Items in today’s column:
*Climate warming emergency drives Micah Perlin’s Assembly candidacy
*Personal wealth vs. political endorsements in 53rd C.D. race
*Some of the honorable traits animals share with humans
*A play about immigration has premiered at the Old Globe Theatre
*Mazel tov! Mazel tov!
*Passages
By Donald H. Harrison
Climate warming emergency drives Micah Perlin’s Assembly candidacy
SAN DIEGO — In an interview today, Assembly candidate Micah Perlin said he learned his Judaism from Rabbi Moshe Levin, formerly spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El, and studied for his bar mitzvah in 1989 with Rabbi Arthur Zuckerman, who later became spiritual leader at Congregation Beth Am. A surfer, Perlin said he conflated his love of the ocean and his Jewish desire to do tikkun olam into becoming an advocate for environmental causes.
After his parents Robyn Perlin and Joel Perlin divorced, he was raised in a blended family, with his father subsequently married to Ruth and his mother partnered with Edward Duncan. Today the candidate in the 78th AD is married to Sarah Fine, with whom he is raising their two sons, Avi, 6, and Sasha, 3. Fine directs teacher preparation for High Tech High School’s graduate school of education.
After graduating from La Jolla High School in 1994, Perlin focused his studies at UC Berkeley on how economics interact with the political system. He did a study-abroad program in Spain, then upon returning to UC Berkeley became an intern for Bayer Pharmaceuticals in its environmental department. He helped to implement the company’s energy audit as well as a recycling program to divert waste from landfills. After graduation, he returned to San Diego to work for SAIC in a similar capacity. He consulted with companies on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border on ways they could become more energy efficient and reduce waste.
He next went to Princeton University, completing a master’s degree in public policy there in 2004. At the time, he said, “George W. Bush was president and information on climate science was being suppressed. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was hemorrhaging scientists because they couldn’t publish what they knew to be true.” So, rather than go into government work, he launched a technology and management consulting company called Susterra, which he says “works with nonprofits and advocacy organizations to provide them with the tools to carry out their mission and measure their impact.”
More recently, Perlin has become involved in the political sector, pushing for candidates and policies including not only environmental protection but also criminal justice reform and affordable housing. He founded the “We The People” political action committee and Get-Out-The-Vote San Diego.
Twice a delegate to the California Democratic State Convention, Perlin describes himself as a political reformer. “Too many elected officials and candidates are talking about climate change as just a bullet point in their shtick,” he told San Diego Jewish World. “We are facing a climate emergency; there is no other way to understand what is happening right now.”
He said the 78th Assembly District includes the Scripps Institution of Oceanography where scientists have been warning for years about rising seas, but “their information has been suppressed and subjected to false uncertainty.”
“Oil companies knew back in the 1970s that sea level rise was significant enough to increase the height of their oil platforms, yet simultaneously they were injecting uncertainty into the public discourse about climate change,” Perlin said. If the public knew what oil companies knew there would have been an immediate demand to phase out fossil fuels, according to Perlin. “They spent 30 years investing in disinformation campaigns,” he said.
Saving the planet, he said, will require “multiple adjustments in the way we get around, the way we think about housing, the way we power our homes and vehicles, and we have to invest in infrastructure – all these things require a level of understanding about all these issues; we can’t pull on just one thread.”
Perlin said he has the background to make environmental policy if he is elected to the Assembly district that Todd Gloria is vacating to run for mayor of San Diego. “A lot will depend on understanding of technology,” he said. “Over the next 10 years, we have to reduce gas emissions by 50 percent — that will require a lot of bold action and an ambitious agenda. It is essential to have elected officials that the public has trust in.”
Another Jewish candidate in the 78th Assembly District is Sarah Davis, who was profiled in a previous column. City Councilman Chris Ward, who currently represents the 3rd City Council District, is also considered a formidable candidate in that race.
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Personal wealth vs. political endorsements in 53rd C.D. race
San Diego’s politically powerful LGBTQ community is uniting behind City Council President Georgette Gomez in her bid to succeed retiring Congresswoman Susan Davis in the 53rd CD. Two elected officials from that community, State Senate President pro tempore Toni Atkins and Assemblyman Todd Gloria announced their endorsements of Gomez on Monday. Previously, former State Senator Christine Kehoe also endorsed her.
However, the woman many consider to be her strongest opponent, Sara Jacobs, goes into the campaign with personal assets worth many millions of dollars. As Matt Potter reported in the Sept. 19 edition of San Diego Reader the granddaughter of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs in her unsuccessful race in 2018 in the nearby 49th Congressional District listed Qualcomm stock holdings worth between $5 million and $25 million; investment properties in Washington D.C. and New York worth up to $5 million each; and holdings worth between $1 million and $5 million in both Beldore Capital Fund and Clearfork Capital Fund. She also has an investment of between $100,000 and $250,000 in Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google.
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Some of the honorable traits animals share with humans
Lisa Deaderick profiled veterinarian and author Mark Goldstein in a one-on-one interview in the Sunday, Sept. 22, edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune. The author of Lions and Tigers and Hamsters: What Animals Large and Small Taught Me About life, Love and Humanity told Deaderick that he received as a bar mitzvah present from his parents his first dog, which was a black Belgian shepherd mix. Explaining his love for animals large and small, he said: “I became aware that even the most primitive forms of life exhibit maternal care for their young.” Additionally, he said, many animals will risk their lives to protect others and work in teams to complete tasks.
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A play about immigration has premiered at the Old Globe Theatre
Barry Edelstein, the artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, is promoting the world premiere of Noura, a play by Heather Raffo that iw directed by Johanna McKeon. It is a story that will resonate with members of the large Chaldean community in El Cajon and with groups such as we Jews who cherish passed-down memories of our families’ immigrant experiences. Now being presented, the play which will continue at the Old Globe through October 20 focuses on a woman who left her native Iraq for life in the U.S. “In a sense, she’s in exile not just from Iraq but also from herself, and her dilemma is a familiar one to American women regardless of their place of origin,” Edelstein wrote in a paid advertisement published Sept. 22 in The San Diego Union-Tribune. “Is it possible to be an individual in pursuit of your own dreams and at the same time be part of a group with its own notions of identity and its own expectations of the choices a woman can make? Can you maintain many identities at once, or is it inevitable that one of them must be sacrificed? And if something must be left behind, what should it be: family, culture, or self?”
Mazel tov! Mazel tov!
The family of Hillary Lachman feted her birthday on Sept. 22 with a gathering at the Signature Thai Restaurant on Lake Murray Boulevard. Joining in the celebration were her young daughters Lilly and Olivia, her father Steve Lachman, mother Beverly Lachman, Hillary’s significant other, Cody Gustaveson, and other guests.
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Passages
Chabad of East County has announced the death of Dr. Robert Gyori, whose funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23 ,at El Camino Memorial.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com