Other items in today’s column include:
*At the synagogues
*March of the Living
*Recommended reading
SAN DIEGO — Micah Parzen, Ph.D., the chief executive officer of the Museum of Man announced that henceforth the museum’s name will be the “Museum of Us.” He was joined in that announcement by Ellen Waddell, the current board chair and two past board chairs, Mark Dillon and George Ramirez.
Parzen said museum personnel and supporters had been debating since 1991 the possibility of choosing “a more inclusive name” and 29 years later, the name Museum of Us “reflects who we aspire to be.”
Over the last decade, Parzen messaged, “we’ve turned the very idea of a museum on its head, challenging assumptions every step of the way. We’ve discussed tabboos, swapped our inner-most secrets, invited aerosol artists to make their mark on our walls, and even skated a half-pipe on our balcony–sharing beers under the rotunda all the while.”
Furthermore, he said, there were some important steps taken in the progression toward the name change. These included:
- In 2011, we brought the Race: Are We so Different? exhibit to San Diego, and it transformed us forever. We committed to look in the mirror, ask difficult questions about our role in the problem of structural racism, and set out to change that, from the inside out.
- In 2016, we began decolonizing the Museum. We committed to tell the painful truth, hold ourselves accountable, and make amends with Indigenous peoples for the part we played in the traumatic legacy of colonialism.
- More recently, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we made a commitment to San Diegans everywhere through a “Proposal to Serve Community Need.” The City’s closure of Balboa Park precluded us from using the inside of our building as a food distribution site, so we turned the outside of the iconic California Tower into a message of gratitude to front-line workers everywhere.
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At the synagogues
*For what will be his debut Monday night classroom lecture after succeeding Rabbi Chaim Hollander as spiritual leader of the Orthodox congregation, Young Israel of San Diego, Rabbi Eddie Rosenberg chose the topic “Tu becomes one: Tu B’Av and Marriage.” The 7:15 p.m. talk may be accessed via this website.
*With the assistance of Alberto Attia, the community sofer, Temple Emanu-El has obtained a Sephardic Torah, housed in a tik, which can be more easily manipulated by one person during Torah readings than the Ashkenazic Torah, which is dressed in a mantle decorated with various finials, known in Hebrew as rimonim. In a column in the Reform congregation’s monthly newsletter, Rabbi Devorah Marcus commented that using this Torah during the time of pandemic facilitates less touching, as well as social-distancing. On the subject of diverse Jewish customs, she wrote: “The richness of Jewish culture spans eons and continents. In every place we have gone we have striven to maintain our traditions while adapting to the new worlds in which we find ourselves. The synagogue floors of five Caribbean synagogues (the oldest in the Americas) have sand floors. The synagogues of Poland were designed to NOT look like synagogues. The original building of Beth Israel here in San Diego was designed to look like the old front of TempleEmanuel in San Francisco and the inside looked like most other frontier houses of worship. In Portugal the Torah covers were made from the artisan fabrics of the bridal dresses of the community’s wealthier members. In Ethiopia the holidays did not include those created after the split of the kingdoms. In Spain, Jews could eat rice at Passover. In Bohemia, rice was forbidden. In Russia, challah is dipped in salt to remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. In Morocco challah is dipped in honey when a couple married less than a year is at the Shabbat table.”
*Members of Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s Sisterhood are fond of inspirational quotes. In a current newsletter of the Conservative synagogue’s auxiliary, readers are invited to reflect on Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s exhortation to “fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” In the same issue, a biographical story about the Sisterhood’s new president, Olga Worm, reports that her favorite quote is from poet Maya Aneglou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
*Rabbi/ Cantor Cheri Weiss of the San Diego Outreach Synagogue reflected on Sunday about her recent ordination as a rabbi, which because of the coronavirus pandemic, had to be conducted remotely by Zoom. Here is what she shared:
In May, as my rabbinical ordination ceremony was approaching, I felt honored and grateful to be bestowed with the title of “Rabbi.” At the same time, however, I felt decidedly ambivalent about the ceremony itself, which was to be held on Zoom. Also being ordained were three other rabbis, two chaplains and two Masters of Jewish Studies students. My heart hurt for all of my fellow graduates, as they had spent many years studying while making enormous personal and financial sacrifices to reach this pinnacle moment in their lives. Although all of the rabbinical graduates had agreed that what mattered to us the most was the achievement and not the pageantry, I admit that I did feel a twinge of disappointment. A Zoom graduation ceremony, I assumed, would be anticlimactic to say the least.
I could not have been more wrong.
In fact, our ceremony was truly one of the most meaningful events of my life. Yes, we did not have had the opportunity to hear the Shofar blasts as we stood in our robes and cowls, poised to march down the aisle of the synagogue sanctuary, or to smile as hundreds of people cheered and clapped as we processed while past and present cantorial students sang the familiar “Baruch Haba” (Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord). We did not each make a speech or get to hold each other in congratulatory embraces.
But what we did have was the warmth, caring, and heartfelt good wishes of our fellow students, the faculty, past graduates and guests, all of which was palpable through the screen. We were inspired by the hard work of the cantorial students who had spent hours and hours preparing beautiful videos of meaningful and relevant music. (Their “L’dor Vador” (From Generation to Generation) still brings tears to my eyes.) Our deans and other esteemed speakers opened their hearts, offering blessings to each of us as we prepared to take on new roles in the Jewish community. Next year’s graduates implored us to continue learning as we move through the world with our holy work, to carry inclusivity and caring for our community wherever we go, wished for us the ability to see the Ark of God in each person we encounter, to find our creative path in a new world landscape, and to find peace in our fragmented world.
What I was reminded of is that we can hold our Jewish traditions close to our hearts even under the most difficult of circumstances. We can be inspired to be part of the creation of a better world even when we are at a distance from each other. We can be uplifted by others and lift others up even when it seems like the world is falling apart.
Beth Jacob Congregation advises its members that “during this environment of social distancing – we haven’t had the opportunity to give tzedakah in person. Further, Shuls are advised not to put out the Tzedakah Box at in-person minyanim to avoid touching shared surfaces.” Therefore, the Orthodox congregation devised a digital pushkah, which may be accessed via this website.
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March of the Living
Prevented by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic from escorting Jewish youth to Auschwitz and Birkenau and then taking them to Israel, the March of the Living organization is nevertheless continuing to educate people about the Holocaust. Marcia Wollner, the organization’s Western Region director, says it has been arranged for the movie Resistance to be rented for $6.99 anytime via this website with a discussion of the movie for registered participants to be conducted at 10 a.m., San Diego time, on Tuesday, Aug. 18 featuring the film’s star, Jesse Eisenberg, and director/ screenwriter Jonathan Jakubowicz. Dana Arschin, a March of the Living alumna and Emmy Award winning reporter for Fox 5 News in New York, will moderate the discussion. The film deals with the life of famed mime, Marcel Marceau, who aided his fellow Jews smuggle their children out of Nazi-occupied France.
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Recommended reading
*In an Op-Ed piece for Times of San Diego, former Republican congressional candidate Morgan Murtaugh has endorsed Sara Jacobs, a Democrat, running against fellow Democrat, San Diego City Council President Georgette Gomez in the 53rd Congressional District now represented by soon-to-retire 10 term Congresswoman Susan Davis.
*Raed al-Naser, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Arab American Medical Association, says lumping Arabs under the category of Whites in the census and other demographic studies, hides the health disparities suffered by the Arab American population. His Op-Ed appears in East County Magazine.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com