Last week I gave my first Zoom lecture for the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture and over 90 people registered for it. Since this kind of programming is happening around the country, I’ve prepared a list of some sites you might want to peruse. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Live Jewish Streaming Read More »
Judaism, Lawrence Baron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
In commemoration of Israel’s Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance) and Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Independence Day), I have selected my sister Zina Schiff’s recording, The Golden Dove. Although the recording features composers of Russia’s Society for Jewish Folk Music, five of the composers on the recording — Engel, Weinberg, Rosowsky, Saminsky, and Achron — spent time in Palestine and influenced the early music of the pre-state Yishuv (Jewish settlement in Palestine). [Eileen Wingard]
Jewish folk music for Yom Zikaron, Yom Ha’atzma’ut Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
The name of slain Lori Gilbert Kaye, who died a year ago during a gunman’s attack on Chabad of Poway, was linked Monday in Latrun, Israel, to the names of Israel’s fallen soldiers during an annual Yom Hizakron (Day of Memory) ceremony. To view the entire ceremony on Facebook, click here. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Israeli Memorial Day rites include Poway’s Lori Kaye Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Joe Gandelman, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USAStreaming movies tell about Israel’s independence in 1948.
Chabad of Poway will hold an Internet memorial service for the victim of last year’s shooting, Lori Gilbert Kaye, at 10 a.m., Sunday, April 26. At noon, a separate online ceremony sponsored by the Combat Anti-Semitism movement will be conducted via Zoom and Facebook. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
On-line memorials Sunday for Chabad of Poway victim Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA
My friend and editor of San Diego Jewish World, Don Harrison, and I were having an interesting conversation I would like to share with you. We were talking about the famous Danish King Christian X, who was said to have worn a yellow Star of David together with his people to show solidarity with the Danish Jews. The yellow Star of David helped the Nazis distinguish the Jews from the Gentiles. [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]
The noble lie: King Christian X and the Jews Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi
As a San Diego Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) subscriber, I received in the mail a beautiful, shiny brochure, optimistically advertising the concerts scheduled for the orchestra’s 2020-2021 Season. With Raphael Payare, our city’s dynamic new conductor at the helm for his second season, and a wonderful lineup of concerts, we all hope it happens. [Eileen Wingard]
San Diego Symphony hopeful for 2020-2021 season Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego CountyOn April 24, 1915 the Ottoman Empire arrested approximately 250 prominent Armenians and deported them a month later to the Turkish interior where most of them were killed. Armenians annually commemorate April 24th as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. There are few movies about the genocide because Turkey has pressured countries to halt their production, limit their distribution, or undermine their reception. On the eve of Germany’s invasion of Poland, Hitler informed his generals of plans to massacre many Poles to achieve German living space concluding with this haunting question: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” I’ve prepared this list to promote its memory and international recognition. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Streaming the Armenian genocide Read More »
International, Lawrence Baron, Middle East, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
With social distancing policies in effect during the coronavirus pandemic, Rabbi Scott Meltzer of Ohr Shalom Synagogue and Rabbi Ralph Dalin, the community chaplain who works under auspices of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, jointly conducted an Internet observance of Yom HaShoah on Monday evening. The ceremony included such traditional prayers as the 23rd Psalm, and El Moleh Rachamim as well as a special Holocaust Kaddish during which the names of the Nazi death camps are interjected into the traditional Kaddish text. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
San Diego’s Internet Yom HaShoah commemoration Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA
Great writers of science fiction literature often have a keen intuition of what the future might bring. Whether you read H.P. Lovecraft or H. G. Wells, whose science-fiction writings makes the impossible seem almost believable. H.G. Wells’ is probably best known for his classical story, The Time Machine, which he published in 1895. His insights into the future were prescient in many ways. Wells anticipated many technological changes, e.g., wars conducted in the air; the sexual revolution; motorized vehicles, world-wars, a federalized Europe (think: European Union), the emergence of the atomic bomb. Wells especially anticipated the dystopian genre. The same could be said about Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek series. [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel}
The eye of prophecy? Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi
This week, in commemoration of Yom Hashoah, I have chosen to write about my sister Zina Schiff’s 2014 CD, Violin Sonatas: Zeisl, Copland, which also includes work by Bloch and Dauber. [Eileen Wingard]
A musical commemoration of the Holocaust Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
The interesting question is: What is the temptation to view a catastrophe like the plague as divine punishment as opposed to a brute fact of nature? Surely at least one reason we are tempted to do so is because, if it is heavenly retribution, then the hardship still has some meaning; we still live in a world with an underlying moral structure. Indeed, to many, the idea that such a great calamity is nothing more than a brute act of nature is far more painful to contemplate than an account by which God cares enough about us to punish us. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
The theology of pandemics Read More »
International, Lifestyles, Sam Ben-Meir, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
I recently received an email from a Canadian novelist named Roberta Park in Toronto, author of a new cli-fi novella titled The Disappearing Shore. “We are at an extraordinary point in human history, and my eco-lit tale addresses the fears and responsibility we must face,” she told me. She sent me a copy of her novel and I am reading it now. I also noticed on her blog that she knows the story of ”Moishe” in Jewish storytelling … [Dan Bloom]
A Toronto bagel bakery backstory Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Travel and Food
You gotta love this book. Page 1 leads with my favorite “Ferguson” (shayn fergessen) joke which I have retold tirelessly for years. Fermaglich reveals that Winona Ryder, born in Winona, Minnesota and currently playing the role of Evelyn Finkel in the Netflix series The Plot Against America, based on Philip Roth’s 2004 novel of the same name, was born Winona Laura Horowitz. But this book is not about jokes and celebrities but about the real choices that the nearly three million Jews who came to America between 1880 and 1920 had to make to feel comfortable and make progress in America. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]
Book Review: A Rosenberg by any other name Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Oliver Pollak, USA