Staff and Bylined Contributors

Kabbalah and the Holocaust 

Kabbalah and the Holocaust: Healing a Broken Cosmos is among Rabbi Samuel’s most ambitious theological works. Instead of asking only the usual, most often heard question, “Where was God during the Holocaust?” he investigates how Jewish mystical thought attempts to understand the existence of evil without diminishing God’s justice and human responsibility. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Holocaust, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors

How rabbis write their High Holy Days sermons

“This year, I will get all my High Holiday sermons done by July, and then I will be able to just edit or update them closer to the date to reflect any changes in the world.” Once this plan is put into your Rabbi’s mind, they will immediately abandon it and never speak of it again, until the following May. [Joshua Kail]

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Israel, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Mainly Mozart showcases pianist Anton Nel. He excelled!

On Tuesday, June 23, pianist Anton Nel delivered a spirited performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, considered the composer’s first mature concerto masterpiece. It was written when Mozart was 21 and is often called the Jenamy Concerto because it was inspired by a talented French pianist named Victoire Jenamy. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Huckabee cites shared values as reason for deep U.S.-Israel friendship

Huckabee said the historic US-Israel relationship was built on shared Judeo-Christian values, with the U.S. Founding Fathers inspired by the Jewish People and the Ten Commandments in drafting the Declaration of Independence – and more Americans should appreciate that. (Press Release)

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Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Our journey from U.S. residents to Israeli citizens

In the summer of 1991, we sold our house and car and made Aliyah with our two young sons. Our sons struggled at first in school but by the following September they were acclimated and had many friends. They were speaking Hebrew ok by then; Michal and I still speak only simple Hebrew, but English is quite common.

We moved from our 1st-year rental in Ra’anana and bought a house in Alfe Menashe, just over the Green Line, the informal border separating Israel from Judea and Samaria – the Jewish homeland. [Steve Kramer].

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Antisemitism, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Steve Kramer, Travel and Food, USA

True stories from the Holocaust create strong connection

When students learn about a child who was murdered in the Holocaust and paint a butterfly in honor of that child’s life, they become grounded in history in a way that textbooks alone cannot accomplish. They understand that the Holocaust was not just a historical event, but a collection of individuals with lives, hopes, and dreams just like their own. [Debra Feldstein]

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California, Holocaust, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Philanthropy & Volunteerism, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Novel paints picture of celebrities of the pre-World War II era

This novel spins a story of Einstein and Chaplin taking the luxury Santa Fe Super Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles, along with fellow historical personages J. Robert Oppenheimer, Charles Lindbergh, Mickey Cohen, Lena Horne, and Fritz Duquesne, a Nazi spy. {Donald H. Harrison}

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Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, California, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Jewish Fiction, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Travel and Food, USA

Jewish biography: Karl Schwarzchild, astrophysicist

His work on the theory of relativity contained the first exact solutions to the equations of general relativity with spherical symmetry—the so-called Schwarzschild inner solution for a non-rotating spherical body of homogeneous fluid and the Schwarzschild outer solution for static empty space around a spherically symmetric body (the latter is now usually referred to simply as the Schwarzschild solution). [Alex Gordon]

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Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, Lifestyles, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

‘The Sacrificial Service’: Leviticus teaches valuable lessons

Grossman argues that sacrifices are not primitive rituals intended merely to appease God. Instead, they are symbolic acts through which worshippers express gratitude, repentance, devotion, dependence, celebration, and reconciliation. (Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors

JCC Camp aromas will trigger future memories

Years from now, one of those familiar scents may suddenly bring a camper back to the friendships they formed, the counselor who believed in them, the joy of singing Shabbat together, and the discovery that being Jewish is not simply something you learn, it is something you live. [Betzy Lynch]

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Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Opinion, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors