AAA-Writers and photographers

Below are the names of writers who are currently active.  For others, living and deceased, please type their name into the search box above the masthead on our home page, www.sdjewishworld.com

Juvenile Fiction: Elephant Helps a Boy Find God

El, the elephant, offers to help the boy find God.  So off they go, the boy on El’s back, and they see a flower and a meadow; feel the effects of the wind and the sun; and the coolness of river water.  The boy asks when they will find God, and El explains that the boy already had met God in the beauty of the flower; the peacefulness of the meadow; the strong winds; the warmth of the sun; and the life-giving, thirst-quenching water of the river. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

Novel Portrays Catskill’s Post-Borscht Belt Era

This is an American Jewish novel about two families coming to terms with the fact that the fictional resort that best friends Benny Goldman and Amos Weingold founded in the Catskill Mountains has long passed its prime. The Golden Hotel no longer is booked to capacity, nor even near capacity, and the once famous Borscht Belt resort has quite obvious wear and tear to show its decline. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, USA

Beyond Functionality: Modern and Contemporary Ceramics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

By Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D NEW YORK — What are the aesthetic, sensuous, and expressive possibilities inherent in clay as a material substance in all its physicality? How is it possible that ceramics can restore, or rather reconfigure and remake our relationship to the natural world? These are among the fundamental questions posed by “Shapes from

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

Antisemitism and the Courts Probed in New Book

In Courtroom Trials in Jewish History, attorney and Jewish-community activist Esther Zaretsky offers an eclectic collection of stories about Jews who, in a broad sense, have had their day in court, courts representing justice at its worst, verdicts driven by antisemitism and anti-Israeli hatred. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, as there are no depositions or testimonies; no exhibits or closing arguments. Rather, Zaretsky provides the backstory leading up to the trial, the verdict, emphasizing how the “courts fail to affirm society’s most precious values of justice, equality, morality, and the preservation of human rights,” and its aftermath—we get to hear the rest of the story. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, USA

Torah Reading for July 17, 2021

Let’s begin at the beginning of this week’s parasha, which we read on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av every year, and look at the first words of the Torah reading, “These are the words which Moshe spoke unto all of Israel across the Jordan…” Yes, Moshe spoke his words to ALL Jews, not just those alive then, but to all, including us today. When we read this parasha, Moshe is speaking directly to me and you. This makes Devarim a particularly human parasha, one in which Moshe establishes a quite personal relationship with each of us. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

An American Jewish Memoir of Food and Travel

In her zany account of her travels out west from her home in Plantation, Florida, Shari Wallack never got to San Diego, so I didn’t get the chance to see how her impressions of my hometown might match up with my own experiences.  If the two jibed, then I’d probably put utmost faith into her accounts of other places.  As it was, I simply had to enjoy her impressions of diverse locales between New York and Utah. Also, I was astonished by her reliance on serendipity and good Jewish cooking to turn even prosaic locales into adventures. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Travel and Food, USA

Dual Tragedies of a Patient with a Brain Hemorrhage and Her Caregiver Husband

Attorney Daniel P. Shapiro deeply loved his wife Susan and their three children.  He and Susan had enjoyed special moments together; places, songs, meals that ignited memories; meaningful yet  unspoken understandings typical of the happily married.  And then disaster in the form of a brain hemorrhage happened.  Susan slurred her speech, lost her mobility, and seemed unable to relate with the rest of her family. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles

The Proper Way to Read Lamentations

Most Jews who read the book do so like they daven (read) the prayers, in a rush, with no intent of trying to understand what they are reading. I once saw a bearded synagogue rabbi fire a very nice highly intelligent un-bearded man because he was not pious enough by the rabbi’s standard to read the book from the Writing to the congregation, and had a bearded man recite the book from the pulpit. While the un-bearded man read the book for the congregation at a fair pace, the bearded man rushed through it as he sped through his prayers. Both the reader and the rabbi failed to understand why Jews were advised by their ancestors to read the Tanakh, including the book of Lamentations. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Netanyahu’s Support Waning Among Likud Colleagues

Some members of the Likud party, those who say they want to head the party “after Bibi steps down,” are showing signs of insurrection. In the June 20 Jerusalem Post, veteran political columnist Gil Hoffman wrote, “In public, Likud MK and former health minister and head of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, has kept fairly quiet regarding his decision to run in the next Likud Party primary. In private, however, he has told other high ranking Likud members that he intends on winning [the next Likud primary] and didn’t spare any harsh words for his party leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ….” [Steve Kramer]

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Middle East, Steve Kramer

Shapers of the Immigration Debate: Enrique Morones

In 2009, Enrique Morones, then the leader of Border Angels, was presented by Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon with an award conferred by the Human Rights Commission of Mexico. The impressive ceremony in Mexico City honored Morones’ decades of work protecting undocumented migrants who brave harsh terrain and insufferable temperatures to seek new lives in the United States. In an acceptance speech, Morones urged Mexicans not to come to the United States, telling them that they were needed to build their own nation.  ‘We are Mexicans, and Mexico’s future is here in Mexico, not America,” he pleaded.  “Mexicans, do not go.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, San Diego County, USA

Satire: Space Loses Its Virginity

Virgin Galactic succeeded in launching its owner Richard Branson into a sub-orbit to demonstrate the potential for future space tourism.  Immediately thereafter, many corporations filed papers to open businesses in space to serve the anticipated spate of rich people who already consider themselves out of this world and plan to flaunt their space vacations at cocktail parties.  You can expect to see these advertisements for the following enterprises soon. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Major Rally Against Antisemitism on Sunday, July 11, in Washington D.C.

American Jews were expected to gather on Sunday (July 11) outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to hear a line-up of more than 20 speakers in a rally co-hosted by prominent Jewish organizations – all to confront the overwhelming levels of antisemitism that have evolved in America and worldwide. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA