Travel and Food

By Dan Bloom CHIAYI, Taiwan — Word order matters, especially with Taiwanese names when written or pronounced in English in the US or Europe. While Washington Nationals pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) is a famous name among US baseball fans, both the Washington Post and the New York Times now spell his name “Chien-ming Wang.” US […]

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — This business of obesity and its strain on the American health picture, including the unfair and disproportionate and attendant drain of medical and extended care funding, is one of the key crises of our time.  Having just shed nearly 80 pounds with the supervision of a hospital weight-management

By David Amos SAN DIEGO — What a magnificent job of portraying Leonard Bernstein at the Old Globe by actor-musician Hershey Felder! I was pleased to see this one-man-show, Maestro, the Art of Leonard Bernstein on Tuesday, July 26. I have frequently written about Bernstein, and his life, which has been called “the most spectacular

By Rabbi Ben Kamin Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — It isn’t that one is specifically sentimental about the corporate vicissitudes of this or that major book chain, though a great many real human lives are being affected badly by the downfall of Borders Group Inc.  The closing of 400 stores is about to throw

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal JERUSALEM– During this final week of studies at the Shalom Hartman Institute students had two unique opportunities: tiyulim (tours) of areas of Israel and the West Bank which reflected the material we studied, and a VIP visit to the recently redesigned and refurbished Israel Museum. I chose to participate in the

By David Amos SAN DIEGO– Somehow, on a worldwide basis, we have developed the tradition of playing lighter orchestral music during the summer months. It could be that this is stimulated by the warmer weather, the shorter attention spans, or competition with other outdoor activities. I look at it as the opportunity to entertain the

By Rabbi Ben Kamin  Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Even the androgynous name of the main character of this tender, sunlit motion picture, “Terri,” lends to its delightfully irresolute and thought-provoking nature.  Like a quiet drumbeat that somehow picks up its own melody, this atypical feature about a typical postmodern theme—adolescent misfits—creeps into your

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — It is written in the Talmud that “the world rests upon the breath of the children in the schoolhouse.”   In the case of Caylee Marie Anthony, the two-year old whose breath was somehow snuffed out even before she ever entered a schoolhouse, before she had the chance to

By David Amos SAN DIEGO — Over a decade ago I received the following letter: “My opinion of our local classical music radio station would be a lot higher if they didn’t play music involving (Conductor) Herbert Von Karajan. This man was a prominent Nazi during World War II. They shouldn’t honor this man by

By Danny Bloom CHIAYI, Taiwan — Movies about food fetishes, chefs and food bloggers make for popular fare worldwide, from Mexico to Manhattan. And when Julie & Julia hit the silver screen last year, foodies across the globe were in some kind of Seventh Heaven. And as everyone knows, as the old saw goes, you

  The Eichmann Trial by Deborah E. Lipstadt, Schocken, 272pp. By David Strom SAN DIEGO — It has been fifty years since the Adolf Eichmann trial. Deborah Lipstadt, renowned historian and professor, has written a new account of the Eichmann trial. Eichmann was one of the world’s most notorious war criminals. He sat in an

By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — He was tall, lean, and carried a grim humanity about him.  James Arness, handpicked by John Wayne (who had better things to do in 1955), portrayed the signature Marshal Dillon, with dryness and few speeches, for twenty years.  Gunsmoke was longest-running network television drama in history and Arness

By David Amos  SAN DIEGO — One often hears at the end of a concert or recital second guessers as to the music just performed. The Mozart Sonata was played too fast, the Chopin Adagio too slow, and so forth. We all know that it is up to the interpreter, the soloist or the conductor