By Donald H. Harrison in San Diego
INTERNATIONAL
ZAKA, the organization in Israel whose volunteers reverently recover body parts from scenes of mass casualties so they can be given a proper burial, observed its 35th anniversary last Sunday with a concert in Newark, New Jersey, attended by nearly 3,000 people.
The group’s CEO, Dubi Weissenstern, commented “Tonight is more than a milestone; it is a living testament to the holy work our volunteers do every day. Our teams run toward pain so others can find comfort. They bring dignity and light where there is chaos and loss. Our concert honor their courage and the supporters who make it possible.”
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Aryeh Lightstone, a Trump administration official who oversees the creation of apartment house compounds in Western Gaza, told The New York Times that this is the most pragmatic way to “get people into safe housing as soon as humanly possible.” Previously Lightstone was a top aide to U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. He also served as the chief executive officer of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, founded by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. The San Diego Union-Tribune carried the extensive story Nov. 25.
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Two Jewish congressional representatives – Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) and Craig Goldman (R-Texas) introduced legislation to designate Nov. 30 as Jewish Refugee Day, Yom HaPlitim. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports the measure honors Jews in Arab countries who were forced to leave their homes after the United Nations approved on Nov. 29, 1947, the partition plan dividing Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish area and an Arab area.
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NATIONAL
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) and Laura Friedman (D-California) welcomed the social media platform X’s addition of a location feature telling where message senders are located. “Transparency on social media is crucial to fighting misinformation and antisemitism online. We’ve seen cases of foreign actors like Russia, China and Iran attempting to use these platforms to sow division and spread hate,” Gottheimer told Jewish Insider.
Friedman agreed, telling JI “This transparency is an important step. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, bad actors spreading antisemitic narratives to divide Americans is a real threat. There’s much more tech companies should do to expose and stop this manipulation.”
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New York City Fire Department Commissioner Robert Tucker, who is Jewish, resigned to avoid serving in the administration of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whose campaign “really reflected” his incompatibilities with the incoming administration.
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STATE AND LOCAL
Adolph Sutro (1830-1898), who served as San Francisco’s 24th mayor from 1895 to 1897, earlier in his career (1869-1878 ) made a fortune as the engineer who devised a method of draining water from silver mines in the Comstock Lode of neighboring Nevada, thus protecting miners and investors from flooding threats. Referred to as the “King of the Comstock,” the Jewish Sutro had his tunnel intersect with a number of mines and could be rented for an average of $10,000 a day.
The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, headed by its Executive Director Jerry Klinger, donated a series of historic markers to the Sutro Tunnel Restoration Project recognizing “not only Sutro’s Jewish heritage but also his role in shaping the development of Nevada and California – and in exemplifying the immigrant spirt that built the American West.”
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Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of the AMCHA Initiative, writes in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles that anti-Israel leaders of the California Faculty Association seek to overturn a recently enacted law guarding against antisemitism in California’s school system.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.