The Arts

Remembering via a virtual March of the Living

Residents throughout our county are joining a unique, worldwide virtual memorial to remember the victims of the Holocaust.  Sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic from attending this year’s “March of the Living” which brings thousands of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration complex in Poland to mourn those who were murdered by the Nazis, members of the Jewish community instead are posting their sentiments on line via the Never Means Never website created for the purpose by March of the Living organizers. [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, USA

Congresswoman Davis announces financial help for students

Federal relief funds  for local universities and colleges and for their students in need during the coronavirus pandemic were announced on Monday by Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego).  In total, 23 institutions of higher learning in the count are receiving grant totaling $137,435,195, and will be required to distribute at least $71,360,718 in grants to students to pay for housing food, and other essentials. [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, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Streaming films about the Haredim

For a long time most films dealing with Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews sided with individuals whose choice of lifestyle, partners, or vocations conflicted with the expectations of their families and community.  While that is still true of many movies, in recent years films with sympathetic portrayals of traditional Jewish subcultures have emerged.  Here’s a sampling of both kinds of cinematic depictions. [Laurie Baron, PhD]

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Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Jewish trivia quiz: The Beatles

Fifty years ago (April 10, 1970), the Beatles officially split up. Their popularity, however, has not waned. At an online auction last week, an ashtray used by Ringo Starr at Abbey Road Studios sold for $32,500 and a drawing by John Lennon and Yoko Ono called Bagism sold for $93,750. The handwritten lyrics of the song Hey Jude sold for $910,000, nine times the pre-auction estimate. What was the Jewish connection to that song? [Mark D. Zimmerman]

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Mark D. Zimmerman, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Addressing Bible difficulties

It is only in recent times that Yeshivas (post-high-school religious schools) began again to teach Bible. The problem that the rabbis faced was that enlightenment scholars raised multiple questions about the Bible, questions that seemed to show that God did not write or inspire the Bible, but that it was composed by many different authors with different agendas, some of whom made mistakes. The Yeshiva rabbis did not know how to respond to the attacks. So, the rabbis stopped teaching Bible and told students that if they wanted to study the Torah they should do so on their own. Instead, the rabbis taught only Talmud and ethical books. This situation existed when I attended a prominent Yeshiva in the 1950s. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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

‘Plum Rains’ peeks into potential future

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax is a novel set in the immediate future: 2029.  As such many common and universal human failings are on full display.  Greed, disdain, and full blown discrimination against people who are “others,” those who are not exactly like us, or who are like us, but from a slightly different location.  All of these human failings are all on full display throughout the novel. [Pamela Pollack Fremd]

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food

Author probes ‘desert Islam’ versus its cosmopolitan form

The author was born into a Muslim family living in Canada, so therefore she grew up in a modern, pluralistic and capitalist society while being educated in the tradition of the Muslim religion. In the first part of her book she identifies herself as a lesbian, a journalist and a feminist with an inquirinig mind and openness to interaction with other cultures. She has studied the Koran and the various Muslim texts extensively, and has come to the conclusion that the way the religion is pursued in most Muslim countries today is in fact a travesty and a distortion of its original principles. [Book review by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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

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

1997 novel about 2020 predicted a lethal pandemic

Neta Halperin, a literary critic in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, leads off with a headline: ”The Coronavirus Novel: An Israeli Author Wrote a Book on the 2020 Pandemic 23 Years Ago” accompanied by a subheadline that reads: ”In her science fiction novel ‘2020’ published in 1997, an Israeli author described a global pandemic much like the coronavirus. Now she explains why she went there and how she managed to get things so right.” [Dan Bloom]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories

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

Jewish community raises $2 million for Covid-19 emergencies; more needed

Approximately $2 million has been raised for the San Diego Jewish Community Emergency Fund, created by the Jewish Community Foundation, the Leichtag Foundation, and the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, professionals of those three organizations noted Monday in a Zoom conference. However, more will be needed, according to Beth Sirull, the president and CEO of the Jewish Community Foundation. “The pandemic has the makings of a real humanitarian nightmare,” she said, noting that as people are thrown out of work, they are struggling to meet such basic needs as purchasing foods and medicines. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Judaism, Lifestyles, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, 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