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
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama’s plans in the Middle East include three and a half hours in Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The president’s hope is to find a mechanism for advancing Israeli-Palestinian “peace.” The appearance of the President of the United States in “Palestine” is calculated to provide […]
Obama’s upcoming visit to Ramallah Read More »
Middle East, Shoshana BryenBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MILAN, Italy — To find oneself sitting in the majestic auditorium of La Scala here is thrilling enough in itself. To be attending a performance of Verdi’s opera Nabucco, which describes the biblical episode surrounding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people to
Babylon exile, Shoah conflated in ‘Nabucco’ Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-VansonThe Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering by Shmuley Boteach, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, New York; ISBN 978-965-229-606-1 ©2012, $24.95, p. 340, plus addenda By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — World-renown Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, in his latest book The Fed-Up Man of Faith, continues on the path
Challenging God in the face of tragedy Read More »
Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish ReligionSusan Sherman, The Little Russian, Counterpoint © 2012, ISBN 978-1-61902-070-2, 332 pages, $15.95 By Donald H. Harrison This is an epic about Jewish survival in anti-Semitic Russia, in which the protagonist, Berta Lorkis, evolves from a self-important but poor relation in a rich relative’s home to a brave, self-sacrificing, single mother willing to risk
Survival in anti-Semitic, early 20th-century Russia Read More »
Donald H. HarrisonBy Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — Stipulating that foreign aid can be an important part of American foreign policy, and further that trade is an important component of U.S. foreign policy; Secretary of State John Kerry made two really important mistakes in his maiden speech, delivered to a fawning audience of American University students.
Kerry’s American University speech indicates off-course policy Read More »
Shoshana Bryen, USABy Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — Purim is here once more. For me, it is a bitter-sweet holiday. The year was 1996. Earlier that day, I went to the hospital to wish my father a “Freilach Purim” (Happy Purim). I was reading the Megillah for my synagogue, when suddenly, somebody informed
A Survivor chooses the day to die Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-RabbiShari Arison, Activate Your Goodness: Transforming the World Through Doing Good, Hay House, © 2013, ISBN 978-1-4919-3797-3, 176 pages, $14.95. By Donald H. Harrison Shari Arison, daughter of the late Carnival Cruise Line founder Ted Arison, runs a network of international businesses and philanthropies in her own right and is ranked as one of the
The case for ‘doing good’ Read More »
Donald H. HarrisonBy Rabbi Michael Leo SamuelCHULA VISTA, California — Purim Fest 1946. During the Holocaust years, Purim celebrations were forbidden to the Jews. Christians and Jews could not even own the book of Esther. Such decrees did not stop the Nazis from poking fun at the Jews on this Jewish holiday. With diabolical glee, the Nazis
Purim Fest 1946: The tale of Julius Streicher Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-RabbiBy Rabbi Michael Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — It seems strange, but there is scarcely a day when we don’t hear about some person losing his or her grip on reality. We are bombarded by a series of rampage shootings that we hear on the radio and television that occur with almost clockwork regularity. Christopher
Dorner rampage: How war can taint a soul Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-RabbiDorothea Shefer-Vanson, The Balancing Game: A Child Between Two Worlds, A Society Approaching War, © 2013, ISBN 978-1-62212-846-4; 258 pages, available through Amazon, $16.50. By Donald H. Harrison Readers of San Diego Jewish World are familiar with author Dorothea Shefer-Vanson as a columnist based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion. She writes about such
Novel explores an off-balance childhood Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Dorothea Shefer-VansonMy Mother’s Wars by Lillian Faderman, Beacon Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-8070-50952-1; 243 pages, $25.95 By Donald H. Harrison This book is a cross between history and fiction; in it Lillian Faderman, well known for her writings on gay and lesbian subjects, examines the heterosexual life of her own single mother up to the time the
Warring with your heart and your conscience Read More »
Donald H. Harrison
Steve Kelley, editor, Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 2013 edition, Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Co., 2013; 206 pages, ISBN 9781455517760, $14.95 * By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Formerly a cartoonist with the Union-Tribune in San Diego, where he and Shelia Lawrence, widow of Hotel del Coronado owner M. Larry Lawrence became a
Much of Jewish interest in editorial cartoon’s 2013 annual Read More »
Donald H. HarrisonBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO –While I love the San Diego Jewish Film Festival, I have chosen not to favor one film over another by reviewing it here. My hesitance to do so testifies to both the quality and quantity of the motion pictures being screened. The SDJFF is simply a celluloid smorgasbord loaded with
The Wandering Review: Short List of Oscar-Nominated Documentaries Read More »
Lawrence BaronBy Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Watching the State of the Union address and the Republican response, perhaps many of us took it for granted that President Barack Obama and Senator Marco Rubio represent the fulfillment of a dream that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had only 50 years ago that someday people would be
A realization of America’s promise Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, USA