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Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

Leila Miller

Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

Currently a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, Leila has already had a distinguished career in journalism, writing ground-breaking reports for the Miami Herald, Moment Magazine and the Jewish Journal, particularly on the Jewish community in Argentina and its history through that country's "dirty war" and beyond.  She also has interned for KCRW News in Santa Monica.

A graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in New York,  she is Argentinian by birth and fluent in Spanish. She enjoyed her first dulce de leche ice cream at five months, became a Harry Potter fanatic at age eight, and got her second ear piercing at 14.  Leila joined The Boiling Point team as a freshman, and her story assignments led her to her first-ever rock concert at the Troubadour (Say Anything!), watch intense behind-the-scenes Drama rehearsals, and wake up early before school to interview Jewish community leaders in Chile after the earthquake there. She was also the Shalhevet choir’s piano accompanist and would go ice skating with you at a moment’s notice!

Leila was Editor-in-Chief of the Boiling Point for the 2011-12 school year, and graduated in 2016 from Oberlin College.

All content by Leila Miller

Color War opened with drug-testing ruse

By Leila Miller, Editor in Chief
June 29, 2012

In a new twist to Color War breakout, the Student Activities Committee spread a fake story among the student body saying that...

PLAYING: Young Haredi boys grow their payot long and their tzitzit out.

HAREDI: Behind the label is a world apart

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
June 14, 2012

Many girls at Bais Yaakov – an all-girls Haredi high school in West Hollywood – don’t know who Brad Pitt or Justin Bieber...

HAREDI: From Beit Shemesh, a spark that exposed a simmering fire

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
June 14, 2012

Last fall, an insular community that does its best to separate itself from the outside world was thrust into the spotlight after...

Haredi Dating: Rabbis, research, resumes and a look into the soul

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
June 12, 2012

Although students at Shalhevet may start dating before girls at Bais Yaakov, they’re probably farther away from marriage. Most...

Milken’s Jason Ablin to blend Judaic, General Studies here

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
April 2, 2012

After successfully implementing a vision of integrated Judaic and General Studies curricula at Milken Community High School,...

Rabbi Leubitz leaving next year to be head of Oakland Hebrew Day School

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
March 26, 2012

Judaic Studies principal Rabbi Ari Leubitz is leaving Shalhevet at the end of the school year to be Head of School at Oakland...

Fairness Committee votes 6-5 not to block Facebook

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-chief
March 21, 2012

According to Fairness co-chair David Fletcher, Acting General Studies Principal Mr. Roy Danovitch lost the Fairness case he brought...

Shalhevet Drama finds an unexpected mirror In ‘Pride and Prejudice’

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
December 23, 2011

This story is a National Winner in the Features Story category of Quill and Scroll’s 2012 International Writing and Photo Contest,...

New Sephardic minyan lets students feel at home

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
December 22, 2011

Their voices rolling with a North African lilt, students in the two-month old Sephardic minyan sing to a different melody than...

Hallway mania: Students watch live streaming of Houston basketball tournament

Hallway mania: Students watch live streaming of Houston basketball tournament

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
November 21, 2011

Shouts, whoops, groans and clapping filled the halls today as for the first time ever students in school could watch online live...

As readers and as writers, students brave the blogosphere

As readers and as writers, students brave the blogosphere

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
October 31, 2011

Blogging,” like “Tweeting,” “Facebooking,” and “Googling,” is a web phenomenon so popular that it’s turned...

Poland-Israel trip moved back to May

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
October 4, 2011

Previously scheduled vacations, co-curricular conflicts, AP exams, and fundraising and teaching schedules caused Rabbi Segal to...

For Eli Schiff, an eight-week dash to remodel

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
August 27, 2011

Whether by carrying heavy boxes, wheeling carts through the hallway or staying until 9 p.m., Eli Schiff was going to have school...

Coach of a different ‘Flava’

Coach of a different ‘Flava’

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
August 26, 2011

When Coach Ronnie Winbush was younger, he always did things a bit differently – with a different “flavor,” one could say....

E-mailed schedules incorrect, school starts at eight

By Leila Miller, Editor-in-Chief
August 21, 2011

Personalized e-mails sent out Aug. 8 gave students their class schedules before school started. But the times of the class meeting...

Principal Tranchi taught, led, inspired students

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

When General Studies Principal Phu Tranchi moves out of his well-organized office next month, he will leave behind deep bonds...

Four new Judaic teachers have wide range of educational backgrounds

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

Three rabbis and one rebbetzin,  whose backgrounds include studies at Harvard, Columbia, Yeshiva University, Stern College and...

Spirit, spunk and a nudge toward the gap year

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

Known for hosting Friday night onegs for her classes, shopping with students online and infectious energy when advising SAC events,...

Where weeds once grew

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

aaaaaaa   VEGGIE CREW: Maintenance worker Javier Sanchez waters the new vegetable garden outside the Music and...

Warmth and ruach that got students on their feet

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

“You have to rely on the administration,” school founder Dr. Jerry Friedman told The Boiling Point a few hours after students...

Sophomore wins Israel scholarship in art contest

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 29, 2011

Sophomore Emilie Benyowitz has won third place in the Jewish Federation’s city-wide The Future is Now art contest, earning a...

Nakba Day protests breach Israel’s borders

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
June 3, 2011

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor Protestors crossed the borders from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank into Israel...

Israel’s borders breached in Nakba Day protests

By Leila Miller, Acting Editor-in-Chief
May 15, 2011

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor Protestors crossed the borders from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank into Israel...

Jewish community of Japan works fast to offer quake aid

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
April 18, 2011

Despite its small size, Japan’s Jewish community of 2,000 organized unique relief-efforts when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and...

A Jewish teen’s account of the earthquake

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
April 18, 2011

It was during a game of floor hockey in P.E. when the gym floor in  Tokyo’s American School in Japan began shifting sideways....

Online from afar, LA Muslim teens back Egyptian protests

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
March 11, 2011

A 16-year-old girl’s hand, painted in the colors of the Egyptian flag with the Arabic word “enough,” can go a long way on...

Wave of recognitions supports a state of ‘Palestine’

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
March 10, 2011

Athough usually attuned to news about Israel, most students didn’t notice when eight South American countries recognized a state...

L.A. Muslim teens juggle Islam and school while fighting misconceptions

L.A. Muslim teens juggle Islam and school while fighting misconceptions

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
January 6, 2011

Most teenagers don’t have to explain to their classmates that they aren’t terrorists and are not related to Osama Bin Laden,...

Rabbis of the three leading Modern Orthodox shuls shared a light moment during an otherwise intense discussion of issues ranging from how to treat gays to skateboards on Shabbat. From left, Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City; Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of Bnai David-Judea; and Rabbi Kalman Topp of Beth Jacob.

Local rabbis apply Modern Orthodoxy to tough issues

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
January 2, 2011

At a first-ever school Modern Orthodoxy symposium, three rabbis who lead shuls that are home to many Shalhevet families captured...

BP wins NSPA Multimedia Story of the Year, 1st Place

BP wins NSPA Multimedia Story of the Year, 1st Place

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
November 15, 2010

With screams of delight and high-fives, Boiling Point staff learned last Saturday that coverage of Rabbi Weinbach's resignation...

U.S. official in Mexico says bond is close, strong

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
November 1, 2010

“Good fences make good neighbors,” wrote the American poet Robert Frost in “The Mending Wall.” However, this statement...

Israeli team saves Gazan baby in acclaimed new film

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
November 1, 2010

In a room in Tel HaShomer Hospital near Tel Aviv, just a two-hour drive from the Erez checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border, a...

Jewish teens in Mexico respond to drug violence

Jewish teens in Mexico respond to drug violence

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
October 31, 2010

In Mexico, a country plagued by violence for decades – most recently in its ongoing drug war  – people learn to adapt. “We...

Peace talks have started between Israel and Palestinian Authority

Peace talks have started between Israel and Palestinian Authority

By Leila Miller, Outside News Editor
August 30, 2010

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian authority resumed Sept. 20 after 20 months, after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham...

Argentine film paints torn relationships, elusive justice

Argentine film paints torn relationships, elusive justice

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
June 30, 2010

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor In The Secret in Their Eyes, an Argentine movie that won Best Foreign-Language Film at this year’s...

A boost for teens, trees and water conservation

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
May 23, 2010

Rachel Lester’s platform, which she posted on the SoRo website before her election to the  South Roberstson...

Rachel Lester elected to SoRo neighborhood panel

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
May 23, 2010

In her black Shalhevet jacket with its blazing red letters, sophomore Rachel Lester assertively approached one of the desk clerks...

Kol Sasson teaches Shalhevet choir new techniques

Kol Sasson teaches Shalhevet choir new techniques

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
May 23, 2010

Standing in a circle, the Shalhevet choir and Kol Sasson, the University of Maryland’s Jewish a capella group, started off chanting...

Scenes from childhood become ‘Collective Memory’ in dramas One-Act Festival

Scenes from childhood become ‘Collective Memory’ in drama’s One-Act Festival

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
May 23, 2010

Young people, especially teenagers, sometimes find it hard to identify with older generations, and vice versa. Collective Memory,...

The  moment when science and religion went to war

The moment when science and religion went to war

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
March 18, 2010

Few people can claim to have “killed God,” but in a scene from the British film Creation, T.H Huxley, a colleague of Darwin’s,...

UPSCALE: The city of Talca, 65 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter, suffered damage to even its well-built structures.

Jewish teens reach out to help Chile cope

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
March 18, 2010

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile on Feb. 27 left the world stunned, especially after Haiti. But the Jewish community there,...

Photos of Poland-Israel trips bring back memories

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
March 18, 2010

“It’s important to capture the moment,” says Eddie Friedman, who photographed Shalhevet’s annual Poland-Israel trips from...

Prop lists and perfectionism: Taking A Shayna Maidel from the page to the stage

Prop lists and perfectionism: Taking ‘A Shayna Maidel’ from the page to the stage

By Leila Miller, Arts Editor
January 5, 2010

"It’s the most stressful thing ever,” said junior Nathaniel Kukurudz, who played the father role of Mordechai Weiss in this...

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