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

Former child prodigy returns to TICO as soloist

Violinist Anat Almani concluded the recent January 28 TICO concert with an impressive performance of the Tchaikowsky Violin Concerto. Her solid technique brought a beautiful patina to the high passages in the first movement; the second movement was a study of muted sweetness; and the final movement lunged forward with unbridled energy. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Chula Vista rabbi offers ‘Gentle Judaic Wisdom’

Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel of Congregation Beth Shalom in Chula Vista is one of the most erudite pulpit rabbis in San Diego County, having written numerous books on the Jewish religion and on such Torah commentators at Philo and Maimonides. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Joe Gandelman, Lifestyles, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, San Diego County

The untrial of Donald Trump

Some traitorous do-nothing Democrat made a false accusation against Donald T.  for he learned one day he was being impeached even though in his mind he had acted perfectly to get himself reelected.  Every morning his chef brought him a bucket of fried chicken for breakfast, but on this morning, a woman named Nancy sent him a kale salad with a note that ominously read: “Eat something healthy.  You’re going to need it.”  Within weeks his lawyers found themselves colluding with a turtle-faced man to shield T. from the calumnies a mixed-race prosecution team would level at him.  This reinforced T’s conviction that people who aren’t white are incapable to administering justice and need to be denied a voice in the government. [Satire by Laurie Baron]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Book chronicles 4,000 years of Jewish leaders

Marlon classifies more than eight hundred Jewish luminaries into one or more of fifteen categories, each its own chapter, including the High Priests of the Jews, Exilarchs of the Jews, and Generals of the Jews. He separates Jewish kings into five separate chapters: Kings of the United Monarchy, Kings of Israel, Kings of Judea, Hasmonean and Herodian Kings, and Jewish Kings of Himyar, Khazaria, and Ethiopia. A distinct chapter holds Queens of the Jews, starting with Mikhal (c. 900 BCE), youngest daughter of King Saul and ending with Gudit (c. 960 CE), who fought against Aksum, the capital of Christian Ethiopia. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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

From Torah to rabbinic Judaism

Rabbi Drazin’s newest book sets out to prove that the Judaism that everyone observes today is a relatively later historical development. Judaism continues to undergo endlessly new permutations. This observation applies no less to Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, even some of the vestigial practices of so-called “secular Jews,” which to a certain degree follow variations of rabbinical Judaism. Yet, as the author noted, “The term Orthodox did not exist before the 19th century” (p. 175). [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi

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

Planning for San Carlos neighborhood eruv

Young Israel of San Diego, located in a small shopping center at 7291 Navajo Road, is exploring the possibility of erecting an eruv, which under halacha, Jewish law, extends the area of people’s homes, enabling Shabbat-observant Jews to carry packages or push baby carriages with the eruv’s boundaries. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Some misgivings about Super & Puppy Bowls

I avoid watching the Super Bowl where giant men butt heads and push each other down inevitably injuring each other.  Frankly, I don’t understand the game.  When the quarterback passes the ball to a member of his team, the receiver runs in the opposite direction from the quarterback violating all my training to retrieve balls.  I’ve heard the ball is made of pigskin which offends my Jewish owners and ignores how wonderful rabbit fur feels in between my teeth.  [Humor by Elona Baron as told to Laurie Baron]

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Lawrence Baron, The World We Share, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Congratulations Encinitas City Council, JFS & Leichtag Foundation

I think we all should congratulate Mayor Catherine Blakespear and three other members of the Encinitas City Council who voted their hearts, and not their fears, in the recent battle over providing safe overnight parking spaces to 25 homeless families who are forced to sleep in their cars. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA

Belief in God a path to spiritual renewal

How would renewing our belief in the seeming impossible, in the “miraculous,” do for improving our daily lives? And what would it take for us to achieve this transformative, spiritual renewal? Do we need to see the Nile River turn to blood, the land covered with frogs, the dirt turn to lice? When we see these, are reminded of them in remembrance of the Exodus, we are also reminded that Hashem controls the world and continues to do so daily. Exodus didn’t happen just to take us from Egypt, but to teach us to believe in the ultimate power of Hashem. [Michael Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Stalemate casts pall over otherwise content Israel

Here in Israel all is not sweetness and light. Far from it. I have always tried to present the more pleasant side of life in Israel, and it certainly exists, political differences notwithstanding. But the grim state of public life at present cannot be ignored. After all, what sane country has to hold three general elections in the space of less than a year? [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East