Travel and Food

San Diego Jewish Film Festival preview: ‘Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment’

By Gail Feinstein Forman SAN DIEGO –In the early 1970’s, during the summer of my first year of teaching, I left New York City for the kibbutz adventure in Israel. I was first sent to Rosh Hanikra, a kibbutz right on the border with Lebanon. The kibbutz had just recently added some new volunteers to […]

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Travel and Food

San Diego Jewish Film Festival preview: ‘Our Disappeared’

  By Yvonne Greenberg     LA JOLLA, California — What started out as filmmaker’s Juan Mandelbaum’s hopeful search for his college girlfriend Patricia Dixon in his documentary, Our Disappeared, turns into a horrifying discovery that she was killed during Argentina’s “Dirty War” by the right wing junta.   During the “Dirty War,” from 1976-1983,

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‘Lonely Planet’ cites Tel Aviv as among 2011’s top three tourist destinations

TEL AVIV (Press Release)— If Jerusalem is known as the city in which to pray, then neighboring Tel Aviv is definitely the place to play –– and study — according to travel authority Lonely Planet. Citing Tel Aviv as one of the world’s top three cities to visit in 2011 — New York claimed the #1 spot,

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Travel and Food

Auschwitz sign stealer transferred to Swedish prison

KRAKOW, Poland (WJC) — The former Swedish neo-Nazi leader Anders Högström, who organized the theft of the ‘Arbeit macht frei’ sign from Auschwitz, has been transferred to his home country to serve his three-year prison sentence. Högström was handed over to Swedish officials at Krakow Airport, according to media reports. Last December, a Polish court sentenced

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Travel and Food

6 Democrats propose emergency House resolution voicing support for Egyptian people

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)– Representatives Jim Moran of Virginia, John Conyers of Michigan, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Michael Honda of  California, Jim McDermott of Washington, and Keith Ellison of Minnesota sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner asking the House to take up an emergency resolution to voice support for the Egyptian people. “The House of Representatives has

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Travel and Food

U.S., Turkey confer on combating terrorism

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) — Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano  met Monday with Turkish State Minister Hayati Yazici to discuss increasing collaboration between the United States and Turkey to combat terrorism and other transnational crime. During the meeting, Secretary Napolitano underscored the Obama administration’s commitment to working closely with Turkey to strengthen the security of the

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Travel and Food

San Diego Jewish Film Festival preview: ‘War Against the Weak’

   By Paul Greenberg   LA JOLLA, Caifornia — In his ambitious, fact-filled, quick moving, visually appealing, but at times quite disturbing 2009  documentary, War Against the Weak (English, 90 minutes), director Justin Strawhand effectively traces the history of the devolution of the theory and practices of eugenics from the 1880’s to the end of World War

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Travel and Food

When we say ‘There’s a Jewish story everywhere,’ we’re thinking of stories like ‘Next Year in Bombay’

Next Year in Bombay, directed by Jonas Pariente and Mathias Manyin, Chai Chai Films. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Less than an hour in length, the gentle documentary Next Year in Bombay  takes viewers on a visit to three Jewish communities in India.  First is the Konkan coast, about 25 miles from Bombay (Mumbai),

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Travel and Food

Cuba accuses Gross of interfering with its independence, seeks 20-year sentence

HAVANA (WJC)–Prosecutors in Cuba are reportedly seeking a 20-year prison sentence for the Jewish American Alan Gross, a US government contractor that the State Department says was assisting Cuban Jews. Gross is accused of “Acts Against the Independence and Territorial Integrity of the State,” the ‘Reuters’ news agency says, citing Cuban state media. The espionage

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Travel and Food

Facebook frequency can lower adolescent’s self-image

HAIFA, Israel (Press Release)–The more time adolescent girls spend in front of Facebook, the more their chances of developing a negative body image and various eating disorders, such as anorexia, bulimia and exaggerated dieting. This has been shown in a new study from the University of Haifa. Eating disorders include a wide spectrum of abnormal

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Travel and Food

San Diego Jewish Film Festival preview ‘Born to Fly’

Born To Fly, 2009, 67 min. Hebrew, French, & English with English subtitles throughout. Directed by Uri Borreda, Produced by Yaakov Shem Tov, Uri Borreda. By Yiftach Levy SANTEE, California –In the mid-1960s, Danny Shapira, already Israel’s most accomplished military test pilot, had a special flightsuit custom-sewn for him so he could fly an experimental

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Rubin Reports: Syria; U.S.-Egypt; and Muslim Brotherhood intentions toward Israel

  By Barry Rubin Syrian Authorities Break Up Protest, Maintain Full Control HERZLIYA, Israel — Why are moderate Arab regimes–even if dictatorships–shaken by protest while hardline ones aren’t? Because at the least sign of trouble the radical governments crack down. Knowing that punishment will be harsh and that the West won’t be interested few dare

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