About 50 Western states rabbis in the...

About 50 Western states rabbis in the Conservative wing of Judaism will return to Palm Springs Sunday for their four-day annual conference at Maxim’s de Paris Suite Hotel. Meanwhile, about 125 Reform rabbis will assemble the same day for their five-day 1989 meeting at the San Diego Marriott.

The Reform conference includes a discussion late Monday night on developments in Israel to be moderated by Rabbi Sandford Ragins of Los Angeles’ Leo Baeck Temple, president of the Reform group. “No formal presentation was planned because things change so fast,” said Rabbi Larry Goldmark of La Mirada, executive vice president. Most discussion will probably focus on the Palestine Liberation Organization and the “who is a Jew” debate, he said.

In Palm Springs, Los Angeles Rabbi Joel Rembaum will lead a session Monday evening on “Israel Affairs and the Masorti Movement,” the name for the Conservative branch in that country. Rabbi Albert Lewis, international president of Conservative Judaism’s Rabbinical Assembly, will be a special guest and Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man of Los Angeles will lead four sessions on “Spirituality and Judaism,” according to Rabbi Gilbert Kollin of Hollywood Temple Beth El, president of the regional organization.

DATES

An inner-city Los Angeles church is hosting “The Preach Bowl” tonight, a service planned as a New Year’s Eve party substitute. Preaching by half a dozen ministers, music and “hand clapping and feet stamping” will begin after 8 p.m. at Los Angeles Antioch Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 8729 S. Compton Ave., a spokesman said.

PEOPLE

Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles will leave Monday on a 13-day trip to Vietnam. Traveling as chairman of the U.S. bishops’ International Policy Commission, Mahony will be accompanied by Archbishops Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J., and Edward T. O’Meara of Indianapolis. The archbishops are visiting at the invitation of Vietnamese bishops, who are interested in humanitarian aid for the country.

BOOKS

A book first published in July, “The Gospel According to Jesus,” by Senior Pastor John MacArthur Jr. of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, has reached 100,000 copies in print. A spokesman for Zonderman, the publisher, said MacArthur’s book has generated controversy in conservative Protestant circles because the minister, who is also president of The Master’s College in Newhall, maintains that faith which lacks evidence of righteous behavior is meaningless, contrary to the tenet that faith alone ensures salvation.