Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 4, No. 9 - March 3, 2022
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 4,6,7
Pets........................................4
Weekend
Forecast
The 2022 CIF-SS Division 4AA
Girls Basketball Champions
Congratulations to the Lawndale High School Lady Cardinals on making school history. Can’t wait for the CIF state championship. Photo courtesy Centinela Valley Union High School District.
Friday
AM
Showers
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Saturday
Partly Cloudy/
Wind
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Sunday
Sunny
60˚/46˚
Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Orly Israel: the South Bay’s
Listener and Connector
By Duane Plank
Most of us tend to talk, some of us incessantly,
of sorts, and people will start communicating
with each other better. That is my big
goal, to raise communication skills across
the board.”
Israel’s friend Tiffany Van Goey, who resides
in the Cincinnati area, has joined Israel for
“two or three” sessions at his table. Israel
said that Van Goey participates as a neutral
observer, “effectively a listener in training.”
A mutual friend introduced Israel and
Van Goey. She soon discovered that she
and Israel had a similar interest in growing
communication skills. Of her participation
as a neutral observer, Van Goey said that
she gained great insight in just listening and
restraining herself from the very human trait
of wanting to “chime in” to the conversation,
calling the sessions spent with Israel and
the folks who stopped by the table “very
interesting and transformative.”
The Thing About Istanbul
Article and photos
by Ben & Glinda Shipley
It’s New Year’s Eve on Pera peak, the
one-time Venetian quarter of Istanbul, and
two beautiful Turkish girls in miniskirts,
gaudy blouses, and five-inch heels race
awkwardly down a steep street, yelling for a
taxi. A group of old codgers barely glances
up from their card game, but two young,
male loiterers rouse from their torpor to
hurl indignant insults at the scantily clad
girls. The girls jeer and return the abuse, as
they climb into their cab and speed away.
This is something you think about when
you visit Istanbul. Pera and Galata; the business
district and the university quarter; the
famous old palaces and mosques; all sit in
Europe. The Greeks settled Constantinople,
the Romans civilized it, and for much of
its history, liberal Europeans sporadically
dominated its public affairs. After 1453,
when the great Ottoman Sultans took
over, they might have preached Islam, the
Caliphate, and a weak Europhobia, but for
the most part, they were the most tolerant
and internationalist rulers of their age. And
when Kemal Atatürk became the father of
modern Turkey, his determined secularism
set the tone for eighty years of religious
and cultural tolerance.
But times do change, and in the last
seventy-odd years, the lure of jobs and the
big city has emptied the Anatolian countryside
of millions of its underemployed
youth. Today, Istanbul is a thoroughly
Islamized city, with most citizens clad in
headscarves, full-length sleeves, pants, and
about ourselves. But we typically
spend much less time emphatically listening
and comprehending what the other person
might be sharing, right?
El Segundo’s Orly Israel, who was raised in
Pacific Palisades, attended Pali High School,
and matriculated to Syracuse University to
study Communications, is flipping the script
on that. The 27-year-old Israel has embarked
upon a program to listen and explore the
thoughts of others, withholding judgment
and allowing those so inclined to freely riff
their thoughts to him.
Israel has set-up up his “listening
table” in available spaces in swaths of
El Segundo, in other South Bay cities, and
the Westside. His table is draped with a
banner that trumpets: “Here to listen. No
judgment, no advice, no charge.”
Now I have never been to a psychiatrist
myself (some may say I should immediately
sign-up for sessions). Still, I am guessing that
the professional psychiatrists out there may
charge a pretty penny for allowing one to
spill their innermost thoughts to them? No
charge is incurred from the time spent with
Israel, though.
In our phone interview, Israel mentions
classes that he has taken that have sharpened
his listening skills, citing courses from communication
instructors whose credo is “first
you have to listen, then you do something.”
He has spit-balled different ideas to help
people communicate and connect, ideas that
would also help Israel develop his skills and
“get out of my comfort zone.” He settled on
his “listening table” gambit.
Israel thinks that his family upbringing
may have spurred his interest in taking a
deep dive into the field of communications.
His Dad, David Israel, is an award-winning
television producer and writer and spent a
stint writing for the New York Mets, before
heading west to California some 30-years
ago to start a career in Tinseltown.
Israel mentioned that he and his siblings,
like most if not all families had their share
of tiffs that escalated, noting that “there is
a certain part of a conversation that (then)
becomes an argument, then a certain part of
the argument becomes a fight.”
Why does Israel spend his free time trying
to help and connect with others? “Because
some people don’t have anyone to talk to
who will really listen to them without trying
to fix their problems or tell them to get
over it,” he writes. “And some people don’t
have anyone to talk to at all. And I have
also got my own listening skills to work
on. I am trying to make people feel good
by listening to them, and if they feel good,
they might want to share that feeling of being
listened to with their loved ones, friends, and
family. And there will be a domino effect See Orly Israel, page 4
See Travel, page 8