By Joe Spier CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — On December 23, 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush, about to leave office, exercised his right of forgiveness by pardoning 19 Americans convicted of crimes. One pardon, granted posthumously, went to Charles Winters, Irish Protestant from Boston who in January 1949, pleading guilty to a felony before
Charles Winters: Criminal or Hero? Read More »
Jewish History, Middle East, USA
Eulogy by Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal (Delivered August 8, 2016 at Mount Sinai Cemetery, Los Angeles) One of the editors of the Book of Proverbs has preserved for us a striking metaphor which conveys to us a profound insight into the purpose of life. He tells us: Ner hashem nishmat adam. The soul of a person
Resi Ida Kalmar (March 16, 1921-August 7, 2016) Read More »
Jewish History, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego CountyLUDWIGSBURG, Germany (JNS.org) Germany’s lead Nazi crimes investigator has identified eight people who are suspected of working at concentration camps in Poland during the Holocaust. The head of Germany’s Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg, Jens Rommel, told German news agencyDPA that information about the eight elderly suspects, four men and
Eight ex-Nazis may face prosecution in Germany Read More »
International, Jewish History
-70th and Final Installment in a Series- Exit 77 In-Ko-Pah Park Road, San Diego-Imperial County Line, California By Donald H. Harrison JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, California — The dogs that greet visitors at the entrance to the venerable Desert View Tower are alive, if sleepy in the hot sun, but there are many other animals nearby
I-8 Jewish Travel: Desert View Tower Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, Travel and Food
Chasing Portraits by Elizabeth Rynecki; New American Library, © 2016; ISBN 978110-1987667; 387 pages; $27. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Coming this September is an art history book that fans of detective stories also may enjoy. Elizabeth Rynecki’s great-grandfather, Moshe Rynecki, was a well-known artist, although not on the order of a Chagall
Art detective tracks down works of great grandfather Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts{San Diego Jewish World’s eulogy series is sponsored by Marc and Margaret Cohen in memory of Molly Cohen, and by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg. Comments intended for publication in the space below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name
Holocaust hero Bialowitz passes away at 90 Read More »
International, Jewish History, Obituaries & memorialsMOSCOW, Russia (WJC) — Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who courageously saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation to the German death camps, was executed in a Soviet prison, according to the diaries of Ivan Serov, a former director of the Soviet spy agency KGB. According to the New York Times, Serov’s diaries were discovered inside the walls of his
Former KGB director: Wallenberg executed by Soviets Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryBritish actor Christopher Biggins has announced he will visit Nazi concentration camps, after he was removed from reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother for making a “joke” about the Holocaust. Last week, the 67-year-old told singer and former X Factor contestant Katie Waissel, who is Jewish: “You better be careful or they’ll be putting you
Christopher Biggins To Visit Camps After ‘Nazi Joke’ Read More »
International, Jewish History, Theatre, Film & BroadcastThe Baghdad municipality announced Friday it would demolish and then give to a developer the 100-year-old home of Iraq’s first finance minister, Sir Sassoon Eskell, while an official in Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities slammed the decision as a “violation” of the law. Eskell, who was born into an aristocratic Baghdadi Jewish family in
Baghdad to destroy home of Jew who helped found modern Iraq Read More »
Jewish History, Middle EastThe diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz opens with his description of a pleasant summer day in the Ponar forest, outside the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius: “July 11: Quite nice weather, warm, white clouds, windy, some shots from the forest. Probably exercises.” The shots were not exercises, as Sakowicz would very quickly discover. The year was 1941,
WWII-Era Tunnel Unearths Story of Lithuania’s Jews Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryPoland is the only country in the European Union that has failed to establish a comprehensive program to address the issue of confiscated Holocaust, or Communist-era, private property. Rather than moving forward, Poland is about to make another wrong turn in confronting the continuing violation of property rights. On hold for the last year has
Poland and Holocaust restitution Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryBUENOS AIRES, Argentina (WJC) — The fathers of two victims of the 1994 AMIA center bombing were admitted Tuesday by a judge as plaintiffs in the case against former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner that could reopen the investigation of the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman into a cover-up of Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing.
Diaries belonging to Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and architect of the Holocaust, have been recovered in a Russian archive after being thought lost for more than 70 years. The diaries, which are being published in daily excerpts by the German newspaper Bild, cover 1938 and the crucial war years of
Last week, an international, multilingual cast performed Shakespeare’s controversial play, “The Merchant of Venice,” in the secluded main plaza of the city’s historic Jewish Ghetto. It was the first time the play was performed in the iconic location. Enclosed by tall tenements and the arched windows of 16 th-century synagogues, audiences — US Supreme Court
Venice welcomes back Shylock in marking its Jewish history Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History