Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Passing on Passover thoughts

SAN DIEGO — Members of our community have been sharing their thoughts about this unusual Passover via emails and social media. We are pleased to pass along some of them: Rabbi Joshua Dorsch of Tifereth Israel Synagogue says, “One of the many things that Passover teaches us is that amidst the darkness, and challenging moments in our lives, together, we will persevere. We will emerge from the struggle and the challenges before us, stronger and more connected together.”  Along with Tifereth Israel staff members Michelle Barbour, Amy Stanley, Beth Klareich, and Alissa Messian, he performed in a video parodying Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham:  “I do not want you in my house/ I do not want you or your spouse/ I do not wish to eat with you/ At Seder one or Seder Two/ Don’t get me wrong: I think you’re nice/ but the CDC gave out this advice:/ You must avoid one plague more/ And shoo Elijah from your door./ At next year’s seder, we will tell/ How we were all saved by Purell.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA

Lone soldier from San Diego on patrol near Gaza

  Other items in  today’s column include *Israel Philharmonic teams up in their homes for Pesach melodies *Coronavirus and animals *Passover doings * By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night, Israel Defense Forces Corporal Sagie Shpigelman, 19,  of San Diego patrols Israel’s border with Gaza along with other

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

I’ve can’t see her face
Her mask is cotton and not lace.                                                                                                        
No lips or nose
On which to gaze.    
During this pandemic phase. …                           

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Lawrence Baron, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & Satire

We may not have concerts, but we have CDs to review

Since reviewing live music concerts is not possible during these days of isolation, I will be writing weekly columns about some of my favorite CD recordings by people whom I know, and include examples of audio selections from their discs.  First, I plan to write about the 16 CDs featuring my younger sister, concert violinist Zina Schiff. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Bry sees less need in future for office space, more need for Internet connections, technology

City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, whose runoff status for mayor against Assemblyman Todd Gloria has now been confirmed by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic likely will have both short-term and long-term impacts on the City of San Diego [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education

Passover and the five levels of the soul

On the first night of Nissan, we start counting until the moon is full on the fifteenth. This is Seder night, our annual birthday party as a nation. Some 3000 years ago, we were an enslaved people yearning for liberation from a decadent tyrant. Thanks to the genius of the Haggadah, every year we gather to start our calendar anew by retelling the saga of the birth of the unbreakable soul of our nation. [Sam Glaser]

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Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Glaser

Susan Davis collects constituents’ coronavirus questions

Right now, Congress should focus on getting help to people who need it amid this coronavirus pandemic, but later on it should investigate why the United States was slow to respond to the threat of coronavirus and why necessary medical equipment was in such short supply, Congresswoman Susan Davis, D-San Diego, said Tuesday during a telephonic town hall meeting. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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

The tapestries that bind us

The watercolor has been in my family seemingly forever. It used to hang in my parents’ apartment in Tel Aviv, but it has been in my different homes in California for decades. In it a young girl of five or six years faces the painter with a slight pout and a high forehead crowned by a white ribbon. The sadness along her lip line is unmistakable. One can imagine small pools of tears about to gather in her big dark eyes. She is wearing a summer dress, but the painter chose to focus on her face and in quick brush strokes drew two blue straps over small shoulders that are colored a distinctive pink. [Varda Levy]

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International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA

The Jewish candidates: Kate Schwartz in the 75th A.D.

Kate Schwartz, a Fallbrook Democrat who will face incumbent Assemblywoman Marie Waldron (R-Escondido) in the Nov. 3 runoff election, said the coronavirus pandemic illustrates the necessity to re-open community and rural hospitals. Furthermore, she said, it is evidence that California should switch from competing private health systems to a unified, single-payer health care system.  She said California could set an example for the rest of the nation. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, The World We Share, USA

Assembly candidate rues growing anger amid pandemic

State Assembly candidate Kate Schwartz eared her graduate degree in psychiatric social work, and today as a mental health professional, she serves as one of five members on the Fallbrook Regional Health District Board.  As our society experiences the coronavirus pandemic, she says that Americans appear to be moving from the first stage of grief — shock and denial — to the far more dangerous second stage, which is anger. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA

Major Jewish groups to meet CV19 challenge together

Gary E. Jacobs, the San Diegan who serves as the national chairman of the JCC Association Board of Directors, declared Wednesday that “the Jewish community has historically overcome the greatest challenges only when we united and work together.  This is one of those moments when we in the JCC Community, along with the Federations, summer camps and so many others will collaborate to address this unprecedented crisis.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA

Universities urge Pass/No Pass grades this semester

With in-person classes transferred to Internet learning at UC Berkeley, my grandson, Shor Masori, is back home in San Diego, monitoring his classes via computer.  Recently, he and his fellow undergraduates received a notice from Bob Jacobsen, Letters & Science Dean of Undergraduate Studies.  It began, “The chair of the Academic Senate has written to explain that for this semester only, the default grades that instructors will give are Pass and No Pass.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Shor M. Masori, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food