Opinion

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, New Partnership Will Preserve Legacies

By Heidi Gantwerk SAN DIEGO — On Friday, as we marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Federation of San Diego County has an eye toward the future. We are proud and excited to announce a new partnership with San Diego’s local group of Holocaust Survivors, the New Life Club, on several important care and legacy

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Heidi Gantwerk, Holocaust, Opinion, San Diego County

Cape St. George Island Lighthouse and the Jews

By Jerry Klinger Touristing — better known as cultural travel, especially historical travel to see the places of events, and meaning to the American experience, preferably without resentful teenagers — is great. A fun thing to do in Florida is to visit historical lighthouses. There are big ones, short one, white ones, red ones, and

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Anti-Jewish Threats to School Administrator Prompts His Resignation

After nine days as dean of students at a middle school, Michael Woodberg resigned. The offense? Being Jewish. His bosses are not antisemitic. Nor is there evidence of rampant antisemitism among the students. In early January, the Richmond Community Schools received frightening threats directed at Woodberg and other staff at the middle school. The school district serves a rural area 45 miles northeast of Detroit. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Middle Eastern Studies Association Honors Anti-Israel Professor at S.F. State

The naming of Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, director of the SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) program, for MESA’s 2022 award reveals both the pathological animus against Israel harbored by the group and also its willingness to reward Abdulhadi for her execrable record of radical anti-Israel, antisemitic campus activism at San Francisco State University. [Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D]

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California, Israel, Opinion, Richard L. Cravatts, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Sunday Soundoff: Transgendered Women, Christening Ceremonies, and Israel

Having been “retired” as editor and publisher of San Diego Jewish World for more than a year, I find myself wanting to write occasional opinion columns in addition to the book reviews and features which I’ve continued to submit to our publication’s new leader Jacob Kamaras. So, with the indulgence of you readers, I’m going to sound off periodically on issues of concern to me as a Jew. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Israel, Jewish Celebrities, Lifestyles, Opinion, San Diego County, USA

A Case of Theological Thuggery in Israel

Horrifying statement from a newly elected MK: “Our banner is one of unambiguous war on progress. The status-quo has to be changed, ensuring that Judaism is acknowledged in every corner of the life of the State. Israel will be a country that observes the Sabbath in public, homosexual families will not be given recognition, and women will not serve in the army; their contribution will be to marry and produce a family. We will not be like countries that are for all their citizens. Heaven forfend. The values of Judaism supersede all individual rights. Look, I’m getting tools and budgets, I’m here to work, and we will clean up the public systems. Watch me, I’m patient, this is just the beginning of the beginning.” [Dorothea Sherfer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Israel, Jewish Religion, Opinion

Santos, the ‘Jew-ish’ Congressman: How Perilous is He?

Until Tuesday, our first “Jew-ish” Congressman established himself as a serial liar, a possible criminal suspect and a punchline. Now it is far worse: George Santos is scary, and maybe dangerous. The Washington Post reports a web of connections that begs questions as to what he is capable of, in or out of Congress. It compounds other disturbing elements of the controversy. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, International, Opinion, USA

Woke Intolerance and the Canceling of the Father of the Georgia Peach Industry

By Jerry Klinger National Public Radio reported a story that was frankly, flabbergasting, a big word meaning — you have got to be kidding. An office within the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work says it is removing the term “field” from its curriculum because it may have racist connotations related to slavery.

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

The Angry Voices of the Right-Wing Ideologues

By Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D JERUSALEM — Key members of Israel’s establishment have taken aim at reforms indicated by ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. According to the Times of Israel, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut denounced the new government’s plan, as proposed by Justice Minister Yair Levin, as radically overhauling Israel’s judicial and legal

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Ira Sharkansky, Israel, Opinion

Fellow Travelers

By Doron Krakow What is it about those group experiences? How is it that so many of the people most important in our lives are the same ones with whom we briefly shared something special that became something lasting, something transformative? For many of us, it’s the people with whom we went to camp, those

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Doron Krakow, Opinion, USA

Moses Mendelssohn: The Berlin Dreamer

By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — In 1783, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play “Nathan the Wise” premiered at the Berlin Theater. The play was a literary and theatrical sensation and a shock to Germany, and perhaps to the entire Christian world. Hitherto Jews had been considered and portrayed as immoral and despicable people. Lessing’s character Nathan,

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Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, Opinion

Where’s the Outrage Over Biden Comparing Illegal Immigrants to Holocaust Victims?

(JNS) After two years of pointedly ignoring a problem largely of his own making, President Joe Biden finally made a brief visit to the U.S. southern border in El Paso, Texas. While there, however, he saw little of the human cost of the catastrophe, as he didn’t meet or see any of the illegal immigrants

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Holocaust, Opinion, USA