September 2010

16 ways Jerusalemites know Sukkot is coming

By Judy Lash Balint JERUSALEM — Sixteen ways Jerusalemites know Sukkot is coming: 1. The clang of metal poles and the sounds of hammering are practically constant as Jerusalem’s apartment dwellers hurry to erect their sukkot and squeeze them into small balconies, odd-shaped gardens and otherwise derelict rooftops. 2. The tourists have landed! Overwhelmingly religious, […]

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Jewish Religion, Travel and Food

Tel Aviv professor and Ph.D. student try to stay a step ahead of the hackers

TEL AVIV (Press Release) — Used in a variety of products from credit cards to satellite televisions, secure chips are designed to keep encoded data safe. But hackers continue to develop methods to crack the chips’ security codes and access the information within. Thinking like hackers, Prof. Avishai Wool and his Ph.D. student Yossi Oren

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Science, Medicine, & Education

San Diegan Ariana Neustein, 3 others, named inaugural Global Service Fellows

 WASHINGTON, DC  (Press Release)– Four inaugural fellows, including one from San Deigo,  have been selected to serve in a new overseas service initiative for BBYO alumni, the JDC-BBYO Global Service Fellowship, it was announced by The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and BBYO, Inc., the world’s leading pluralistic Jewish teen movement. This fall Ben Becker, Laura

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Travel and Food

Holocaust denier Irving now plans tours to Auschwitz

LONDON (WJC)–The convicted Holocaust denier David Irving is set to lead guided tours of former Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz and Treblinka, the British newspaper ‘Daily Mail’ reports. The revisionist historian, who was convicted of Holocaust denial in 2006 by a court in Austria and sentenced to three years in jail, is scheduled to take

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Travel and Food

Olmert: Bush agreed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees

TEL AVIV (WJC)–Ehud Olmert, Israel’s former prime minister, has said in a speech that the Bush administration in the United States would have accepted 100,000 Palestinian refugees had Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted his diplomatic overtures in 2008. In a speech at Tel Aviv’s Eretz Israel Museum, Olmert outlined the offer he made the Palestinians at

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Middle East

Venezuelan Jewish community leaders meet with Hugo Chavez

CARACAS (WJC)–The leadership of Venezuela’s Jewish community has met with President Hugo Chávez. The Jewish leaders raised the problem of anti-Semitism in state-owned media and asked Chávez to restore diplomatic relations with Israel. During a meeting at the presidential palace in Caracas, Salomón Cohen Botbol, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Jewish Associations (CAIV), the

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Travel and Food

World Jewish Congress wants EU monitor at Athens trial

ATHENS (WJC)–As three Greek human rights activists are going on trial for speaking out against judges who acquitted a notorious anti-Semite and extreme-right politician in Greece, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) has called on the president of the European Parliament to send an official envoy to watch this trial in Athens. The WJC criticized the

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Travel and Food

San Diego author tells the rest of the story of 'The Odyssey'

Penelope’s Daughter by Laurel Corona, Berkeley Publishing Group, 2010, 358 pages including glossary, afterword and reader’s guide, $15.   By Donald H. Harrison   SAN DIEGO—Readers may be charmed by this story and yet find it controversial.  Prize-winning author Laurel Corona, who often writes book reviews for San Diego Jewish World, has written another novel, Penelope’s Daughter,

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Donald H. Harrison

Clinton: Only so much the U.S. can do in Mideast

JERUSALEM (Press Release)– The U.S. State Department released the following transcript of an interview of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Christiane Amanpour of ABC Television Network.  It was conducted on September 16. QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you for joining us. SECRETARY CLINTON: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for being here in Jerusalem. QUESTION: How are

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Middle East

Apollo signet ring found by Israeli archaeologists

HAIFA (Press Release)–A rare bronze signet ring with the impression of the face of the Greek sun god, Apollo, has been discovered at Tel Dor, in northern Israel, by University of Haifa diggers. “A piece of high-quality art such as this, doubtlessly created by a top-of-the-line artist, indicates that local elites developing a taste for fine

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Science, Medicine, & Education

Looming expiration of building freeze a crisis for Mideast talks

By Ira Sharkansky   JERUSALEM — The pressure is building, both on Israel and the Palestinians.  The immediate issue is the freeze on building in the settlements, set to expire in about a week. Various Palestinians have said, time and again, that they would cease the peace talks if there is construction of even one building

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Yale Strom authors a book on Dave Tarras, "klezmer king"

SAN DIEGO (Press Release)–San Diegan Yale Strom, himself a well known klezmer musician and musicologist, spent months interviewing people who knew Dave Taras, whom some have called the  “The Benny Goodman of klezmer.” Tarras is considered the most influential klezmer musician of the Twentieth Century. Scion of a musical family in Ternovke, Ukraine, Tarras played

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Travel and Food