Jewish History

George Washington: ‘To bigotry no sanction’

On August 18, 1790, Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, read a message to George Washington, welcoming the newly elected first president of the United States on his post-election visit to that city.  He was accompanied by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York. Rhode Island was the last of the thirteen original states to ratify the Constitution, and Washington was visiting to celebrate the completion of the Union. [Michael Feldberg, Ph.D]

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Jewish History, USA

Victory against anti-Semitism at SDSU

Congratulations are due to San Diego State Professors Peter C. Herman and Risa Levitt Kohn, as well as to representatives of the campus Hillel, and the regional Anti-Defamation League for protesting the proposed inclusion of two anti-Semitic speakers on a planned, as yet unscheduled, panel presentation on whether African-Americans deserve reparations for the time their ancestors were enslaved and the subsequent institutional discrimination against their people. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

Deicide libel against Jews surfaces in Nova Scotia

Someone finally did it – publicly blaming the Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus and, even more disgracefully, applying this libel to explain Israel’s so-called occupation of the Palestinian territories. Henry M. Bradford’s words were printed on Jan. 27 in The Chronicle Herald, the daily newspaper serving Halifax in Canada’s Nova Scotia. His letter to the editor responded to a commentary about anti-Semitism by freelance journalist Ralph Surette. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, International, Jewish History, Middle East, USA

Hadassah Magazine article prompted OH! San Diego

The March 6-8 Open House San Diego in which 93 venues will open their doors to visitors can trace its origin to an article in the Winter 2012 edition of Hadassah Magazine, which featured an article about the Open House programs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Susanne Friestedt said the article so resonated with her that she traveled to London, headquarters for the Open House architectural movement, to learn what she would need to do to add San Diego (and environs) to the list of cities in the Open House program. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, 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

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

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

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

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

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

Crowds queue for Anne Frank exhibit

To the surprise and gratification of organizers, a crowd numbering in the thousands snaked around the Timken Museum on Thursday, Feb. 6,  in order to see what was planned to be a one-day exhibition on Anne Frank sponsored by the Consulate-General of the Netherlands and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. At an evening reception, officials of the gallery announced that the exhibit, which has been touring schools around the country, would be extended through Saturday before it has to be packed up and shipped to its next destination. [Donald H. Harrison]

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