Donald H. Harrison

Kayleigh McEnany is not what she seems

“Science should not stand in the way of schools re-opening.” This recent statement by White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has made headlines. What children are supposed to learn in prematurely re-opened schools if not science was not clear. But pundits and internet trolls have been having a field day with the sheer absurdity of this statement. And it seems that at every press conference, Kayleigh McEnany will toss out such a bone. It’s like she’s not even pretending to sound credible or even halfway intelligent. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, USA

Gov. Newsom’s order negates Hebrew Day’s plans for in-person learning

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered most private and public schools in the state, including those in San Diego County, to offer only distance learning rather than in-person classroom instruction.  His order came in response to spiking rates of coronavirus infection in California.  The exceptions were schools in counties where the incidents of the virus are very low. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education

A Word of Torah: Flexibility and rigidity

There is no doubt that sometimes the best approach is a ‘bend but do not break’ attitude. There are also times, however, when we must remain rigidly opposed and refuse to compromise our morals. Sometimes, as Jews, we must proactively reject the evil that we see. Often this will be an unpopular position. Nonetheless, we must rigidly and stubbornly reject evil, even popular evil. [Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort]

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Jewish Religion, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi

Debating Divine Revelation

The doctrine of Torah Min Ha-Shamayim, “The Torah is from Heaven,” is a fundamental teaching of Orthodox Judaism. Rabbis say it means that God dictated the Five Books of Moses to Moses. But even rabbis who strongly defend this doctrine do not know how God communicated the Torah to Moses or how much of it. For example, there are Orthodox rabbis who agree that Moses was the author of the book of Deuteronomy, or most of it, and God approved what he wrote. More significantly, Maimonides states that we have no idea how the Torah was revealed. A modern rabbi and scholar Louis Jacobs argues that he knows how it was revealed. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Synagogue offers ‘J.E.D. Talks’ on second Sundays each moth

San Diego Outreach Synagogue (SDOS) held its first J.E.D. Talk last Sunday. J.E.D stands for Jewish Experiences Discussed. “Everyone has a story to tell and an experience to share,” states Rabbi-Cantor Cheri Weiss, spiritual leader of SDOS. The talks are planned for the second Sundays of the month and will feature SDOS members sharing how their own experiences and/or expertise connect to their Judaism. [Marcia Berneger]

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Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Marcia Berneger, San Diego County

Are our synagogues sufficiently inclusive?

Are the doors of our synagogues honestly and completely wide open, inclusively and warmly, genuinely accepting all on equal footing, even modern day “Reubens and Gads”? After all, who is perfect? Are we missing parts of our community today, indeed are we turning away members of our community, explicitly or implicitly, from our synagogues? [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Satire: Expect the worst

To counter a boycott against Goya Food in protest of its CEO praising Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump posted a photo of her holding up a can of Goya Black Beans captioned in English and Spanish, “If it’s Goya, it’s got to be good.” Criticized for using her office to promote a product, she retorted that the photo was intended as a campaign ad to show Latino and African American voters that “black beans matter” to her father.  [Satire by Laurie Baron, Ph.D}

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Torah for children: Promises, promises

What you say is very important. The Torah even includes a section about children. Sometimes a child might make a promise that is very hard to keep. The Torah says a parent (or adult) can decide if it’s okay if the child doesn’t do what they said they would do. According to this Torah portion, it’s also up to the parent (or adult) to decide if it’s a promise the child needs to keep. [Marcia Berneger]

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Jewish Religion, Marcia Berneger, Science, Medicine, & Education

What did the White House know about Rabbi Goldstein’s criminality?

I have more than a few questions about the conduct of the tax fraud case in which Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein is being recommended for probation, rather than a prison sentence, notwithstanding the fact that his pattern of illegal conduct reaches back several decades. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

Less transparency will worsen the pandemic

Hospital data is now going directly to the Trump administration rather than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This will have immediate and far reaching consequences. Already valuable CDC pages that tracked changes in the number of occupied and available hospital beds in the nation for COVID-19 patients stopped working as a result of the switch. We have essentially lost this important metric for gauging the progress of the disease. The sidelining of the CDC is nothing less than a travesty and Americans should be outraged and alarmed. This loss of transparency will lead inevitably to an even worse pandemic and greater loss of life. [Sam Ben-Meir]

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Sam Ben-Meir, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

U.S. must reverse racist treatment of Black people

The rage, desperation, and determination which continue to bring tens of thousands of Americans to the streets in protest against racism and injustice hopefully will be just the beginning. They are sick and tired of systemic racism against Black people, of bigotry at the top, crude discrimination, police brutality, a prejudiced criminal justice system, economic disparity, and society’s robbing Black people of experiencing real freedom and equality. Hypocritically, White people blame the victims of racism for their own plight, claiming that Black people would do better in life if they were only willing to work harder. [Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Alon Ben-Meir, USA

DeSean Jackson: Ignorance or hatred?

Purportedly quoting the most reviled monster in modern history, the Eagles wide receiver last week posted on Instagram that Hitler accuses “white Jews” of having a “plan for world domination…Hitler said, ‘because the white Jews knows that the Negroes are the real Children of Israel and to keep America’s secret the Jews will blackmail America. … The white citizens of America will be terrified to know that all this time they’ve been mistreating and discriminating and lynching the Children of Israel.’” [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Sports & Competitions, USA