SAN DIEGO (Press Release) — Members of Congregation Beth Israel elected Mitch Siegler as president of the congregation for a two-year term during its annual membership meeting. He follows Meg Mandel, who has served as president of the Board since 2013. Siegler has been an active member of Beth Israel since 1990. Most recently, he […]
Mitch Siegler new Beth Israel president Read More »
Jewish Religion, San Diego CountyBy Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — None of the innumerable presidential contenders is saying much about it: there is great dignity in the work of human hands—regardless of the labor involved. The vanities of the impetuous, limo-riding Donald Trump and the platitudes of the entitlement-ridden Hillary Clinton are light years away from Dr. Martin Luther
America is not about politics; it’s about honest work Read More »
Jewish Religion, USABy Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D. SAN DIEGO — Someone once said, “Character is what we do when no one else is looking.” Of course, we believe there really never is such a time, with G-d in Heaven. Yet, there are those who still believe, “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do
Hints for improving your character Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – I find myself wondering why San Diego Gas & Electric decided to name its giant fire-fighting helicopter “Goliath.” Sure, it’s big, and Goliath of biblical infamy was big, but there the similarity ends. Goliath, a Philistine who stood between 12 and 13 feet tall, was a bully. He
The Jewish angle: Naming a helicopter and a ship Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego County, USABy Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — This Shabbat is Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first day of the month of Elul. During Elul we recite Psalm 27, the Psalm of Repentance, during morning and evening services. On weekdays we also sound the Shofar during minyan services. Psalm 27 and the call of the Shofar remind us
The daily hard work of teshuva Read More »
Jewish Religion
By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — A highlight of my recent trip to China was in Xian, once the largest city in the ancient world and capital of China throughout 11 dynasties. After arriving by bullet train from Beijing, we had dinner at a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant and spent the evening listening to three speakers
Tracing ancient Jewish influences in China Read More »
Eileen Wingard, International, Jewish ReligionBy Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — When Jewish Family Service announced the College Avenue Center would move Sept. 1 from Beth Jacob Congregation to Temple Emanu-El–with hot kosher lunches to be prepared at the JFS campus on Balboa Avenue–Leopoldo Kahn raised the issue of whether Orthodox lunch patrons would be left out. He explained
Jewish Family Service explores two kinds of kosher Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego CountyBy Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — It would be so much easier to cope with things if God simply intervened and cleaned up all the messes. But where would that really leave us? The miracles described in the Bible are wonderful cartoons and they salve anxiety for a little while. They are imaginative dramas
We can’t depend on miracles — unless they’re ours Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – The College Avenue Center will move Sept. 1 after 17 years at Beth Jacob Congregation to Temple Emanu-El, approximately a mile and a half north on College Avenue, Jewish Family Service has announced. Although the move will be from the social hall of an Orthodox congregation to a
JFS relocates College Avenue Center to Emanu- El Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego CountyBy Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — The Dalai Lama and many of his people fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Now after more than 50 years in exile, he has been considering the problem of how to keep both the culture and religious heritage of his people alive. It occurred to him that there
From the Jewish Library: ‘The Jew in the Lotus’ Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Michael R. Mantell, PhD SAN DIEGO — In the words of one sexually frustrated husband, “My wife doesn’t. Understand me?” For so many years, the jokes about Judaism and sex – together with Jewish illiteracy — have so misled generations, that too many of today’s young Jewish couples simply do not understand the true joy
The joy of kosher sex Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell, Science, Medicine, & EducationBy Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — “Take off your shoes,” God admonished Moses at the site of the Burning Bush. “You are standing on holy ground.” What was God actually saying? Moses was not at the Vatican. He was not at the Mosque of Omar. He was not even in Jerusalem. He was in
Wherever you feel God, that is holy ground Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Michael R. Mantell, PhD SAN DIEGO — I recently went on the Rabbinical Assembly website and found 15 prayerbooks. Prayerbooks. Fifteen of them. Who needs fifteen different prayerbooks? I guess the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative/Masorti rabbis believes we, the members of Conservative congregations worldwide, need them. But fifteen? Seriously? This got me
Setting goals for our prayers Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael MantellBy Natasha Josefowitz LA JOLLA, California — In October 1939, I was twelve years old. My parents, my six-year-old brother, and I sat in the basement of our Paris apartment with gas masks on every night as the sirens screeched that German planes were overhead. We fear they will drop mustard gas, which we were
Her first days in America, 1939 Read More »
Jewish Religion, Natasha Josefowitz, USA