Jerry Klinger

[caption id="attachment_66303" align="alignleft" width="150"] Jerry Klinger[/caption]

Jerry Klinger is the founding president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, which has placed monuments and plaques across the United States and in other countries detailing the history of Jewish individuals and communities.

JAFI brings teen emissaries in SD County home

Three Israeli youth who have been serving in San Diego County as shlichim (emissaries) for the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) left for Israel on Sunday — their one-year tours in the United States interrupted by the shutdown of many area Jewish institutions in reaction to the spreading coronavirus.  Opportunities to interact with Jews on an organized level having been greatly reduced in San Diego County, the three 18-year-olds will return to Israel where, after a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all returnees to Israel, they will be able to do volunteer work and have Pesach seders with their families. [Our shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jerry Klinger, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA

Parent of 3 SDJA students tests positive for coronavirus

A parent of three San Diego Jewish Academy students has tested positive for coronavirus, according to Chaim Heller, the retiring head of the school.  In a letter to other parents sent on Saturday (Shabbat) , he wrote, “The parent was at school during the past week.  Their children, who are in grades, 1, 3, and 6, were in many rooms, including the Ulam (Auditorium), many times during the past week as well.  They were with their friends acting in a regular, non-distance manner during that time.  Effectively, they could have been with anyone from the school, from ECC [Early Childhood Center] to high school.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jerry Klinger, Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Science, Medicine, & Education, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

A new Holocaust memorial in Suriname

On the Northern Coast of South America, is a tiny third world country’s capital, Paramaribo, Suriname. It is 5,248 miles to Krakow, near Auschwitz. The tiny Jewish community of Suriname, alongside of their non-Jewish neighbors chose on Jan. 27 to remember the Holocaust. Unlike most commemorations that took place that day, the Suriname Jewish community dedicated a permanent interpretive historical marker telling the ill-informed and the future generations of the uninformed, what the Holocaust was. [Jerry Klinger]

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

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

German’s diary tells of opposition to Hitler

For the first time, I read the courageous secret diary of a man and wife who did what they could to record what they saw, they heard, and they felt living in Nazi Germany.  They had been denounced.  They had barely escaped the concentration camps, the Gestapo, and probable death for being in opposition to Hitler.  They knew what they had to do, what they could still do, even if they could not shape the present.  They hoped their diary might shape the future when another Hitler could arise somewhere in the world in another vaunted high cultured and “free” society.  The diary, a series of volumes that remained hidden long after the war had ended, eventually ran to almost 1,000 pages. [Jerry Klinger]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

Traveling Israel exhibit opens in Florida

On one side of the seating area on Sunday, Dec. 8, was a documented German cattle car used to transport Jews from Warsaw to their death in Treblinka.  On the opposite side was a full-sized WWII era American Sherman tank, the kind of war machine needed and used to end the Holocaust. It was a dramatic setting for a crowd of hundreds to view the opening of Israel Then and Now, a traveling exhibit combining historical images, milestone moments, interactive media, and film. [Jerry Klinger]

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA

The swastika in a U.S. military cemetery

Paul Eilert died of cancer in a Utah hospital in 1944. Eilert was a German POW. He is buried in a section reserved for POWs in Ft. Douglas, Utah. There are 20 other German WWII interments in the Utah U.S. military cemetery.  His is the only one with the Knights Cross and Oak Leaves, a very, very high military decoration for his actions against the enemy, clearly carved with a swastika into his tombstone.  Of the 800 German POW deaths in the U.S., from the lowest rank to generals, his unusual stone is the only one with the Knights Cross on his tombstone.  Research, so far, has found his name, nowhere.  Paul Eilert, the Swastika in the U.S. Military Cemetery, is a mystery. (To read more, please click on the headline)

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International, Jerry Klinger, USA

Tuskegee Civil Rights Trail is dedicated

Friday, September 20, 2019, in the Tuskegee City Municipal Center, the 13-marker Tuskegee Civil Rights and Historic Trail was dedicated.  The Trail was the ten-year dream of Tuskegee University History professor and Archivist Dana Chandler.  The Trail will be included in the U.S. Park Service’s Civil Rights trails. The Trail came to be because of a biracial, multi-religious partnership in Tuskegee, Alabama.

It had been a long-frustrated dream because Dr. Chandler was unable to find funding to create the system.  Grant monies did not come through. State and local funding did not happen. Private funding seemed impossible, until, with indomitable persistence he spoke with the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Jerry Klinger, about his idea. (To read more, please click on headline.)

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA

Julius Rosenwald was a champion of Black education

  By Jerry Klinger WARRENTON, VIRGINIA –Julius Rosenwald was the organizational genius and President of Sears and Roebuck. Rosenwald felt, as a Jewish American, a deep personal commitment to humanitarian issues. After Sears went public in 1906, Rosenwald, now an immensely wealthy man, faced a dilemma. Rosenwald said, “I can testify that it is nearly

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA

Looking to our area’s Jewish past — and future

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Two recent honors in my life undoubtedly will have a positive influence on the kinds of stories that will appear in San Diego Jewish World. Recently, I was elected to the presidency of the Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History, a group interested in promoting

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Donald H. Harrison, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, San Diego Calendar, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Jewish group helps dedicate Ida Wells- Barnett marker

By Jerry Klinger HOLLY SPRINGS, Mississippi — I have dedicated scores of historical markers and memorials across America as President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP).  Almost all the projects have a Jewish theme or background story. Next month in Marietta, Georgia, JASHP will dedicate the first ever anti-lynching memorial to all

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA

Trinidad, Colorado, celebrates Temple Aaron

By Jerry Klinger TRINIDAD, Colorado — Temple Aaron in this city celebrated its 130th birthday, Big Time on the weekend of June 21-23. The Temple is 200 miles from Denver, 200 miles from Albuquerque, 200 miles from nearly everything sustainably Jewish. Its last full-time rabbi died 103 years ago.  Yet, the town enduringly refuses to

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Travel and Food, USA