Travel and Food

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –When Israel’s leading theatrical company, Habima, was invited to perform Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in Hebrew at the Globe Theatre in London last summer a flurry of opposing voices erupted. The usual vociferous pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel suspects trotted out their tried and tested arguments denigrating Israel’s government. It seemed

  By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — With the Judgment pending (perceived as a moral threshold by most Jews, a time for cleansing souls), Yom Kippur is really one of the rare times of the year when our spiritual community actual ponders evil straight on.   Most of the year, we’re thinking about good works.  

By David Amos SAN DIEGO — My musical travels have given to me very special moments, and every one of them is a story, worthy of mentioning in an imaginary future book. Here are some of them: *Watching the Israel Philharmonic, with Itzhak Perlman and Zubin Mehta, rehearsing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, only hours after

By Danny Bloom CHIAYI CITY, TAIWAN — When the British novel titled The German English Girl was published in London in 2011, the deeply-felt ”kindertransport”-themed book received high praise and good reviews in England.  It was never released in America and was never reviewed in the New York Times or other prestigious national newspapers. Even the

SAN DIEGO — Here ae some thoughts in time for Rosh Hashanah from the “Dear Money Maven” column Q:        My son is the apple of my eye.  I want to set up a Section 529 college savings account for him, but heard that the custodian controls the investments.  I’m not an expert, but I’d like

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Some time ago, I read an analysis of the traffic flow on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Apparently, the average speed (horse-drawn, of course) in 1905 was ten miles per hour. In 1985, polluted by emissions, it was five miles per hour. This reality comes to mind several times