USA

Ohr Shalom, other Jewish venues, rated as architectural gems

Approximately 50 cities worldwide, including San Diego and three others in the United States, offer free Open Houses at venues considered to be architecturally significant.  This year, March 6-8, San Diego will put on display 93 different locations, including Ohr Shalom Synagogue at 3rd and Laurel Streets in Bankers Hill as well as a few other places with ties to prominent members of the Jewish community. Those include the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, founded by Jonas Salk and designed by architect Louis Kahn;  the IGPP Munk Laboratory designed by the late oceanographer Walter Munk and his wife Judith Horton Munk in association with architect Lloyd Ruocco; the San Diego Central Library at the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Common, named for the co-founder of Qualcomm and his wife;  and the Hotel del Coronado, which underwent considerable expansion during the period it was owned by M. Larry Lawrence. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

Haifa, San Diego scientists to probe Israeli coastal waters

Before long the historic port city of Akko, Israel, will become headquarters for a search for sunken treasures of the academic kind in a project that brings together scientists from UC San Diego and the University of Haifa.

“Along the coast of Israel, submerged settlements, ancient harbors and sunken ships tell a unique story of 11,000 years of human resilience and adaptation,” explains Assaf Yasur-Landau, director of the Leon Racanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa.  “I am very excited for this tremendous opportunity in which both partners – the University of Haifa and UC San Diego – join forces to create pathbreaking underwater and coastal research as well as a joint training program on the Carmel Coast.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Lawfare Project threatens to sue UC Berkeley to ensure safety of Jewish students

Following a set of distressing events at the University of California, Berkeley, The Lawfare Project has sent a letter to Chancellor Carol Christ calling on the university to act to ensure Jewish students feel safe and welcome on campus. [Press release from the Lawfare Project]

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Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Lindbergh biography details his anti-Semitism

Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, New York to Paris, landing at Le Bourget Aerodrome on May 20, 1927.  Ever since then, San Diego has been bedazzled by the daring pilot, naming after him its airport on San Diego Bay, a park near Balboa Avenue west of the 8095, a school in Clairemont Mesa (also named for humanitarian Albert E. Schweitzer),  and a street near Otay Valley Regional Park. A new book by Candace Fleming, intended for Young Adults, is The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh.  Besides recounting the famous flight that made him a cultural icon, and the horrific kidnapping of the first child born to him and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the book tells how Lindbergh became an acolyte of Nobel Prize winning surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel, with whom he worked on experiments designed to provide human beings with immortality.  Together, Carrel and Lindbergh dreamed of creating a panel of immortals who could devote themselves to eugenics, a field once popular in the United States that held that the human race could be improved through selective breeding of superior people and the sterilization of interior people.  It was a “science” that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis turned into their ideology. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

Orlanskys spend their 71st Valentine’s Day together

Danny and Arlene (Addleson) Orlansky, who celebrated their 71st Valentine’s Day as a married couple on Friday, say the man who was their Cupid was the late Rabbi Morton Cohn of Congregation Beth Israel. Two years after the end of World War II, on a Sunday when Arlene was being installed as president of the Temple Youth League, Rabbi Cohn suggested that because the teens of the only three synagogues in the county (Beth Israel, Tifereth Israel, and Beth Jacob) didn’t know each other, they should have the occasion double as a dance in his Reform congregation’s social hall. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, San Diego County, USA

Isachar Zacharie: Lincoln’s Chiropodist and Spy

In early 1863, a friend discussed with Abraham Lincoln the idea of restoring European Jewry to its ancient homeland in Palestine. Lincoln agreed that the vision of a Jewish state in the Holy Land merited consideration. “I myself have regard for the Jews,” he is reported to have said. “My chiropodist is a Jew, and he has so many times ‘put me on my feet’ that I would have no objection to giving his countrymen ‘a leg up.’” Lincoln was referring to Isachar Zacharie, his foot doctor and confidante. Zacharie’s relationship with Lincoln was complex, but two things are clear: first, Zacharie had Lincoln’s confidence and, secondly, he represented American Jewry in Lincoln’s eyes. [Michael Feldberg, Ph.D]

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Jewish History, USA

Calls mount for Stephen Miller’s resignation

Three San Diego County representatives – Democrats Susan Davis, Mike Levin, and Scott Peters – are among 108 members of the House and 24 Democratic Senators who thus far have called for the dismissal or resignation of Stephen Miller as a White House senior adviser, according to national news reports. Their call, reinforced by commentary from Jewish organizations disavowing the white nationalist sentiments of Miller, who is Jewish, came in the wake of leaked emails indicating that Miller has been pushing a xenophobic agenda. The emails were leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center by a former Breitbard News reporter last November. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, USA

172 years later, Communist Manifesto still resonates

This month marks 172 years since the first publication of the Communist Manifesto. All around the world people will be commemorating February 20th with group read-alouds, and other ways of noting the occasion. Undoubtedly, this is a moment that we should not allow to pass without some reflection on the meaning to us today of Marx and Engels’ pamphlet. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, International, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

Alexander Vindman unfairly treated, like Dreyfus

He is a Jewish military officer, from a disputed foreign territory, wrongly accused, publicly disgraced, banished across an open body of water, and abandoned to an isolated location. No, not Alfred Dreyfus, the French officer who was falsely convicted of colluding with Germany and then whose badges, stripes, cuffs and sleeves of his jacket were torn off on Jan. 5, 1895, at the Military School in Paris, and sent across the Atlantic Ocean to a prison on Devil’s Island in French Guiana for five years. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was removed from the National Security Council by President Trump on Friday after he testified before the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives of the chief executive’s attempted collusion with the president of Ukraine. Vindman’s testimony contributed to Trump’s impeachment in the House followed by his acquittal in the Senate. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, International, Jewish History, USA

Trump’s ‘Travesty of the Century’

After three years in office, one can hardly be surprised at what Trump is capable of saying, doing, or scheming. In the middle of his impeachment trial, Trump finally released his “deal of the century”—a deal that completely ignored several United Nations resolutions, accords that were sponsored by the European community and the United States, and bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. [Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D.]

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Alon Ben-Meir, Middle East, USA

Celebrating Abraham Lincoln on his 211th birthday

Abraham Lincoln had a warm friendship with the Jewish communities of his time.  That’s one of the reasons why, today on the 211th anniversary of his birth,  I am so proud that some cities of San Diego County have honored the 16th President of the United States in various ways. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, USA

Veterans Museum features WWII testimonies

World War II testimonies of the living, and the honored dead, were on display Tuesday, Feb. 11, at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Balboa Park.  Stu Hedley, 98, a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, lectured on his experiences of December 7th, 1941.  Elsewhere, on video tape, Sy Brenner, a Jewish medic who fought in France and was imprisoned in Nazi Germany, told the story of “The Night I Was Killed.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

Hadassah Hospital treats San Diegan wounded in terror attack

  JERUSALEM (Press Release) — Ori Hamo’s father, Kobi, was planning a big surprise. He flew from San Diego to Israel on February 5 to attend his lone-soldier son’s swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall hours later. Ori joined the army in December. Ori and a group of soldiers were heading to the event in

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Middle East, San Diego County, USA

Chemi Peres, in father’s tradition, wins innovation award

GUTERSLOH, Germany (Press Release) — The 2020 Reinhard Mohn Prize on “Fostering Innovation. Unlocking Potential” is being awarded by the Bertelsmann Stiftung to Nechemia (“Chemi”) Peres, Chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. In bestowing the prize, the Bertelsmann Stiftung is recognizing Peres for his outstanding efforts to promote innovation that serves both

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Business & Finance, International, USA