By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D. SAN DIEGO — If you haven’t come across the ubiquitous word “mindfulness” over the last year or so, perhaps it’d be a good idea to read this. You see, there’s a love fest going on with mindfulness and it has captured the attention of nearly every magazine, self-help and coaching-therapy
Jewish mindfulness — being fully aware and accepting Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell
By Donald H. Harrison SPRING VALLEY, California — Since 1983, Noah Homes has been offering refuge to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides residences and caretakers for 70 people spread over eight homes with such Spanish names as Casa de Fe (Faith) and Casa de Paz (Peace.) Currently the charitable organization, which was
Noah and his animals source of joy at Noah Homes Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego CountyBy Rabbi Yaakov Marks SAN DIEGO — Moshe faced a monumental and daunting task; the building of the Mishkan (the portable tabernacle). Enormous amounts of gold, silver, and bronze, had to be procured and fashioned. Many varieties of dyed wool, linen, goat hair and ram skins needed to be processed according to complicated and intricate
Weekly Torah portion: Vayakel Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — This week we read the first of four special maftir portions which are read leading up to Purim and Passover. The maftir is called Shekalim. It describes the half-shekel tribute every Israelite was to pay to the Temple in order to purchase the animals for public sacrifices. After
Why did the Temple require only a half- shekel? Read More »
Jewish ReligionThe Dream of Zion: The Story of the First Zionist Congress by Lawrence J. Epstein, Rowman & Littlefield, New York; ISBN 978-1-4422-5466-5 ©2016, $36.00, p. 137, plus chronology and references. By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — Professor emeritus Lawrence Epstein in his newest book The Dream of Zion, argues that the nineteenth-century European Enlightenment’s
‘The Dream of Zion’ focuses on the life of Herzl Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, International, Jewish History, Middle EastBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — It’s one of the best-kept secrets of British journalism that the Life and Arts section of the Financial Times’ weekend edition contains some of the best-written and most stimulating articles and reviews. So as we were leaving the airport of our almost next-door neighbor of Cyprus for
Jewish family became British through and through Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish HistoryBy Rabbi Ben Kamin OCEANSIDE, California — My father, unrealized, died forty years ago today. It was forty years ago today, March 2, 1976: he dropped dead and left no real trace of personal history. He was just 45 and painfully unrealized. I keep a graying, wood-framed picture of my long-departed father on the mantle.
Four decades gone, his memory still a puzzle Read More »
Obituaries & memorials
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke and Jennifer Armstrong; Penguin Random House/ Ember; (c) 1999, 2015; ISBN 978-0-679-99181-6; 278 pages including appendices, $10.99. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — This publication has reviewed, and will continue to review, numerous memoirs by Holocaust survivors. What makes this memoir different
A Righteous Gentile’s own story Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish HistoryBy Joe Spier CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — The headline in the April 20, 1946 edition of the New York Times read “Poison Bread Fells 1,900 German Captives in U.S. Army Prison Camp near Nuremberg.” What the Times did not report nor know was who the perpetrators were. As World War II was ending, survivors trickled out
Holocaust survivors mass poisoned Nazis of Stalag 13 Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryBy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — The decision to establish an egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall on seemingly same terms as the two Orthodox ones that are now there (one for women and one for men) may be theologically dubious in the eyes of some of us, but it has been politically most
New Kotel section a victory for progressive Judaism Read More »
Jewish Religion, Middle EastBy Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO –– Parashat Ki Tissa contains the story of the egel ha-zahav, the Golden Calf. After Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, he remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. It did not take long for the Children of Israel to become unsettled and anxious. They despaired of
Golden calf worship: clinging to old habits Read More »
Jewish ReligionBy Rabbi Yaakov Marks SAN DIEGO — Worship a golden calf?! How could such a thing happen? After witnessing the ten plagues, the exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, the war with Amalek, the Manna from heaven, and the giving of the Ten Commandments from G-d Himself, how, within twenty-four hours, could anyone witnessing
Weekly Torah portion: Ki Tesaw Read More »
Jewish Religion
By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Before Holocaust Survivor Lou Dunst died last year, he and his wife Estelle commissioned art to enhance the Holy Ark at Ohr Shalom Synagogue at Third and Laurel Streets in San Diego. Four artists competed for the honor of designing the works, with architect Amy Reichert of Chicago,
Ohr Shalom dedicates Pillars of Cloud, Smoke Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
JERUSALEM (WJC) — Samuel Willenberg, the last survivor of the Treblinka death camp who died on Friday in Israel at the age of 93, beat the odds.. About 870,000 people, most of them Jews, died in the gas chambers at Treblinka. It was the second largest Nazi German death camp after Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Samuel Willenberg wa a hero
Samuel Willenberg, last survivor of Treblinka Read More »
International, Jewish History, Obituaries & memorials