Donald H. Harrison

D’var Torah for September 21, 2019

This is the time of the year when we reflect, when we turn inward, review our past year’s successes and disillusionments, with the purpose of looking forward to a better year…in other words, gezunt, hatlacha and parnassa.

The parasha begins with “When you arrive,” and ends with “When you have arrived at this place.” We are to be joyful, to be sameach, not simply because we feel we’ve succeeded, but because it is a commandment to do so.

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 18, 2019

Items in this column include:
*Local businessmen fly to Bahamas to help victims of Hurricane Dorian
*Councilmembers Bry and Campbell often find common ground
*San Diegans will host IDF veterans as they sort out combat memories
*Bible Players to enliven services this weekend at Tifereth Israel Synagogue

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Diary of a Benny Gantz supporter

I have to vote. If it’s the last thing I do. I’m there, I’m two minutes early. My sweat is dripping of my face as I look at the hall with twenty other Israelis my age waiting to cast their vote.  I sign a paper saying I couldn’t vote at my poll. I couldn’t, I didn’t think I’d make it there. I take care to write the information carefully. I do my best to do everything perfect. I can’t screw up again.

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Middle East, Sam Litvin

Israel’s post- election battle of egos

Likud is unable to form a right-wing government. The lack of mandates earned by the smaller right-wing and religious parties prevent that option without Liberman, and Liberman made issues with the religious parties part of his electioneering platform. So no right-religious deal is possible without the heavy Liberman climbing down from his political tree.

Gantz is unable to form a center-left coalition even with the Arab party without Liberman because Liberman has said he will not sit in any government with the current Arab politicians, most of whom he sees as anti-Israel antagonists and not part of the Israeli consensus.

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Barry Shaw, Middle East

Israel’s election results: Same as before

Binyamin Netanyahu is still not able to form a government without Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, but the latter refuses to serve under or with the current prime minister. As the acknowledged king maker without whom there can be no majority government in Israel, Liberman  says that he wants a secular government consisting of Likud without Netanyahu; the Blue and White party led by Benny Gantz and the other generals (plus Yair Lapid); and – of course, above all – himself. Though this is by no means a perfect solution, it seems vastly preferable to the alternatives.

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Middle East

College faculties often seek to eliminate Israel

SANTA CRUZ, California (Press Release)– As students settle back onto campuses across the country, AMCHA Initiative releases a new report, The Harassment of Jewish Students on U.S. Campuses: How Eliminationist Anti-Zionism and Academic BDS Incite Campus Anti-Semitism.  The report illuminates a number of critical shifts and increases in campus anti-Semitism in the past year and includes

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Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Book Review: ‘An Unorthodox Match’

I once had a rabbi who inveighed against religious hypocrisy with this saying: “Big beard, small Jew.”

What Rabbi Aaron Gold, z’l, meant was that some people are tempted to display how scrupulously they stick to ritual, but are unbending and uncaring when it comes to the more important rules of Judaism, as found in the Ten Commandments, such as not to murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, nor to covet your neighbor’s possessions.

Another important rule is to welcome the stranger, and therein lies the essence of the conflict that powers Naomi Ragen’s latest novel, An Unorthodox Match, is which a formerly secular Jew, who is trying to follow an observant life style, is rejected by the very same people who purportedly want her to follow their ways.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

San Diego holds its first Sephardic Festival

I had to smile on Saturday night at the Sephardic Festival held at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center [JCC] this past weekend.  There was a short film, Our San Diego Sephardic Voices, about the Sephardim in San Diego.  One of the women interviewed said she was in a “mixed marriage” as her husband was Ashkenazi. Another woman spoke about the differences in food as the Sephardic eat much more rice than their eastern European counterparts.

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International, Lifestyles, Mimi Pollack, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 16, 2019

Items in today’s column:

*San Diego County teens, successful in past, may apply for Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards
*Bible, Holocaust, and Israel subjects of new books by local authors
*Barbara Bry gets backing of neighborhoods group in mayoral race
*Sukkot activity planning well underway in the county

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA