By Natasha Josefowitz, PhD LA JOLLA, California — Learning the ropes, paying your dues, passing muster, earning your stripes—all terms we use to refer to the rites of passage from outsider to insider. Practical jokes, intentionally meaningless or humiliating tasks, and unnecessary assignments are all forms of hazing, and newcomers are hazed to test them […]
Hazing can have a positive result Read More »
Natasha Josefowitz, Travel and Food
SAN DIEGO — Okay, here’s one that is a “puzzlement.” If it read A 18, it would mean the owner was a member of the California Assembly from the 18th district. But this is 18 A. Melanie Rubin decided that since “18” is the numeric value of “Chai,” that 18 A must mean Chai-A, or
The secret of 18A? Read More »
Jewish ReligionAt Adamah Farm in Connecticut and the Pearlstone Center’s farm in Maryland, activities are more “heimish” than Amish: growing, harvesting and enjoying pickles, vegetables and cheese with other Jews in an environmental, educational and spiritual setting. By Paul Foer/JNS.org FALLS VILLAGE, CONN.—Nadav Slovin cultivates the fields of potatoes and other crops in the rural Litchfield
‘Harvesting people and pickles’: An inside look at Jewish farming Read More »
USALatino Jews weigh in on immigration, Israel leading up to election Roughly 100,000 Latino Jews reside in the U.S., including 40,000 in the swing state of Florida—which could very well decide the election. With that in mind, JNS.org spoke to Latino-Jewish immigrants from Peru, Cuba, Mexico and Argentina who are now eligible to vote in
Latino Jews weigh immigration, Israel Read More »
USAAhmadinejad’s ‘different perspective’ features usual anti-Israel comments at UN (JNS.org) Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened his remarks by saying he has been speaking on the world’s problems for seven years and that he wants to “raise such issues from
JNS news briefs: September 27, 2012 Read More »
International
By David Brin ENCINITAS, California — It’s been said that a politician gets to be perfectly honest just once in a long career — at its end. Refreshing candor sometimes pours after an old pol has faced the last campaign. No more fund raisers or flattering voters. One chance to tell the truth. All right,
On what do Obama and Romney agree? Read More »
USA
By Danny Bloom CHIAYI CITY, TAIWAN — When I first landed on these colorful, picturesque shores about a decade or so ago, one of the first dishes I sampled at the local dumpling joint was something the waitress called “shalom pow.” At least, to my non-tonal and 1950s Hebrew School ears, it sure sounded like
Maybe mispronounced, but his dumplings are ‘shalom pow’ Read More »
International
By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO – Edgar Allan Poe once remarked, “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.” Short films adhere to the same rule. The acting, editing, plot, and soundtrack should all contribute to a vivid portrait of a character, the essence of a situation, or
The Wandering Review: Stars in Shorts Read More »
Lawrence BaronBy Amnon Ben-Yehuda SAN DIEGO — Americans have an information gap on Israel. I keep up with events and news from Israel by logging in daily to the Hebrew version of the Israeli papers Ha’aretz and Yediott. Between the two I can read opinions by columnists ranging the political spectrum but with emphasis to the
U.S. readers have Israel information gap Read More »
Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Among the more moderate responses to Ehud Barak’s proposal to withdraw some 30,000 Israelis from the West Bank (i.e, leaving aside those whose response was “absolutely crazy”), is the warning that planning must be better than in the case of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. For the sake of argument,
Palestinian society rejects 2-state solution Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastSAN DIEGO (Press Release) — San Diego Mesa College will host The Courage to Remember, a traveling exhibit produced by the Museum of Tolerance from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, November 5 through 16, 2012. Admission to the exhibit is free and the public is invited to attend. After more than 20 years of international acclaim and a
Mesa College to host Holocaust exhibit in November Read More »
San Diego Calendar
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration was wrong when first it said that what happened in Cairo and Benghazi was a spontaneous gush of righteous Muslim indignation. After days of insisting that a snippet of YouTube trash was responsible — not U.S. policy and certainly not the U.S. government — and that
U.S. refuses to acknowledge Islamist war against it Read More »
Shoshana Bryen, USASAN DIEGO (Press Release)–The Jewish Community Foundation Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Jeff Silberman as its new Board Chair. Jeff succeeds Emily Einhorn who led the Foundation for a two-year term and continues on the Foundation’s Board and Executive Committee. Jeff’s leadership experience spans seven years as a Foundation board
Jeff Silberman is new chair of JCF Read More »
San Diego County
By Carol Davis VISTA, California—“Sweeny Todd”, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler (based on Christopher Bond’s 1973 play) is not your usual run-of-the mill happy musical. It’s dark, bloody, broody, deliciously wicked and gruesome in tone and look and it is revenge-driven. At times it is sprinkled with some pretty
Something odd about Sweeney Todd’s barber shop Read More »
Carol Davis, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast