Jewish History

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

Jewish Vets Share Their Military Experiences

Julius Katz shared the story of his friend who spoke fluent German and was in WW II stationed at a camp in Europe near the end of the war, He was awakened from a deep sleep and summoned into the main room where there about a dozen Nazi soldiers fully armed. He and his troops were quite frightened, and his friend spoke to them in German asking them what they wanted, they responded to him in German that they came to surrender, and he told them in German to drop their arms and raise their arms which they did . [Bill Sperling]

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Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

The Melody of Zionism

Like my father, I was presented as a traitor to the homeland and an enemy of the USSR. Although my immigration to Israel was legal, I was honored with the title of “traitor to the homeland.” My father was labeled a “traitor to the homeland” in 1949, although he loved the USSR and socialism. I was labeled a “traitor to the fatherland” 30 years later. In that country, any Jew could be a traitor – one who loved the homeland, as my father did, and one who did not love it, as I did. [Alex Gordon]

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Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Israel, Jewish History

Okfuskee County, Rosenwald Schools, and Boley

By Jerry Klinger Boley, Oklahoma, Creek Nation, Indian Territory, was established as an all-Black town on the land of Creek Indian “Freedwoman” Abigail Barnett in 1903. When the Five Tribes, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles, were forcibly removed from their homelands in the 1830s–40s, people enslaved by the tribes also made the long

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

History Department Chairman Robert Bond Traces Turkiye’s Relationships with Jews over the Centuries and with Israel

A former Fulbright scholar who did his research in Istanbul, Prof. Robert Bond of Mira Costa College has a nuanced view about the relationship between Turkiye and Israel. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Ben Dishman, Donald H. Harrison, Israel, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food

Hamas Merged Nazi and Islamist Ideologies

Hitler’s fanaticism and the legacy of his henchmen in implementing his “Final Solution” against the Jews cannot begin to compare with the Islamic fanaticism of Hamas. Unlike the Nazis, who did their best to conceal their genocidal crimes against the Jews, the followers of Hamas take immense pride in carrying out their acts of mayhem against the Jew, as we saw in the recent October 7th attack against the Jews on Shabbat and during the holiday of Simchat Torah. [Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel]

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Holocaust, International, Israel, Jewish History, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Middle East