Judaism

Wrap group learns at Tifereth Israel

The national Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs (FJMC) has a tradition called “World Wide Wrap,” in which Jews around the world are taught traditional ways of wrapping tefillin (phylacteries) on their arms and placing a prayer box on their heads. Rabbi Joshua Dorsch, instructing a learning session sponsored by the Tifereth Israel Synagogue Men’s Club, an FJMC affiliate, on Sunday, explained that the custom derives from a literal interpretation of the v’ahavta prayer (Deuteronomy 6:5-9), … [Donald H. Harrison}

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

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

Dita Kraus’ memoir tells of Shoah, early Israel

Antonio Iturbe, a Spanish author, wrote a fictional account of Dita (Polachova) Kraus’s life titled The Librarian of Auschwitz, in which Dita was cast as a heroine who risked her life to expose children at the notorious Nazi death camp to a few books on diverse subjects.  The point of the story, for many, was that in spite of the inhumanity all around them, there were people for whom kindness, literature, learning, and knowledge remained paramount objectives. Now comes Kraus’s own memoir of her remarkable life, which gives us a fuller picture of who she is, and the experiences she had pre- and post-Auschwitz. [Donald H. Harison]

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

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

Sinai revelation not just in past

Amidst a majestical display of thunder and lighting, through the fog of a cloud, the Israelites are given the Torah, by God. Right before most of the action takes place, the Torah tells us when the revelation was going to take place. It says that the Israelites arrived at Sinai on “this” day. Rashi points out that this is an unusual word choice. By telling us a story of events that took place in the past, the Torah should have said “that” day. But, by switching the tense, the Torah is teaching us a very important lesson. It is teaching us that, despite some of us believing that the revelation on Mount Sinai was one moment in time, a thing of the past, Revelation can and does take place in the present, today, and whenever else we choose to experience it.  [Rabbi Joshua Dorsch]

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Jewish Religion

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

How Maimonides dissected the Exodus account

Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel’s books on Maimonides’ interpretations of the biblical book Exodus, Maimonides Hidden Torah Commentary: Exodus 1-20, reveals much that many people do not know and does so in a clear and easy to read fashion. While 448 pages long, and filled with information, it is only the first of his two books on Exodus. It is superb. His two books on Genesis have already been published. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazinl]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi

Judicial systems and the 10 Commandments

This parasha deals with a complimentary visit by Moses’ father-in-law Yitro to the Israelite camp; his offer of advice to Moses to delegate judicial duties on a hierarchical basis, rather than exhaust himself doing it all himself; Israelites then move toward Sinai amid God’s instructions; and there receive the Ten Commandments and instructions to build an altar. I have chosen two passages, with regard to seeking similarities, from the Internet, with other ancient literature. [Irv Jacobs, M.D.]

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Irv Jacobs, MD, Jewish Religion

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

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

Prohibition against coveting an anchor commandment

In this week’s parasha, Yitro, one of the six portions named for an individual, the Ten Commandments, the Aseret HaDib’rot, are revealed to Moses and to the Israelites in the wilderness. We may learn from this pinnacle experience that the Torah can be learned anywhere, even in the wilderness, by anyone with a receptive heart and open mind. [Michael Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

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

Thinking outside the literal meaning of the Bible

Many readers of the Bible have caged themselves like animals in a zoo and are afraid to step out of the cages they created for themselves; they fear to think beyond the ideas they heard from teachers when they were taught Bible as children. The following are some examples. Exodus begins in chapter 1, verse 5, by telling readers that seventy “souls” came to Egypt with the patriarch Jacob when they were invited to travel and live there. This seems like a simple verse with a simple statement. But besides the question why scripture omits the females from the count, there are at least two other significant problems. Thinking about them leads the thinker to question and better understand other parts of the Bible. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Tu B’Shevat celebrated throughout S.D. County

Notwithstanding Sunday’s rain, various celebrations in honor of Tu B’Shevat, the birthday of the trees, were held throughout San Diego County, kicking off a week of observances of what some call “Jewish Arbor Day.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA