Jewish History

Today’s Jewish Birthday: Isaac Asimov

The family immigrated to the United States in 1923 and owned candy stores, where, as youngsters, Isaac, his sister Manya, and brother, Stanley, all worked. The stores stocked science fiction magazines and newspapers, perhaps accounting for Isaac becoming a science fiction writer and Stanley a vice president of Long Island Newsday. [SD Jewish World staff]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Today's Jewish Birthday, USA

OpEd: Beware Efforts to Divide Jews and African-Americans

Many in the world, and especially in the United States, are ignorant of the fact that Israel is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, with only a 30% White/European population. Israel has a population that is 21% Arab. If you have been to Israel then you know that there are Ethiopian Jews, Sephardic, Mizrahi and more groups throughout Israel. [Barrett Holman Leak]

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Antisemitism, Barrett Holman Leak, Israel, Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

Fighting Antisemites in the U.S. and Around the World

By Brooke Goldstein NEW YORK — As we welcome 2024, I am honored to share with you a recap of the impactful journey we’ve undertaken at The Lawfare Project over the past year. Amidst unprecedented challenges, our team has remained steadfast in our commitment to upholding justice and defending the legal rights of the Jewish

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Antisemitism, International, Israel, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Today’s Jewish Birthday: J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye, featuring the adventures of the cynical Holden Caulfield, was greeted enthusiastically by literary reviewers and by high school teachers, but in other parts of the country, it was denounced as smut because of Salinger’s frequent use of such words as “goddamn,” bastard,” “Chrissakes.”[SDJW Staff report]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Today's Jewish Birthday, USA

County Assessor Jordan Marks Honored by International Assessors Organization

“I am honored to receive this esteemed IAAO award,” said Marks, who is a member of San Diego’s Jewish community. “This award could not have been possible without the great team here at the San Diego County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk’s office. Their hard work and focus on putting the customer first make awards like this possible.”

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Jewish History, Press Release, San Diego County, USA

Herb Kohl, former U.S. Senator and Milwaukee Bucks Owner, Dead at 88

While Kohls Department Store co-owner Herb Kohl served in the U.S. Senate for four terms, a sign on his door read “The Bucks Stop Here” – a pun on Harry Truman’s old saying that combined the Jewish senator’s political career with another great love.  Kohl also was the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. [SDJW staff]

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Jewish History, Obituaries & memorials, Philanthropy & Volunteerism, Sports & Competitions, USA

Wilfrid Israel: The Unintentional Gaza War Memorial

By Jerry Klinger YOKNEAM, Israel — The Wilfrid Israel Memorial was an idea proposed by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) over a year ago. JASHP was going to pay for it. The hard part was getting permission to site it. JASHP has a message that needed to be said: Jews rescued Jews

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Holocaust, International, Israel, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion

Opinion: How U.S. Universities Became Bastions of Antisemitism

What is not spoken about, and perhaps not publicized very much, is how universities in the 1970s, in a mad rush to balance their debt, began to take in very large endowments and contributions from the oil-rich Arab and Muslim countries. I know this firsthand. I was a doctoral candidate at Boston University in the ‘70s, earning my PhD in sociology in May 1981. I sat in class with Muslim students, who were mostly from Iran and Saudi Arabia. [Amy Neustein]

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Amy Neustein, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Opinion, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Rabbi Warns Where Upsurge in Antisemitism May Be Leading

An old kind of hate has been very visible lately. High-profile entertainers and athletes have openly spouted antisemitic tropes. There’s also been a steady rise in the number of hateful incidents directed at Jewish people over the past several years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 2022 was the highest year on record for documented reports of harassment, vandalism and violence directed against Jews. [Rabbi Dr. Bernhard H. Rosenberg]

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Bernhard H. Rosenberg-Rabbi, International, Israel, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Rabbi Wayne Dosick: San Diego County’s Longest-Serving Rabbi and Still One of Its Most Innovative

Some people become increasingly conservative as they age; but the reverse has been true in Dosick’s life. He grew up in a Conservative congregation but decided to enter the Reform seminary of Hebrew Union College because he objected to the Jewish Theological Seminary of the Conservative movement on two grounds.  First, it still separated men and women during prayer services and Dosick opposed mehitzahs (physical barriers). Second the JTS leadership was then on record supporting the war in Vietnam in the mistaken belief that if the U.S. left Vietnam to the Communists, its support for Israel against its enemies also might be shaky. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Ben Dishman, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, San Diego County

Ugandan-American Tells of Fateful October Visit to Israel

Then, the first siren rang. We were bewildered and befuddled but the amazing hotel staff shuffled us into the basement along with the other hotel guests.  In my imagination, this was just another one-day scuffle. Such is what passes for “peacetime” in this part of the world, I thought. [Shoshana McKinney]

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International, Israel, Jewish History, Shoshana McKinney, Travel and Food

The Man for Whom Ma’alot Harav Shlomo Goren Was Named

Born in Poland in 1917 and emigrated to Palestine at the age of eight, Rabbi Goren was a brilliant, colorful, and sometimes controversial, Talmudist and halakhist. Young Shlomo Goren was a prodigy: at the tender age of twelve, he began his formal Talmud studies as the youngest student ever at Jerusalem’s Hebron Yeshiva and he published the first of many books when he was just seventeen years old. [Gedaliah Borvick]

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Gedaliah Borvick, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion