Nursing Home Staffers to Share Workplace Woes

A coalition of Southern California churches and synagogues will host speakers during dozens of services this weekend to expose conditions in California nursing homes. During the services, nursing home workers and family members of residents will share personal stories of problems they say are caused by inadequate staffing, and outline steps to help resolve them.

After the services, congregation members will be asked to sign postcards to Gov. Gray Davis and state legislators appealing for action.

The event is organized by the Fix Nursing Homes Now coalition, which includes Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and the Service Employees International Union. (213) 368-7400.

EVENTS

Peter Storey, former South African Methodist bishop who served as chaplain to Nelson Mandela, will present “Stories of God in the Struggle for South African Freedom” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at First Congregational Church, 464 E. Walnut St., Pasadena. (626) 584-5367.

* The third annual Black Religious Summit on Sexuality will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. next Saturday at Faith United Methodist Community Church, 1713 W. 108th St., Los Angeles. The forum will discuss spirituality and sexuality, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and healthy relationships. (323) 291-6434.

* A multinational theater group will present an evening of Israeli-Arab dialogue and improvisation at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Temple Emanuel, 8844 Burton Way, Beverly Hills. Reservations are required. Admission is $10. (323) 761-8332.

* The Good Shepherd Shelter Guild will hold its annual Membership Tea ‘n Tour from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday on behalf of its long-term shelter for battered women and their children. The guild is at 2581 W. Venice Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 933-1313.

* A workshop on “Journaling and Prayer” will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Road, Encino. Topics explored will be work, silence, community and service. Writing will be interspersed with contemplative prayer and sacred visualization. Workshop leader Frances Pullara will use John McQuiston II’s book, “Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living.” Fee is $40, including lunch. (818) 784-4515.

* Jonathan Dobrer will begin a four-week series on “Great Religious Trials” and discuss the volatile mix of religion and politics beginning Thursday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the University of Judaism Video Conferencing Room. The series will explore the trials of Socrates, Jesus and Spinoza, along with the Salem witch trials. The university is at 15600 Mulholland Drive, Bel-Air. The session fee is $71. (310) 440-1246.

* The Westside Jewish Community Center will offer a five-week course on Judaism beginning Wednesday. The instructor, Rabbi Baruch Cohon, will deliver lectures on belief in God, prayer, the Sabbath, Jewish observance and sexuality. The center is at 5870 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 938-2531, ext. 2225.

* The National Day of Prayer will be celebrated in the Southland on Thursday with the Pasadena Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, a prayer gathering in Arcadia and daylong prayer at Pasadena’s First Church of the Nazarene and Lake Avenue Church.

The Mayor’s Breakfast will be at 7 a.m. at the Pasadena Hilton. Tickets are $17.50. (626) 281-3387.

The prayer gathering will be at 7 p.m. at the Holly Avenue Auditorium at Holly Avenue and Duarte Road in Arcadia. (626) 844-4713. Prayer is scheduled from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Lake Avenue Church, 393 N. Lake Ave. in Pasadena. (626) 795-7221. Prayer is scheduled from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the First Church of the Nazarene, 3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. (626) 351-9631.

* The Leo Baeck Temple community will celebrate Rabbi Leonard Beerman’s 80th birthday Friday with a program, “Words and Ideas,” on his contributions to peace and social justice. Beerman founded and served at the Reform temple for 37 years before his retirement in 1986. He is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and Hebrew Union College. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. (310) 476-2861.

PERFORMANCE

The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony will premiere two compositions in its season’s closing concerts at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., in Encino. The works are “Piano Concertino” by Wladyslaw Szpilman, written as the gates closed on the Warsaw Ghetto; and “We Will Tell Them,” written by Robert Elfman after a visit to the death camps inspired him to promise victims and survivors that their memories would be honored. Tickets are $25, $36 and $45. (818) 753-6681.

* “Two Centuries of Russian Music” will be presented at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, 9550 Haskell Ave., North Hills. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. (818) 894-9251.

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Notices may be mailed for consideration to Southern California File, c/o Religion Editor, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; faxed to Southern California File at (213) 237-2358; or e-mailed to religion@latimes.com. Items should arrive two to three weeks before the event and should include pertinent details about the people and organizations with address, phone number, date and time. Because of the volume of submissions, we cannot guarantee publication.