CHULA VISTA, California (SDJW) – Sonni Cooper, an author who wrote Star Trek novels, will be the guest speaker at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Temple Beth Shalom, 208 Madrona Street. Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel said that Cooper, the author of the Star Trek novel Black Star in which Spock is accused of […]
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, San Diego CalendarBy Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Jews and food, Jews and social movements, Jews and humor: they all go together like egg whites and egg yolks. Meet Robert Barsky, who grew up in a Jewish family in Canada and teaches now in the French and Italian departments at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Also holding
Egg- citing plot twists in ‘Hatched’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short StoriesLA JOLLA, California (Press Release) – San Diego’s internationally recognized San Diego Jewish Book Fair celebrates its 21st year with many leading authors in their fields including: Steve Katz, David Gregory, Fern Mallis, Arlene Alda, Barney Frank, Jennifer Teege And Mitch Albom. Book Fair events will run from November 7 through November 16, and are
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Marcia Berneger, San Diego CalendarChildren of the Stone, The Power of Music in a Hard Land, by Sandy Tolan, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015 By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — In a “Note to Readers” the author states that the events and facts presented in the book have been extensively sourced, checked and, to the extent possible, verified. However, Tolan also
Music becomes cacophony in political treatise Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short StoriesBy Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Shari Becker grew up in a Jewish family in Montreal and now lives in Boston, where she is married and is raising two daughters with her husband John. Her first YA (young adult) novel has been published and there’s a fascinating story behind it I found out during
Hurricane Sandy got this debut YA author thinking Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short StoriesBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Writing a book is relatively easy. Choose your subject, write one page every day for a year, and hey presto, after a year you have a book that is about 365 pages long. Agreed, it may take another year or two to edit, correct, amend, etc., but essentially
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-VansonLord Get Me High! by Rabbi Elchanan Shoff, Kodesh Press, New York; ISBN 978-069-250-143-6 ©2015, $24.95, p. 109 By Fred Reiss, Ed.D WINCHESTER, California –Psalm 27, the subject of Rabbi Elchanan Shoff’s newest book Lord Get Me High!, is every bit as commanding in its imagery and meaning as its more well-known cousin, the Twenty-Third Psalm.
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish ReligionEverything You Ever Wanted by Jillian Lauren, Plume/Penquin Publishing Group, 2015 By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — This is the second of Jillian Lauren’s memoirs.* Born in 1973, she was adopted as an infant by a middle class Jewish couple in Livingston, New Jersey. Her childhood included the cultural norms of that time and place such
From the Jewish library: ‘Everything You Ever Wanted’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short StoriesJewish Identity: The Challenge of Peoplehood Today by Ruth Shamir Popkin, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem; ISBN 978-965-229-671-9 ©2015, $24.95, p. 272, plus Notes, Sources, and Index (also available in Kindle) By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — From the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the second century to 1948 and the establishing of the State
Book probes the concept of Jewish identity Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish History, Jewish ReligionBy Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Bill Tammeus is a former religion columnist for the Kansas City Star and the author of several books over the years, among them They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust, which he co-authored with Jacques Cukierkorn. He knows the Jewish community in Kansas
Columnist who studied Shoah now writes about Pope Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short StoriesSome Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren, published by Plume/Penguin Group, 2010 By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — Jillian Lauren was born in 1973 and was adopted as an infant by a Jewish couple in Livingston, New Jersey. Later a son was adopted. They were a middle class suburban family, gave their
From the Jewish bookshelf: ‘Some Girls’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories
The Devil in Jerusalem by Naomi Ragen; St. Martin’s Press © 2015; ISBN 978-1-250-04313-9; 306 pages, $25.99 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – This novel is well-written and suspenseful, yet exceedingly difficult to read. It is about child abuse with descriptions so graphic it will make almost any reader shudder or cringe. Author Naomi
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonThe War Reporter by Martin Fletcher; St. Martin’s Press © 2015; ISBN 978-1-250-07002-9; 306 pages, $25.99. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO—Set in Sarajevo (Bosnia) during the siege, and in Belgrade (Serbia) ten years afterwards, this novel tells of television journalist Tom Layne briefly encountering Serbian General Ratko Mladic near the former war-torn city and trying
Amid chaos, ‘The War Reporter’ introspects Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonJonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs, M.D., Oxford University Press, 2015 By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — For those of us who were children in the 1950’s, embedded in our memories of summertime fun, we also remember the horror of the dark shadow of poliomyelitis – polio – which hung over our days.
From the Jewish Library: ‘Jonas Salk’ Read More »
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