Ah, the joys of time travel! San Diego author Marcia Berneger, a retired teacher, uses this device to imaginatively retell the story of the first Chanukah in A Dreidel in Time, a chapter book for children between the ages of 8 and 13. [Donald H. Harrison]
Time travel fiction dramatizes first Chanukah Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Marcia Berneger, San Diego County, The World We Share
It is set in Portugal, where a large group of friends and family have come to enjoy a brief summer vacation in a wildly beautiful area of the turquoise sea, surrounded by the greenery of a densely packed forest. The woman who has apparently gotten them all together is Frankie, an international film star whose first and second husbands are part of the entourage, plus her adult son, plus her hairdresser and her hair-dresser’s boyfriend, plus people from the neighborhood who show up periodically with opinions and problems of their own. [Cynthia Citron]
‘Frankie’ an engrossing work of art Read More »
Cynthia Citron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
With Jews around the world scheduled to read the story of Noah’s Ark next Saturday, the Abraham Ratner Torah School at Tifereth Israel Synagogue held a blessing for the animals in a brief outdoor ceremony on Sunday. Rabbi Joshua Dorsch, with arms raised, blessed about a dozen dogs and one rabbit that were brought by congregants of the Conservative shul. [Donald H. Harrison]
Animals receive a blessing at Tifereth Israel Synagogue Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA
Professor Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla will be awarded the Prince Albert I Grand Medal for science on Nov. 7 in Monaco by Prince Albert II, the principality’s reigning monarch, in a ceremony that also will honor former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. [Donald H. Harrison]
Scripps oceanographer’s date with a prince Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
Today’s Israeli culture differs from Jewish culture at the state’s founding: Israel is more ethnically diverse, its Jews practicing along a broader spectrum of beliefs. They live mostly in cities, not on kibbutzim or moshavim. They are self-governing, speak a modern form of Hebrew, follow the Jewish calendar, and openly display rather than hide their identity. They live in a country in which they never have to fear de jure anti-Semitism. Israelis are rabbis and talmudic scholars, estheticians and economists, police and politicians, taxi drivers and technical wizards. [Fred Reiss, EdD]
Jewsraelis and other Jewish people of Israel Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East
So here I am, once again on the verge of sending a child, er, I mean a book, out into the big wide world, to sink or swim and hopefully find someone brave enough to undertake the task of reading it, whether as an ebook or a paperback.
It’s coming. The day is nigh. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]
Sometimes novelists are the ones in suspense Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East
Although it issued no news release to announce it, Seacrest Village Retirement Communities has sold its 56-unit Rancho Bernardo campus at 12730 Monte Vista Road to Pacifica, which will maintain it as an independent living community.
Michael Mather, Seacrest Village’s director of community relations, says residents of the facility have been able to transfer to the main campus in Encinitas, if they so desired.. [Donald H. Harrison]
Seacrest Village sells its Rancho Bernardo facility Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Marcia Berneger, San Diego County, The World We Share
Rabbi Leah Herz created a fun-filled Simchat Torah learning session called “The Great Torah Roll” for residents of the Seacrest Village Retirement Community in Encinitas when she had the entire Torah unrolled and held by staff, volunteers, and residents, some of whom were in wheelchairs. [Donald H. Harrison]
‘Great Torah Roll’ fun at Seacrest Village Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
Star Trek script screenwriter Nicholas Meyer has appropriated the characters of Sherlock Holmes and sidekick Dr. John Watson from the long-dead Arthur Conan Doyle and has produced a detective mystery book in which the great sleuth travels across Europe in 1905 to learn who forged the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and why. [Donald H. Harrison]
Sherlock Holmes and an anti-Semitic forgery Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonThe state’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum was temporarily shelved in part because of objections from the California Jewish Legislative Caucus, the Anti-Defamation League, and other Jewish groups that the panel that created the document all but ignored the Jewish experience in the United States, while utilizing the curriculum to spread a false Palestinian narrative about Israel that includes support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). [Donald H. Harrison]
State’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum awaits resolution Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education
U.S. Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) was part of a delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on a previously unannounced weekend trip to Jordan, where they met with King Abdullah II to discuss Turkey’s invasion of Syria. The group also went to Afghanistan where they met with President Ashraf Ghani. [Donald H. Harrison]
Davis joins Pelosi’s trip to Jordan, Afghanistan Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, San Diego County, Sports & Competitions, USA
The biblical story of Cain and Abel takes only 16 verses, but it prompted author John Steinbeck to write his longest, and what he considered his greatest book, East of Eden, greater even than his more famous Grapes of Wrath. [Donald H. Harrison]
National Steinbeck Center presents author’s life, works Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food
It all started in 2013, when my son Lincoln was with me, visiting the Ashley, North Dakota Jewish Cemetery where my great-grandfather is buried. He began asking me questions about the community of Russian Jewish immigrants, who arrived in the early 1900s with no farming experience, to farm the North Dakota prairies. I didn’t have sufficient answers. But the seed was planted for me to learn more – for my son, myself, our family, and people I had never met. [Rebecca Bender]
A Jewish Tale of the Great American Prairie Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Lifestyles, USA
Dr. Sol Lizerbram, the Rancho Santa Fe resident who serves as national president of the Jewish National Fund, offers some statistics to back up the claim that sending a teenager to JNF’s Alexander Muss High School program in Israel can contribute in the long run to Jewish continuity.
JNF: Israel schooling leads to Jewish continuity Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Judaism, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA