Items in today’s column:
* Samuel Gompers is permanently honored in San Diego
* San Diego Jewish World to unveil its new look tomorrow
* How do our Jewish gardens grow?
Samuel Gompers is permanently honored in San Diego
SAN DIEGO – Today being Labor Day, it’s worth pointing out that one of the schools in our city that is named for a Jew is Gompers Preparatory Academy at 1005 47th Street. It is named for the man who founded the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, who immigrated to New York City as a child with his family from England. He worked as a cigar maker before becoming involved in successful efforts to organize workers in various crafts and persuading them to stand together in a quest for higher wages and shorter hours.
The initials of Gompers Preparatory Academy are GPA, and high GPA’s (grade point averages) are what are needed for students to be accepted into ranking colleges’ academic programs. The academy – which includes both middle schoolers and high schoolers—serves students from the mostly minority community that surrounds Gompers. The academy has a special arrangement with UC San Diego, which sends educators to Gompers to help foster good scholarship.
The chair of Gompers Board of Directors is Cecil Steppe, who had served as chief probation officer for the County of San Diego before being promoted to the directorship of the County’s Social Service Department. He retired after 35 years with the County of San Diego, but remained active in community affairs, serving from 2001-2007 as president and CEO of the Urban League of San Diego and also serving on various local boards including those of the YMCA and Head Start. California State University at San Marcos conferred upon Steppe an honorary doctorate of humane letters.
Besides Gompers, five other schools in the San Diego Unified School District that are named for Jews include:
*Benchley/ Weinberger Elementary School, half the name after Judge Jacob Weinberger, who served for more than 20 years on the San Diego Unified School District Board; the other half is for San Diego Zoologist Belle Benchley.
*Farb Elementary School, after Jean Farb, wife of philanthropist Harry Farb.
*Jonas Salk Elementary School, after the discoverer of the polio vaccine.
*Salomon Childhood Development Center, after former United Nations envoy and philanthropist Irving Salomon.
*Wangenheim Middle School, after merchant, banker and civic leader Julius Wangenheim, who was instrumental to the development of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Balboa Park, and the San Diego Museum of Art.
*
San Diego Jewish World to unveil its new look tomorrow
Tomorrow is expected to be a big day for San Diego Jewish World’s writers and we hope for its readers. We anticipate that on the afternoon or evening of September 3, we will unveil our redesigned website. Evan and Daniella Scheingross, Jewish community members who are proprietors of the cleverly named web design firm, “Minimal Chaos Web Design and Communication,” was recommended to us by the good folks at Times of San Diego, a news organization with which we trade stories.
Asked to summarize the major changes that will impact readers, Evan responded that it will load faster, will be easier to use, and will be better adapted to mobile devices than our current design. As Scheingross explained:
We’ve streamlined and consolidated the navigational links in the header to make it easier for visitors to find the type of content that they’re after. Instead of hunting through an overwhelming number of choices, visitors now see a well-thought-out selection of article categories. We’ve ditched the distracting homepage sponsor slideshow in favor of dedicated ad graphics in the sidebar. And we’ve increased the size of the text throughout the site to make it easier to read.
The website will dynamically readjust itself to provide the ideal display and layout for screens of all sizes. No longer will visitors need to zoom in and pan around the page on smartphones, or strain their eyes to read text that’s really small.
We are building an archive for each of our writers, past and present, in which you will find a compendium of stories that writer has published on San Diego Jewish World, and an interactive list of the books/ CDs of that writer’s works that are available on Amazon. I think many readers will be amazed by both the depth and depth of our contributors’ works.
*
How do our Jewish gardens grow?
A small sensory garden at the Santee Lakes provides braille plates for blind people so they can identify and enjoy aromatic flowers and tactile plants. In addition, the sponsoring Lions Club offers pun-filled words of advice for what should be included in a garden – advice that can be readily adapted for any other membership organization, such as a synagogue or a Jewish volunteer organization.
For example, a garden needs Peas: Pea-ce of mind, Pea-ce of heart, Pea-ce of soul. It also need Squash, that is to squash gossip, indifference, grumbling or criticism, selfishness. Such a garden calls for Lettuce, as in “Lettuce be faithful to our club… lettuce be kind and have respect for one another … Lettuce be happy and really love one another … Lettuce obey rules and regulations and respect our leadership. The garden benefits from Turnips, as in Turnip for service to our club; turnip to help one another with new ideas; turnip to listen and respect another person; turnip for meetings regularly …
Continuing on the gardening theme, the sign attributed to Lions National Director Bill Moody, also calls for weeding out excuses, alibis, and crises, and urges that the garden be imbued with Thyme, as in thyme for fun, rest, ourselves and our families.
*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com