Books, Poetry & Short Stories

A conversation with artist Ruth Poniarski

Ruth Poniarski is a painter and the author of Journey of the Self: Memoir of an Artist (Warren Publishing, 2020), in which she tells the story of her decade long struggle with mental illness, a “spiraling malady” which led her into a “pattern of psychosis.” I recently had the opportunity to talk with Poniarski about her life and work, and how she eventually overcame her demons. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir

Barry Jagoda recalls life at the Carter White House

Barry Jagoda, a retired communications director for UC San Diego, has had a storied media career. He was a producer at various times for CBS and NBC, coordinating coverage for such historic events as Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon; and the unfolding Watergate crisis and resignation of Richard M. Nixon. With his media savvy, he went on to become a special assistant to Jimmy Carter, initially on the campaign trail and later in the White House.  Many of the stars of his era in television media — Walter Cronkite, Ed Bradley, Dan Rather, for example — were on first-name basis with him.  As you might imagine, Jagoda has a lot of stories to tell. [Our Shtetl San Diego County by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, San Diego County, USA

‘The Sacrifice Zone’ and worst cases of pollution

A ‘sacrifice zone,’ American novelist Roger S. Gottlieb tells us, is “a place so polluted it can never be cleaned up.” It is also the title of a highly original, deeply moving new novel from Gottlieb — a prolific philosophy professor at Worcester Polytechnic University (WPI) in Massachusetts. He also has written dozens of non-fiction books on everything from Marxism and contemporary spirituality to the Holocaust and religious environmentalism.[Dan Bloom]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories

Half-Jewish boy survives Nazi school

In the Nazis’ deformed ideology, Josef had so many things against him. He was a Mischling– that is a person of mixed race. Yes, his mother was Aryan, but his father was a Jew. Yet, he had his mother’s white skin and coloring, and someone figured that at a special school, he could be molded. Josef also had a condition known as synethesia. Almost any stimulus — a sound, a view, a taste — could burst into his head as an array of colors. [Book review by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Who’s reconsidering Virginia Woolf?

I read Orlando by Virginia Woolf originally many years ago, when I first ‘discovered’ Virginia Woolf and the fascinating world of the Bloomsbury Group – the coterie of artists, writers and intellectuals who coalesced around her and her husband, Leonard Woolf (who was Jewish). I eagerly swallowed every word she had ever written, as well as her diaries, collected letters and  the many works about her and the other members of the group. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International

When England was going it alone, there was Churchill

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson covers the challenges Winston Churchill faced during the first two years of the war, from May 1940 to the end of 1941. Churchill grappled with the Nazi blitzkrieg toppling France and other Allies and the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and other locations. Then came the Battle of Britain as Spitfires and Hurricanes, radar and Bletchley Park intelligence interfered with Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe. The Nazis blitzed London and other English cities for eight months and five days. Blessedly Hitler’s anticipated land invasion never occurred. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Oliver Pollak

Thomas Sowell, Bolsheviks, and BLM rhetoric

Thomas Sowell is one of the greatest intellectuals in the world today. Back in 1999, he wrote a remarkable book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice. He relates in his book about the time in 1919 when The Bolsheviks created the secret police known as the Cheka.  The similarities between the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Cheka are astounding. Sowell cited records from that era, which ought to sound familiar to us—a century later: (Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, USA

Redeeming a Holocaust Survivor’s reputation

Retired California theater producer and drama professor George Kovach is the stepson the late Cecelia ”Cilka” Klein who was the subject of a recent Holocaust sex and romance novel by an Australian novelist named Heather Morris, who wrote an earlier sex and romance novel set during the Holocaust titled The Tattooist of Auschwitz. In Morris’ sequel to her bestselling first novel, titled Cilka’s Journey, she focused on Cecelia Klein, and Kovach found the portrayal of his Jewish stepmother highly objectionable.  [Dan Bloom]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History

Author probes the philosophy of the Torah

Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah is an interesting book written by R. Shmuel Phillips who attempts to create a philosophical midrash of the text using primarily two important Judaic thinkers: Maimonides and Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder of Modern Orthodoxy. [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi

‘Unorthodox’ draws critical response from Chabad women

The Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, about a woman who leaves her husband, casts off the ways of the Satmar Hasidim, and seeks to rebuild her life in the secular world, drew Zoomcast rebuttals on Monday night from a first cousin of the author upon whose 2012 memoir the series was based, as well as from educators and rebbetzins of the Lubavitcher Hasidim, better known as Chabadniks, here in San Diego County. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Two spies who had faith and ten who didn’t

Moses chooses twelve men to slip into the city as spies. They’ll gather intel to see if the city is safe to conquer. Two spies, Joshua and Caleb, return with good news. “If God is on our side, we can take over the town.” Ten spies return, quivering and complaining. “There are giants in the town. We will lose everything if we try to enter.” Moses and the people have a problem. One group is not telling the truth. Who should they believe? [Marcia Berneger]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion, Marcia Berneger, Travel and Food

May Orthodox Judaism have female rabbis?

Rabbi Dr. Sperber quotes his speech during the ordination of female rabbis. “A relatively short time ago such an occasion within an Orthodox setting would have seemed to be impossible, almost hallucinatory. Yet what was so recently a dream has now become a reality. Yet what was once implausible has now become almost a norm, at least within a certain segment of the modern Orthodox community.” He notes that some Orthodox leaders refuse to accept the change, “But this is to be expected, and indeed understandable, given the traditionalist inability to recognize the dynamic nature of halachah. For they are grounded in dogmatism, while we strive after dynamism.” [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History, Jewish Religion