points to 924 and Topanga Charter Elementary by four points to 904. PAUL REVERE MIDDLE Paul Revere Charter Middle School realized the most significant improvement, increasing its API performance by 20 points to 837. ‘When I look at scores like this, it points to wonderful teachers, supportive parents and students who take testing seriously,’ said principal Fern Somoza, who succeeds Art Copper. Since coming aboard this summer, Somoza has found that teachers work together as a team on curriculum, and parents help with hiring staff, the budget, fundraising and more. All the Revere subgroups (which are minority, economically disadvantaged and special-education students) improved except for English learners, whose scores dropped by five points to 721. ‘We hope to help the students who are in the subgroups catch up,’ Somoza said. ‘Although they improved, there is still that achievement gap that we need to close.’ The middle school’s white and Asian students outperformed other ethnic populations. Revere had higher scores than John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica, Emerson Middle School in Westwood and Palms Middle School in Los Angeles but fell below Santa Monica’s Lincoln Middle School, which scored 880. PALISADES HIGH Palisades Charter High School improved its API score by 16 points to 797, just shy of the statewide goal. ‘I’m very excited about the progress we made, and we have a relentless commitment to keep pushing and continuing that growth,’ said Executive Director Amy Dresser-Held. Granada Hills Charter High School, which is larger than PaliHi but has similar demographics, posted a higher score of 813. Nearby Venice High School, University High and Santa Monica High (all with diverse populations) posted lower scores than PaliHi. Dresser-Held thinks test scores improved at her school because students are required to take placement tests to ensure they are in the appropriate classes. Teachers who instruct the same subject matter also participate in professional learning communities, where they collaborate and learn from each other, which means they’re continually improving their skills. The students with disabilities population also made significant gains from 546 to 589 this year. Mary Bush, director of special education, attributes that success to dedicated special-education teachers and a summer reading program that helps prepare students for more rigorous classes during the school year. In addition, special-ed teachers work with general-education teachers in the classroom to offer additional support. ‘It’s the teamwork at Pali that has made us successful,’ Bush said. Hispanic students increased their score by 36 points to 734 and the economically disadvantaged students improved by 34 points to 748. However, African Americans slipped by two points to 684. Faculty and parents attended a training session this summer for Village Nation at UCLA, which may help boost African-American achievement, Dresser-Held said. ‘It’s modeled after the African proverb ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ and focuses on encouraging students to make better choices, redefining success for kids and providing them with motivational speakers, assemblies and field trips,’ she said. PaliHi staff is also attempting to diversify its honors and advanced placement (AP) classes. Among the many ways staff will recruit for AP classes, one will be to look at how students performed on the PSAT. The school started offering introductory courses to AP classes this fall. ‘Sometimes these kids who are not making it need to be challenged more and have access to more rigor,’ Dresser-Held said.
Building a ‘Couture’ Home in the Palisades
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
By BROOKES NOHLGREN Special to the Palisadian-Post If you happen to drop by 609 Las Lomas Avenue over the next couple of weeks, you’ll likely find a flurry of activity, with some 30 craftsmen giving the home its finishing touches before being available for purchase. What you won’t find is the typical burly contractor-type guy at the project’s helm. In fact, you will find quite the opposite. Pacific Palisades resident Cathleen Gallagher is anything but your stereotypical homebuilder. She was only a teenager when ‘discovered’ by the Elite Modeling Agency and over the next decade she worked with some of the world’s most notable fashion icons (including Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Prada, John Galliano, Valentino and Karl Lagerfeld) and appeared on more than 20 Vogue covers around the world. As her modeling career wound down (though she still takes on occasional jobs in the fashion industry), Cathleen looked into other areas that she was passionate about and discovered architectural home design. Back in 1970s, when home building was a truly male-dominated industry, Cathleen’s mother, Rita, was making a name for herself as a developer in New Jersey. She started out as the assistant of a builder and not long after, people were asking her opinion on projects. She quickly became a full-fledged developer within the firm. Cathleen often visited the home sites her mother was working on and learned from her, as she says, ‘by osmosis.’ She credits learning much of what she knows about the business side of the industry from her mom, ‘and how things are done as they relate to function: how design ideas work or don’t work. But it was through fashion that the aesthetic was created and inspired in me.’ Cathleen, unlike her mother, who developed townhomes and condominiums, builds individual, custom homes’couture homes, if you will. This means both a uniqueness that stems from a singular idea as well as a total dedication to every detail. ‘Karl Lagerfeld,’ she explains, ‘will design one dress for Chanel. The reason it’s so expensive is that it’s unique, one of a kind, created with one idea, one inspiration in mind for that particular dress. All the tiny details make up the whole.’ Cathleen learned the process firsthand, modeling in couture shows for icons who built the dress for her. She sees building a home as much the same process. Her inspiration is the people who will live there. ‘If you have a concept in your mind,’ she says, ‘and you can execute it from the function that you know it is going to serve, then you can literally build your dream.’ For Cathleen, ‘building her dream’ truly began only after discovering the Palisades in 1995. Originally from the East Coast (Long Island and New Jersey), Cathleen admits that it was a fortuitous tip from a cousin in real estate that brought her to the place she now happily calls home with her husband (television director James Lima) and their two daughters. ‘My cousin was sending us to Santa Monica,’ Cathleen recalls, ‘but I found it ‘cold,’ unlike a New England town with a heartbeat in the center. Then he mentioned a rental on Toyopa and when we visited, we realized that the Palisades was exactly where we wanted to live.’ Cathleen loved the town’s small village style and the friendly, personal way of living. ‘The quaint charm reminded me of the East Coast, but with the added benefit of so much sun,’ she says. ‘In the Palisades, we could walk to so many places. And I could actually get to know my neighbors, a connection that was really important. We are very involved in our church (Corpus Christi), where the people are very community minded. The Palisades is a caring community of people who are actually rooting for you and care about you. That’s the number one reason why I’m here. It’s everything I hoped California could be.’ Cathleen’s fondness for the Palisades and its people is a primary inspiration for the homes she is building here (starting with her family’s own home). ‘When people walk into a home I’ve built, I want them to instantly say that it just feels right, to get that sense of ‘This is where I’m going to live.’ ‘ It’s also important to Cathleen that the homes fit into the fabric of the Palisades.’ The first thing I do when I look at a property is to see how the home is going to be part of the land. ‘Does this work with the light? Does this work with the street? Does it work with the neighborhood? Is it part of the fabric that is the Palisades?’ There is a delicate balance between function and style. Getting this balance right creates a home that people feel comfortable.’ She continued, ‘When the Las Lomas property came along [south of Sunset], it was so special and beautifully unique. Because it’s on a promontory, I stood at the point and just looked back at it and all I could think of was ‘This reminds me of the hilly coast of Carmel or the Hamptons. I envisioned the home completed and how it anchored this beautiful place,” while offering a full ocean view from the roof deck and unrestricted mountain views from the back of the house. ‘It has been a goal of mine to do a traditional-style home that incorporated green features,’ Cathleen says, ‘so I made an environmentally conscious home of the Las Lomas property, built in the California Craftsman style. I wanted to show home buyers that a green house doesn’t have to be limited to a modern home with a flat roof for the solar panels to work and still be aesthetically pleasing.’ At Las Lomas, Cathleen has created a ‘green’ home, complete with a filtration pit, plants that are indigenous to the environment, a satellite drip system that saves water, and solar panels that power everything. ‘These small steps aren’t hard to do,’ she says, ‘and the more people do them, collectively we will begin to make a difference.’ At almost 7,000 square feet, the 7-bedroom, 7-‘-bath home is being marketed by co-listing brokers Anthony Marguleas of Amalfi Estates and Dan Urbach of Prudential California Realty. It will officially go on the market at the beginning of October. (Brookes Nohlgren is a freelance writer and editor in Calabasas)
Aristide ‘Silvio’ Gola, 90, Avid Tennis Player
Aristide ‘Silvio’ Gola, a resident of Pacific Palisades for more than 40 years, passed away on September 7. He was 90. Born in Palazzolo Sull’Oglio, Italy, on April 11, 1918, Gola was sent to Peiping (Beijing) in 1937 to help set up communications between Italy and China. He remained in China during World War II. Once Japan occupied China, he was placed under house arrest until the end of the war. In 1947, Gola married the daughter of the Italian consul in Tiensin. Two years later, Gola, his wife Bianca, and their baby boy, Adrian, started a new life together in San Francisco, eventually relocating to Los Angeles where Gola worked for Systems Development Corporation and The Rand Corporation. Gola was an avid tennis player and was well known at on the courts at the Palisades Recreation Center, where he played competitively into his 80s. He spent the last years of his life at Good Shepherd Nursing Home in Santa Monica, where he was visited regularly by friends and priests from Corpus Christi Parish. He was pre-deceased by his wife Bianca in April 2004 and is survived by his son, Adrian. Mass will be celebrated in his memory at Corpus Christi Church on Saturday, September 20 at 9:30 a.m.
Thursday, September 11 – Thursday, September 18
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 Pacific Palisades Community Council meeting, 7 p.m., Palisades Branch Library community room, 861 Alma Real. Public invited. Nancy Mehagian discusses and signs her memoir ?Siren?s Feast: An Edible Odyssey,? 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 The new Theatre Palisades season is underway with ?Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille,? a dark comedy written by Bruce Graham, playing Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through October 12. Tickets: (310) 454-1970 or visit www.theatrepalisades.org. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 First Annual Financial Fair, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Antioch Street, between Swarthmore and Via de la Paz. Free admission. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 Palisadian Dr. Howard Liebman will discuss odontoglossum at the Malibu Orchid Society meeting, 7 p.m., at the Woman?s Club, 901 Haverford. Public invited. A free talk entitled ?Mark Twain: Jet Setter? will be given at 7:30 p.m. in Woodland Hall as part of the Chautauqua series in Temescal Gateway Park. (See story, page 20.) THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 Palisadian Wayne Glass, a Visiting Scholar in the School of International Relations at USC, will speak on ?Current U.S.-Russian Relations,? 7:30 a.m. at the Palisades Rotary Club meeting, Gladstone?s restaurant on PCH at Sunset. Former Palisadian Tanyo Ravicz (PaliHi, class of 1979) discusses and signs his latest collection of tales set in our 49th state, ?Alaskans,? 7:30 p.m. at Village Books on Swarthmore. (See story, page 12.) The West Coast premiere of the restored Konrad Wolf film ?Goya? (1971) will be screened at 8 p.m. at Villa Aurora on Paseo Miramar. To reserve a ticket, e-mail infola@villa-aurora.org or call (310) 573-3603. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 ?Calendar Girls? screens at 1 p.m. in the Palisades Branch Library community room, 860 Alma Real. This 2003 film shows how a women?s institute chapter in England becomes a media sensation after the members fundraise for a local hospital by posing nude for a calendar. Free admission. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 Las Doradas will hold its annual fundraiser benefiting the Las Doradas Children?s Center at the Palisades Presbyterian Church. The event will feature a gourmet lunch, silent auction, sale of ?elegant junque,? and a homemade-items bakery sale. Tickets are still available. Hawaiian dress is optional. For information, call Marti Gottfried at (310) 459-5594 or Sylvia Boyd at (310) 459-9556.
Aldersgate Celebrates 80th Year on Sept. 20
Since 1928, Aldersgate Retreat and Cultural Center has built fellowship and fostered inner peace here in Pacific Palisades. On Saturday, September 20, a daylong series of events will honor the Center’s 80th anniversary and bring the community together. At a dedication ceremony from 10 a.m. to noon, Aldersgate will host the Ministerial Association of the Palisades faith community. In the Chautauqua tradition, there will be a tolling of the Buerge Chapel bell and noted Palisadians will share their thoughts about how to create inner peace and peace at home and abroad. During the morning festivities, local clergy and honored guests will dedicate a peace pole in the meditation garden.’The pole features 12 languages, including Chumash, stating ‘May Peace Prevail on Earth.’ A public reception will take place at noon in the main house at 925 Haverford. Over the summer, the children of the entire faith community were invited to enter Aldersgate’s first ‘Noble Awards.’ A display of the entrants’ art and essay contributions will enrich the anniversary event, addressing how they would create peace in our hearts, homes, communities and world.’Special entries will be recognized. On the garden level in the main house, the Palisades Historical Society will offer a retrospective of the community’s unique local heritage, designed by historian Randy Young. A DVD of Aldersgate’s story, ‘The House That Fellowship Built,’ will be shown during house tours from 2 to 4 p.m. In the evening, Rev. Cedrick Bridgeforth will lead a vespers service in Buerge Chapel, with special music by the choral group, Voices of Shalom, and concluding with prayers for a world in strife. The prayer service will be from 7-8:30 p.m. The daylong celebration is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.’Those needing special seating arrangements for wheelchairs or elderly guests should call the Center and notify Site Director Chris Erickson.’ Parking will be available at the lower parking lot along Temescal Canyon Road (below Aldersgate) and a free shuttle will operate from the Community United Methodist Church at 801 Via de la Paz. Parking passes will be refunded or covered by the Retreat Center.’Drivers may drop off their guests at Aldersgate’s entrance on Haverford, behind Gelson’s and next to the Woman’s Club. Aldersgate is part of the California Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Its doors are open to all for group retreats, banquets, weddings, memorial services and special events. For reservations and information, call (310) 454-6699 or visit rsvp@aldersgateretreat.org.
Palisades Chabad Honors Holocaust Survivors
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
‘Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive.’ That was the theme of Tuesday night’s Riviera Country Club event, hosted by Chabad of Pacific Palisades and honoring Palisadians who survived the Holocaust. Leon Leyson, a Polish Jew saved by Oskar Schindler, served as the evening’s compelling keynote speaker. Neither excessively jubilant or morose, the event struck just the right tone with light mingling preceding Leyson’s talk, the atmosphere partly mitigated by the fact that Chabad could not serve food or stage a banquet at the Riviera due to a lack of kosher kitchen facilities. But such fanfare was not missed once the articulate Leyson, 78, described his World War II experiences to the audience of 200 with much candor and humor. A retired teacher and longtime Angeleno, Leyson spoke eloquently with no discernable accent lingering from his Polish childhood, when dark clouds passed through a relatively peaceful existence in Narewka, population 2,000, outside of Warsaw. Leyson addressed an audience that included a dozen honorees from Pacific Palisades: Jack Aslan, Beba Leventhal, Alice Grant, Lucy Weinberg, Edith Kalmar, Henryk Leman, Yerachmiel and Rachel Loebel, Rachmil Hakman, Judith Springer, and Anna Sorotzkin and Rachel Schwartz of the Highlands (profiled by the Palisadian-Post on August 28). He recounted how, by the time he turned 12, the Nazis had invaded Poland and imposed de facto segregation on the country’s Jews. The Leyson family was relocated to a Krakow walled ghetto, where the Nazis shoehorned four families to a small apartment and controlled their food supply, essentially starving them. The occupying Germans had brutalized Leyson’s factory-worker father. However, the elder Leyson’s luck changed when Schindler came to town to run a local enamelware factory, and he was hired by the industrialist to work at his factory. Soon after, he convinced Schindler to hire other family members, including Leyson’s older brother and mother, and Leyson himself, who learned to operate a lathe. Throughout World War II, Schindler was protective of his 1,100 Jewish laborers, even as Nazis transported Jews to ‘murder camps,’ as Leyson called them, and exterminated them. Schindler was one of those rare German citizens who, in the midst of the Holocaust, played a duplicitous game with the Nazis and risked his own life to save Jews. Leyson continually stressed Schindler’s daring feat: ‘He was in danger all the time,’ getting out of predicaments with the Nazi command via some ‘fast-talking or with bribes.’ There were numerous dramatic moments during those years, when Schindler literally saved the lives of Leyson and his family. Schindler also showed a tremendous amount of generosity toward his prepubescent employee, doubling the young Leyson’s food rations and yanking him off the night shift to the envy of other factory workers. Leyson said that Schindler often spent time talking to and learning about his employees, and, per his request, Schindler was buried in Jerusalem ‘among his people’ upon his death in 1974. ‘He who saves one life saves an entire world’ goes a Hebrew saying. Schindler saved 1,100 worlds, whose descendants now number 7,000. A week before the war ended, German soldiers on the run abandoned numerous warehouses, and Schindler went on a looting spree, nabbing hundreds of balls of baby blue cloth and bottles of vodka, all of which he distributed to his work force upon their freedom as good-bye presents. Post-war, Leyson spent three years in a displacement camp before joining relatives in America, where he served in the U.S. military during the Korean War and taught in the LAUSD system for 39 years. ‘Coming to this country was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ Leyson said. But there was a fleeting moment just after his liberation when he returned to Poland and, in a symbolic gesture to commemorate a new chapter in his life, sought a tailor. ‘My first pair of pants were baby blue,’ Leyson said, smiling.
Hope Brightens for Rustic’s Beseiged Eucalyptus Grove
In the 1970s, drought weakened many of the specimen trees in the eucalyptus grove in Rustic Canyon Park. In the 1980s, a mysterious infestation besieged the historic trees. In the 1990s, the trees remained in obvious distress, suffering from a lack of water, leaving their fate to chance. And just last month, an extensive report on the health of the trees put it succinctly: ‘The grove has come under significant stress, leading to a loss of trees and a general decline in the health of the remaining trees.’ The 11-page document, provided by Jan C. Scow Consulting Arborists, offers a disease and pest diagnosis, hazard evaluation, restorative pruning advice and a value assessment. The report spells out two dominant stress factors’insufficient water and severe soil compaction’and suggests emergency remedies that include loosening the soil, adding amendments and, most important, installing a permanent irrigation system. Despite decades of redundant analyses and repeated inaction on the part of the City of Los Angeles, grove stakeholders are finally holding out hope for a permanent solution. A revivified Park Advisory Board (PAB) has created a eucalyptus grove subcommittee, which includes PAB chairman Norman Cowie, Elizabeth Zaillian, and Betty Lou and Randy Young. In a presentation before the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association Tuesday night, Randy Young outlined the findings of the Scow report and requested that the SMCCA, as a bonafied 501.c3, provide leadership on the project. ‘I would like to work on getting a $10,000 city beautification matching grant to get the project underway,’ Young said. In addition, he reiterated that the irrigation system was a line item in the original Prop. K funding as far back as 2001. As early as 1999, the Department of Recreation and Parks Assistant General Manager Kevin Regan promised a watering system and tree planting. The three-acre grove, located on Latimer Road between Hillside Lane and the Rustic Park exit, was originally part of the nation’s first experimental Forestry Station established in 1887. The purpose of the plantation was to study the planting stock for scientific and conservation purposes. In 1922, the Uplifters bought the property, which they held onto until 1945. Eight years later, a nine-acre park was established, thanks to a $200,000 gift from Mabelle Machris.
