The Jewish singers: Diane Renay
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Travel and FoodPushing pedals, raising morale in Israel
By Steve Diamond SAN DIEGO — The email ad for the first annual Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Cycling Tour of Israel appeared in my inbox in early August – and immediately caught my eye. I’m a retired U.S. Navy senior officer, and my daughter, Rami, just finished her service as a Lone
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Middle East, San Diego County, Sports & CompetitionsMiddle East Roundup: Nov. 24, 2015
Hummus a long time favorite in the Middle East (JNS.org) The Middle East has gone through monumental changes over thousands of years, but one thing has never changed: an affinity for hummus. This conclusion was reached after fava seeds were discovered during an excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in the Galilee, showing
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Middle EastRecording in England, resting in Israel
By David Amos SAN DIEGO — The second half of October, just a month ago, turned out to be very special. From the 19th to the 23rd, I was invited to conduct the London Philharmonic in the city’s Abbey Road Studios. The following week takes only one word: Israel. Here are the details of both destinations.
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International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual ArtsRekindling the Lights of Januká
By Eric George Tauber CHULA VISTA, California — One doesn’t normally expect to hear Hanukah music in a church. But when that church is Iglesia Restauración in Chula Vista, the meeting place of Latinos por Israel, the rules change. It’s taken 500 years, but many B’nei Anousim (Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition)
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Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & BroadcastNovel provides insight into the brain- injured
Piece of Mind by Michelle Adelman; W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN 978-0-393-24570-7; 304 pages, $25.95. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – I was enchanted by this novel by Michelle Adelman, who is a teacher here in San Diego. It tells the story of a brain-damaged woman from that woman’s interesting, often humorous, and at
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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonAshkenazic Jews’ risk 53 times higher for Gaucher’s
By Tamara Isaacs Ciocci DUXBURY, Massachusetts — I have type 1 Gaucher Disease, a rare lysosome storage disorder that occurs when someone is born without the enzyme glucocerebrosidase that breaks down lipids in the cells. The result is a disease cell that accumulates in the blood, bone marrow, liver and spleen. Gaucher affects only 1
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Science, Medicine, & EducationJewish trivia quiz: Hebrew turkey
By Mark D. Zimmerman MELVILLE, New York — Because the turkey is native to America, it is not mentioned in the Torah. Therefore, a name was devised for this bird in modern Hebrew. What is that name? A. The turkey is called tarnegol hodu. Tarnegol means chicken. Hodu means thanks (the same root as todah.). By the time President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving as a
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Mark D. Zimmerman, Trivia, Humor & SatireNever Again: Holocaust news for November 23, 2015
A history of early Nazi Germany worth reading In the Garden of Beasts; Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson; Broadway Books, New York, 2011 By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The Garden of Beasts in the title refers to the inhabitants of Berlin’s Tiergarten, the park in central Berlin that once served
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish HistoryMiddle East Roundup: Nov. 23, 2015
Avis refuses to rent car over businessman’s Israeli identity (JNS.org) The Avis car rental agency refused to provide an Israeli businessman with a rental vehicle because of his Israeli identity, the New York Observer reported Sunday. Dov Bergwerk, a senior executive at Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, said that on Friday he and his wife
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Middle EastReform’s weak status in Israel
By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM–In the almost sixty years that I’ve been involved with Israel I’ve observed the conscious or unconscious collusion between Israel’s secular majority and its Orthodox, now growing, minority. It seems that the former believe that Orthodoxy is the only authentic manifestation of the Jewish religion, but having given up religion they
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Jewish ReligionIn U.S. Pollard is a traitor; in Israel he’s a hero
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The masses respond to heroes. No surprise that politicians participate in the celebration. Either it’s because they, too, believe, or they see the gain or loss of votes if they go along with, ignore, or express doubts to the crowd. It goes back to the gods of the Greeks and other pagans,
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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USAThe speech he wishes Obama gave
By Dane Chapin SAN DIEGO — Following is a speech we wish President Obama had given on Nov. 14, the day after the Paris massacre: Last night, 129 people were savagely and summarily executed on the streets of Paris. Hundreds more were injured, many will be maimed for life. Before I discuss how the United States of
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International, Middle East, USA