International

Awe struck by 13-year-old Israeli cellist

I felt blessed to experience the extra-ordinary talent of the young Israeli cellist, Nahar Eliaz last Saturday evening in the sanctuary of Congregation Beth Am. Her’s was meaningful music-making of the highest order, music that touched the heart and replenished the soul. There was no awareness of technique. Every pitch was perfectly in tune, every dynamic, judiciously observed, every phrase, fluently expressed with natural ease. But it was more. The music had excitement, passion, and beauty. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Coalition-building and coronavirus in Israel’s top news

Election night was a time for Bibi to declare a big victory. Likud outpolled Blue and White, but Likud plus its right wing block didn’t make it to 61 seats. Final results look like this:
Likud 36 seats; Blue and White 33 seats; United Arab List 15 seats; SHAS 9 seats; United Torah Judaism 7 seats; Meretz-Labor 7 seats; Israel Our Home (Lieberman) 7 seats; Yamina (Bennett, Shaked, Peretz, Smotrich) 6 seats. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education

March of Living postponed; 12 local residents affected

Eight students and four adult leaders from San Diego County who had expected to participate during April in the annual “March of the Living” – a two-week trip including the concentration camps in Poland and a visit to the nation of Israel – have received news that the journey has been cancelled because of the coronavirus. [Our shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Marcia Tatz Wollner, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

It may be Tibi, not Bibi, in a winning coalition

Will Israel’s next government be led by Bibi Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in the history of Israel, or will it be dominated by Ahmad Tibi, the leader of one of the factions in the Joint Arab List in the Knesset, a man whom many Israelis love to hate? Though the Corona pandemic dominates the news also in Israel, the media here have also much to say about politicians, including allegations that some of them try to compromise health professionals dealing with Corona in order to further their own agendas. As things look now, Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White party, is likely to form a government with Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, as a disproportionately strong partner. They will be supported by the Joint Arab List, like all other Arabs seemingly despised by Lieberman. The Joint List won’t join the government but will vote with it on issues of mutual interest. [Rabbi Dow Marmur]

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Middle East

Works of Holocaust poets performed at LFJCC

“That was the last butterfly. Butterflies don’t live in the Ghetto” wrote Pavel Friedmann in Terezin, before he was deported to Auschwitz, where he perished in 1944. Myla Wingard opened the March 3 program in the Astor Judaic Library, Poets of the Holocaust, with an inspiring musical rendition of that iconic poem. “Never say that you are going your last way.” Those words, penned by Hirsh Glik, became the anthem of the Jewish Partisans. The Ohr Shalom Choir was joined by the audience in singing that song of defiance and hope to conclude the program in which fifteen poets were represented. [Eileen Wingard]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eileen Wingard, International, Jewish History, San Diego County

‘No Place for Hate’ expanding to 150 local schools

The Anti-Defamation League currently partners with approximately 100 local schools in its “No Place for Hate” program, and next semester that number will go up to 150 schools, says Tammy Gillies, the ADL’s regional director in San Diego. [Our shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Trump’s Israel policy is topsy-turvy like Purim

By Ori Nir WASHINGTON, D.C. — I heard that America’s largest hummus producer is introducing a new product: a dessert chocolate “hummus.” And on the web, you will find recipes for brownie batter “hummus,” sweet potato “hummus,” as well as “hummus” cake and “hummus” milkshake. Now listen, I know from hummus. Real hummus. My physique

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Middle East, USA

Local law enforcement and Israel

Israel boycott advocates in San Diego County have been attempting, so far without success, to persuade local law enforcement executives to refuse to travel with the Anti-Defamation League for familiarization with Israeli police techniques. Tammy Gillies, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said such a push was successful a few years ago in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, “where the City Council was asked to stop organized trips to Israel by law enforcement.  They passed that and it was a shock to us. … There are organizations in San Diego working very hard and lobbying our law enforcement agencies not to send people to Israel.” [Sour shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Eva Trieger, International, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

A Czech woman’s journey through the Holocaust

Published  posthumously with the help of her author daughter Helen Epstein, Franci’s War by Franci Rabinek Epstein is a well-written step-by-step recounting of Franci’s experiences during the Holocaust. A dress designer of  good reputation in Prague, Franci was transported with her parents to Terezin, the Nazis’ “model ghetto” nearby.  She was able to secretly rendezvous with her first husband, Pepik “Joe” Solar, who had been arrested and sent away earlier than she was.  Soon, however, her parents were taken on another transport to their deaths, and with Joe leaving the ghetto daily to work as slave labor on a railroad spur, Franci often was left to her own devices [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History

ADL’s Gillies tells of Poway shooting’s lasting impacts

Prosecutors announced on Thursday they would seek the death penalty against John T. Earnest, 20, the alleged shooter who killed congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye at Chabad of Poway last Passover while wounding three others, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein.  Meanwhile, Tammy Gillies, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, was telling San Diego Jewish World that the effects of that April 27 shooting rampage are still being felt throughout San Diego County. “I think some of our institutions are taking more seriously the idea of security,” Gillies commented during an interview. “Some always have, and some not so much, but now are more on board.” Members of other religious communities are now “realizing that when we go to synagogue – when we take our kids to synagogue – we have to walk through armed guards to go, and I think that has been shocking to some other communities.  I think it has raised awareness about anti-Semitism.” [Our shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

AIPAC should take a gentler approach toward Israel’s critics

Hatikvah, as Israel’s national anthem, stirs tender emotions among us whenever it is played, but for others it is a provocation. Likewise, a $225 million expenditure is seen as worth the price to defend Israel, but some newly-minted members of Congress do not readily understand that. Two episodes surfaced last week that reflected missed opportunities in communication for Jewish organizations that seek to be protective of Israel. Most prominent was the sharp bickering between Sen. Bernie Sanders and Jewish and political leaders over his attacks against AIPAC and Israel’s prime minister. Despite the offensive attitudes of some Israel critics, some of this acrimony could be grounded in AIPAC’s tactics to lose friends and influence people – the wrong way about Israel. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA

Coronavirus curtailing normal life in Israel

The Coronavirus, also known as COVID 19, is spreading steadily throughout the world. At first it seemed to be confined to one region of China, then to other places in the Far East, but now it’s getting closer every day, appearing first in Italy and then in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and now even Israel. The unfortunate Israelis who happened to be on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, commonly known in Israel as the coronaship, were first confined to their cabins for a fortnight, then isolated in Japan, and when finally allowed to return to Israel (not all of them though, as a few were found to be carriers before being able to board the plane bringing them to Israel, so had to remain behind), only to be subjected to another two weeks of isolation in a hospital in Israel. One sad result of this was that one couple had to be separated, the wife returning to Israel and the husband remaining in isolation in Japan. Those two happen to live quite near to me in Mevasseret, though I do not know them personally, I’ve read about them in the local paper, and my sympathies certainly go out to them. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Lifestyles, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

OpEd: Trump’s disastrous domestic policy

Sadly, we have become accustomed to Trump’s lies and misstatements about the presumed progress the US made under his watch. It’s time to take a hard look at his domestic policy which is inflicting terrible damage and anguish on the majority of Americans. Trump knows that he lies regarding just about everything, but he continues to successfully sell his lies to his base, representing the 25 to 30 percent of Americans who still believe every word he says. [Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Alon Ben-Meir, USA