Travel and Food

Parshas Bo – The Rules of the Road

It is now forty years since I began driving an automobile. I took driver’s education and it was through them I got my license, but it was my mother, of blessed memory, who taught me how to drive. Over the years I’ve heard that I have a reputation of being a New York driver. Some passengers in my car requested double seat belts and a parachute with an optional eject button just in case they needed access to an early departure. New York drivers are known to be aggressive; it is a direct correlation to the aggressiveness of daily life in New York city. In contrast, living in Charleston, South Carolina, cars can be sold with a horn because no one ever beeps such a rude, noisy device. [Rabbi Avraham Bogopulsky]

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Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food

Clearing up confusion between JNF-USA and KKL

Dr. Sol Lizerbram, the Rancho Sante Fe resident who serves as the national president of Jewish National Fund-USA, says that many people are unaware that Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (KKL) and JNF-USA are totally separate organizations, even though in the past, they were one and the same.
[Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

Can carob save a nation?

The carob tree has been appreciated for its various features throughout the ages. Nowadays, people are starting to rediscover this amazing plant. It is both a wild growing forest tree, and an easy to cultivate fruit tree. Because of this combination, the carob tree lends itself to a wide range of uses, thus making it the perfect tree to solve many of Morocco’s pressing economic and environmental issues. [By Nora Martetschläger]

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International, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food

Behind the byline: Jerry Klinger

Though he lives in Boynton Beach, Florida, Jerry Klinger writes stories for this publication from all over the United States and the globe.
Klinger is president of the Jewish American Society of Historic Preservation, an organization which he largely funds. It has erected more than 100 historic markers honoring Jewish-American contributions in this country, Europe, and Israel. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

Israel’s severe weather eclipses political news

Our recent headlines have featured the weather. Despite a prediction in the Fall that this would be a relatively dry winter, the last couple of weeks have set a record of rainfall that surpasses anything in the most recent 50 years. Coastal cities of Naharyia, Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Ashkelon have been hit by flooded streets that have washed away cars, and required pedestrians to be carried across flooded streets in the buckets of tractors and in the trucks of the IDF. [Ira Sharkansky, PhD]

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Travel and Food

Santee-trained firefighter volunteers in Israel

A couple of days after we started working, rocket fire from Gaza began pouring into Israel. The Station Commander conducted a walkthrough of the in-house bomb shelter. These are not only present in every Fire Station, but in all new residential occupancies. Around 450 rockets were fired toward Israel in the course of about 36 hours. I finally had to silence my “Red Alert – Israel” app if I wanted to try to get some sleep. Two other EVP members (both from Texas) were deployed not far from where I was, and they got a photo of an Iron Dome interception over their Station. Yet the Israeli Firefighters seemed quite calm. They would even change the TV channel to watch soccer, whereas we American Firefighters were staring at the TV watching surveillance camera video of the interceptions, and any rockets which may have passed their missile defenses. Watching the public’s reaction during the missile warning sirens, I couldn’t help but wonder what people in San Diego would say and do if we had continuous barrages of rockets coming across our border. [Dana Ben Kaplan]

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Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food

Office of Civil Rights to investigate bias at UCLA

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has notified StandWithUs and Zachor Legal Institute on January 3rd that it has accepted each of their respective complaints alleging that UCLA violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and has opened the matters for full investigation on the merits. StandWithUs and Zachor Legal Institute both alleged that the UCLA administration repeatedly failed to prevent a hostile campus environment for its Jewish campus community in direct violation of the school’s Title VI obligations. [Press Release from StandWithUs]

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Travel and Food

Multiple-city itineraries can be exhausting

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A trip that would last just over three weeks, starting with a few days in Madrid, continuing with visits of several days each to cousins on the east coast of the USA. After that we were due to spend a few days with our son in Las Vegas, and conclude with a few more days in Rome. What a perfect combination of fun, family and art. Lots of art. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Travel and Food, USA

Jews and chocolate: 500 years of sweetness

Sephardic Jews who were expelled in the late 15th century  from Portugal and Spain learned about cocoa and the production of chocolate from the indigenous peoples of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Keeping up contacts with non-Jewish acquaintances who had remained on Europe’s Iberian Peninsula, they helped to popularize chocolate and develop it as a product in international trade. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA

Resolution on Israel wins S.D. reps. support

Three Democratic members of Congress representing portions of San Diego County – Susan Davis, Scott Peters, and Mike Levin – were among 192 cosponsors of a House Resolution approved by a vote of 226-188 on Friday, Dec. 6, that reiterated support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. A fourth San Diego Democrat, Juan Vargas, joined his colleagues in the majority. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

Community coalition to aid Holocaust Survivors

True to its roots, when it was founded in 1936 to help European Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazi regime in Germany, the Jewish Federation of San Diego County on Tuesday, Dec. 3, launched a community-wide coalition to come to the aid and honor an estimated 500 Holocaust survivors who live in the county today. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA