In important ways Proposition 22 and 23 are alike. Both feature multi-million dollar advertising campaigns by big corporations who say if voters approve new restrictions on their business, they’ll have to cut back service or even leave California. [Donald H. Harrison]
Yes on Propositions 22 (Rideshare) and 23 (Dialysis) Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, USA
By Jerry Klinger BOYNTON BEACH, Florida — My mother was never a pacifist, at least I do not remember her ever having taught me a code of values that suggested so. She never spoke of the right to fight or even worse to kill. Yet she did teach me much about the value of life,
The Holocaust lessons my mother taught me Read More »
International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA
Police reported on Friday that they had arrested a 14-year-old boy in connection with an attack on Saturday, Oct. 10. in which Rabbi Yonatan Halevy of Kehillat Shaar Hashamayim was clobbered on top of his head by an assailant who then rode off on his bicycle. The 31-year-old rabbi, whose Sephardic congregation is engaged in outreach as part of a Shiviti movement, was knocked down but not seriously hurt. At the time, Halevy was walking on Governor Drive in University City with his father, a stroke victim in his late 60s. The father was not assaulted. [Donald H. Harrison, Our Shtetl San Diego County]
Juvenile arrested for attack on rabbi Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, USA
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-California) praise of her Republican colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), followed by a spontaneous show of appreciation, shocked her liberal colleagues by hugging Graham. This would have been a positive note to end the raucous debates we have seen and imbibed since the beginning of the hearings. Yet, we are living in a time when conformity to the Democratic status quo is considered more important than anything else. Surprisingly to most of us, Feinstein stirred a hornets’ nest and many of her fellow Democrats excoriated her for showing a token of civility. [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]
Feinstein demonstrated civility at Barrett’s hearing Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, USA
Adam and Eve were very special souls, created from the earth by the ‘hands’ of the Almighty. They were infused with the Divine Spirit as, ‘G-d blew into his nostrils a living soul,’ and from Adam fashioned Eve. G-d created the first humans in His ‘image,’ which means they were endowed with a G-dly spark to serve as their soul and the great gift of free choice. It is only by virtue of the fact that we have free choice that we are able to refine and uplift the world in a way that nothing else can. [Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort]
A Word of Torah: A New Beginning, Again Read More »
Jewish Religion, Yeruchem Eilfort-RabbiProposition 21 poses a philosophical question. In these hard times, do we vote to assure that renters will be able to remain in their homes, or do we, in the name of unrestricted capitalism, permit landlords to raise rents so high that their tenants are forced to find cheaper apartments, or in some cases, to become homeless? [Donald H. Harrison]
Yes on Proposition 21: Rachmanis for Renters Read More »
Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, USA
As an economic recession looms, migrants vulnerable to poverty, facing conflict, displacement, or unsafe working and living conditions require greater economic support as unemployment rises, access to PPEs, and legal assistance.Migrant workers have been at the forefront of the world economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, as essential workers. Yet, at the same time this comes with risk. [Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts]
Migrant workers hard hit worldwide by COVID19 Read More »
International, Middle East, USA
Next week, an online event organized by the human rights group “3 Generations” will feature New York Times op-ed columnist Roger Cohen, who sparked an international furor in 2009 when he visited Iran and announced that the oppressed Jews there were not really so oppressed, after all. Cohen’s assertion that Iranian Jews were “living, working and worshiping in relative tranquility” was met with scorn across the political spectrum. Jeffrey Goldberg, in The Atlantic, called him “credulous.” The Anti-Defamation League charged Cohen with viewing Iran through “dangerous rose-colored lenses.” J.J. Goldberg, in The Forward, characterized Cohen as “simply naive, and dangerously so.” [Rafael Medoff, Ph.D]
A new blow to Iran’s forgotten Jews Read More »
International, Jewish History, Middle East, USA
By Toby Klein Greenwald EFRAT, Israel — In April, the board members of the Alliance for Jewish Theater bit the bullet and decided to morph their annual autumn conference into a three-day Zoom event. Like everyone, they hoped for the best, but were being proactive and not assuming there would be a miracle. Theater makers
Virtual meetings spur Jewish theatre community Read More »
International, Middle East, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Toby Klein Greenwald, USA
Editor’s Note: Laurie Baron, Ph.D, envisions how U.S. President Donald Trump would rewrite the history of the United States. Here is a link to Part I, the colonial period. … The New Republic (not to be confused with the fake news magazine)
Satire: Trump’s Happy U.S. History, Part II Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USAOn behalf of San Diego Jewish World, I would like to offer sincere sympathy to the parishioners and clergy of St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Church in Rancho San Diego and Our Mother of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in El Cajon, on whose houses of worship swastikas and hateful slogans were discovered on Saturday morning. [Donald H. Harrison, ‘Our Shtetl San Diego County’]
We join in the outrage over the vandalism at two churches Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, USA
In 1928 Herbert van Son, the uncle I never knew, was a young man of nineteen. The family lived in Hamburg and his father was a successful importer of tobacco. He arranged for his son to travel to Louisville and work as an apprentice to a business associate who was a tobacco farmer and trader there. He writes about the hot, damp climate and the warm relations between him and his employer, who helped him get settled and even took him to the Kentucky Derby. It was all interesting but very different to the life he had known in Hamburg,
The life and unexplained suicide of Uncle Herbert Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Travel and Food, USA
It was only in the past year that a number of Arab countries decided that the failure of the Palestinian Arabs to come to an agreement with Israel was dangerous for those selfsame countries. With an expansionist Shia-Muslim Iran threatening them, two Sunni-Muslim Arab states decided to put their citizens first and ally themselves with the most powerful state in the neighborhood, Israel. No longer would the security of the Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain (by “allying” with Israel) be vetoed by Palestinian Arabs, whose demand is NO normalization with Israelis. [Steve Kramer]
5781: A year with great potential Read More »
Middle East, Steve Kramer
I completed a presentation to a client in Beverly Hills whose suite was on the top floor of a swanky high rise office building. I entered the elevator and pressed the first floor button. The elevator descended only one floor and the doors opened. In walked Groucho Marx, the world famous comedian, and his financial manager. They moved to the back of the elevator and talked in quiet calm even tones. [Ira Spector]
A brief encounter with Groucho Read More »
Theatre, Film & Broadcast