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

Satire: Shifty Ways to Stay in Power

[Tune: Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover]
The issue is simply that I don’t want to leave.     
I’m not a loser so I don’t know how to grieve.                                                                                                     
I’m sure I’ll find something up my sleeve.                                                                                                          
There must be shifty ways to stay in power. …                                                                            

Satire: Shifty Ways to Stay in Power Read More »

Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Conundrum

Israel is described as a racist country by its detractors. A sizable sector of Israel’s population currently lives in small, crowded apartments in poor, segregated, urban neighborhoods, where their extended families, synagogues, and institutions are located. They constitute about 12% of Israel’s population and most are counted below the poverty line. About half of the men are unemployed. Most of the families are dependent on government aid to supplement their meager incomes. They are prone to riot when they feel threatened by laws promulgated to the general population, often causing police intervention. They are the ultra-Orthodox, known here as the Haredim. Mainstream media coverage of this sector generally depicts them in negative terms. [Steve Kramer]

Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Conundrum Read More »

Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Middle East, Steve Kramer

Streaming Jewish Programs (Nov. 15- 20)

Following are academic and popular programs of specific Jewish interest that may be accessed via the Internet. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

Streaming Jewish Programs (Nov. 15- 20) Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Lifestyles, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

A Visit to the Hula Lake Area

The second Coronavirus lockdown has just ended, and the third one can already be seen in the offing. So anyone with a yen for a change of atmosphere and landscape had better utilize the opportunity to take to the open road, and get out of the house. So hubby and I decided to make for the north of Israel, to the Hula wetlands or lake area, since at this time of the year it serves as a stop-over and resting place for many migratory birds making their way from Europe to Africa for the winter. Israel’s location, between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the arid Arabian desert to the east, has made it the preferred flight path for millions of birds migrating from their summer sojourn in Europe to Africa’s warm winter. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

A Visit to the Hula Lake Area Read More »

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East, The World We Share, Travel and Food

Meet Sean Elo-Rivera, SD’s newest Jewish councilman

It will be very interesting to see what City Councilman-elect Sean Elo-Rivera and his wife Angela will be doing come November 2021.

The early part of November has been uncommonly meaningful for them the last several years. In November 2018, at a party to watch election returns attended by his and Angela Rivera’s family, Sean Elo dropped to his knee right after the initial vote for the Board of Trustees of the San Diego Community College District showed him winning, and asked Angela to marry him. [Donald H. Harrison]

Meet Sean Elo-Rivera, SD’s newest Jewish councilman Read More »

Donald H. Harrison, USA

UK celebrates Jewish fireman who saved lives during the Blitz

September 17, 1940 Errington was in the basement of an Auxiliary Fire Station in London when a bomb crashed through the building spreading death, fire and mayhem. Seven Firefighters were killed immediately. Once the daze cleared from his head a bit, Errington saw two surviving comrades trapped with him under the burning debris.  Errington freed one man, carrying him through the smoke and flames to the outside, saving the injured man. [Jerry Klinger]

UK celebrates Jewish fireman who saved lives during the Blitz Read More »

International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

Growing young and happy in older age

We learn profound lessons from the lives of Sarah and Abraham about growing young and happy in older age. Yet we still seem to have the need to turn to, for example, a famed Harvard University study that found the following personality characteristics relating to happiness in aging: A future orientation and the ability to plan positively (“I figure if I can do this when I’m 85, I’ll be doing pretty well.”) The capacity for both gratitude and forgiveness The ability to see the world through the eyes of another The desire to do things with, and for, people. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

Growing young and happy in older age Read More »

Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Film Review: The Last Vermeer

The Last Vermeer – producer Dan Friedkin’s directorial debut – is a well-paced and thoroughly engaging World War II drama. Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), is a Dutch Jew who fought with the Resistance during the war; and is now commissioned with uncovering and redistributing art stolen by the Nazis. Enter the flamboyant painter and art dealer, Han van Meegeren (masterfully played by Guy Pearce) who is suspected of selling Dutch art treasures to Field-Marshal Hermann Goering and other top Nazi officials. Piller’s story is complicated by a fraught relationship with his wife (played by Marie Bach Henson), who remained in Holland during the occupation; and while she provided intelligence to the Resistance, the implication is that she was only able to acquire such intelligence by carrying on a romantic dalliance with Nazi officers. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

Film Review: The Last Vermeer Read More »

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

Contest Dec. 10 for San Diego City Council President

Two Democratic San Diego City Councilwomen — Jennifer Campbell, who is Jewish, and Monica Montgomery Steppe, who is African American — have announced their intentions to compete for the position of President of the San Diego City Council, which Georgette Gomez will relinquish next month when she leaves office following an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Congress. [Donald H. Harrison]

Contest Dec. 10 for San Diego City Council President Read More »

Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County

White Supremacist Tom Metzger dead at 82

Tom Metzger, one of the nation’s most notorious white supremacists and anti-Semites, has died, according to a post on his White Aryan Resistance website. He was 82. The post said: “Thomas Linton Metzger, born April 9th, 1938 in Warsaw, Indiana, passed away in Hemet, California, on November 4th, 2020.” [Ken Stone, Times of San Diego]

White Supremacist Tom Metzger dead at 82 Read More »

Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Ken Stone, San Diego County, USA

Book is irreverent but useful guide to Jewish practice

Why Jews Do That, authored by Rabbi Avram Mlotek, co-founder and the Rabbi of Base Manhattan, a group described as an “organization aiming to be a pluralistic Jewish salon for the post-college set,” is occasionally irreverent, often amusing, and always succinct and to the point with its answers. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

Book is irreverent but useful guide to Jewish practice Read More »

Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish Religion