City Councilwoman Barbara Bry, whose runoff status for mayor against Assemblyman Todd Gloria has now been confirmed by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic likely will have both short-term and long-term impacts on the City of San Diego [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
As it stands today, two local Jewish candidates are leaders in their respective political races, while six others finished second — good enough to make the Nov. 3 runoff election. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
8 local Jewish candidates positioning for Nov. 3 runoff Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Sandi Masori
On the first night of Nissan, we start counting until the moon is full on the fifteenth. This is Seder night, our annual birthday party as a nation. Some 3000 years ago, we were an enslaved people yearning for liberation from a decadent tyrant. Thanks to the genius of the Haggadah, every year we gather to start our calendar anew by retelling the saga of the birth of the unbreakable soul of our nation. [Sam Glaser]
Passover and the five levels of the soul Read More »
Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Glaser
Right now, Congress should focus on getting help to people who need it amid this coronavirus pandemic, but later on it should investigate why the United States was slow to respond to the threat of coronavirus and why necessary medical equipment was in such short supply, Congresswoman Susan Davis, D-San Diego, said Tuesday during a telephonic town hall meeting. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Susan Davis collects constituents’ coronavirus questions Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education
The watercolor has been in my family seemingly forever. It used to hang in my parents’ apartment in Tel Aviv, but it has been in my different homes in California for decades. In it a young girl of five or six years faces the painter with a slight pout and a high forehead crowned by a white ribbon. The sadness along her lip line is unmistakable. One can imagine small pools of tears about to gather in her big dark eyes. She is wearing a summer dress, but the painter chose to focus on her face and in quick brush strokes drew two blue straps over small shoulders that are colored a distinctive pink. [Varda Levy]
The tapestries that bind us Read More »
International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA
Humor columnist Laurie Baron says President Trump should heed the advice that can be gleaned from popular songs. He cites the works of Frank Loesser, Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, PartyNextDoor, and Bon Jovi.
More musical advice for Donald Trump Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & SatireKate Schwartz, a Fallbrook Democrat who will face incumbent Assemblywoman Marie Waldron (R-Escondido) in the Nov. 3 runoff election, said the coronavirus pandemic illustrates the necessity to re-open community and rural hospitals. Furthermore, she said, it is evidence that California should switch from competing private health systems to a unified, single-payer health care system. She said California could set an example for the rest of the nation. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
The Jewish candidates: Kate Schwartz in the 75th A.D. Read More »
Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, The World We Share, USA
State Assembly candidate Kate Schwartz eared her graduate degree in psychiatric social work, and today as a mental health professional, she serves as one of five members on the Fallbrook Regional Health District Board. As our society experiences the coronavirus pandemic, she says that Americans appear to be moving from the first stage of grief — shock and denial — to the far more dangerous second stage, which is anger. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Assembly candidate rues growing anger amid pandemic Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA
Gary E. Jacobs, the San Diegan who serves as the national chairman of the JCC Association Board of Directors, declared Wednesday that “the Jewish community has historically overcome the greatest challenges only when we united and work together. This is one of those moments when we in the JCC Community, along with the Federations, summer camps and so many others will collaborate to address this unprecedented crisis.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Major Jewish groups to meet CV19 challenge together Read More »
Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA
With in-person classes transferred to Internet learning at UC Berkeley, my grandson, Shor Masori, is back home in San Diego, monitoring his classes via computer. Recently, he and his fellow undergraduates received a notice from Bob Jacobsen, Letters & Science Dean of Undergraduate Studies. It began, “The chair of the Academic Senate has written to explain that for this semester only, the default grades that instructors will give are Pass and No Pass.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Universities urge Pass/No Pass grades this semester Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Shor M. Masori, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food
Whether Donald Trump holds his daily coronavirus press conferences to calm and inform the public or as a social distance substitute for his campaign rallies, the disinformation he disseminates through them is dangerous. Since he doesn’t read, I am encouraging his closest advisors to have him listen to these cautionary songs before he utters a word. [Satire column by Laurie Baron]
Briefing songs for President Trump Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & Satire
It’s not every day that Charles Wax, owner of Waxie Sanitary Supply, receives phone calls from mayors, county supervisors, or governors. But these are not everyday times. As the largest privately owned janitorial and sanitary supply company in America, Waxie Sanitary Supply stocks the bathrooms and janitorial supply cabinets of many schools, hospitals, government office buildings, prisons, and other institutions throughout the nine western states. To do so, it has 200 delivery vehicles stationed at 25 regional warehouses. Headquarters for the entire operation is in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Waxie hires staff as demand for toilet paper, supplies swells Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County
Herut, the Zionist educational activist movement, has developed a playlist of easily available, high quality documentary movies that will enhance any viewer’s knowledge of Israeli history, Zionist ideals, and Middle East politics. [Moshe Phillips]
Zionist education during a global pandemic Read More »
International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
In ancient times, kings ruled local fiefdoms. In the world of pedal steel guitar, it is much the same way. Ted Stern, is San Diego’s king of pedal steel guitar! My wife Kyra and I caught the Jeff Berkeley Band, playing in East County. Being from Texas, I was thrilled to hear a Pedal Steel Guitar and a player who knew his stuff. He wasn’t just good, but really good. Who is this guy? I didn’t think anyone played pedal steel guitar in California. His name is Ted Stern. How did a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, New York, become San Diego’s pedal steel king? [Mark Thomas]
Meet Ted Stern, SD’s king of pedal steel guitar Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County