Adventures in San Diego Jewish History, March 19, 1954, Part II

Compiled by Gail Umeham Personals Southwestern Jewish Press March 19, 1954 Page 2 Home From College–Nelson Olf and a classmate of Oregon State College Edward Elliott, will arrive in town March 22, for a short stay with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Olf.  Enroute to San Diego, Nelson and Edward, both Midshipmen at O.S.C. […]

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Adventures in SD History, Middle East, USA

Sexual abuse of children in the Jewish community: difficult but important to face

Tempest  in the Temple:  Jewish Communities & Child Sex Scandals edited by Amy Neustein, Brandeis University Press, 2009, 272 pages, $35. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO—This is a difficult book to read, not only because it primarily is written for other academics, but because of the subject matter itself.  While we are cognizant that

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Amy Neustein, Donald H. Harrison

In first year, Obama's promise eclipsed his performance

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Barack Obama is one dramatic guy. His rhetoric is world class. His life story adds to the magic. Inauguration as president, aspirations for economic stability, engagement with the world, peace in the Middle East, reform of health care for the unhealthiest of the wealthy countries, and a Nobel Prize were his highlights

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Middle East, USA

Looking at who wrote the Bible — from the scribes' viewpoints

Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible By Karel van der Toorn, Harvard University Press, Cambridge ISBN 978-0-674-03254-5, $18.95,  265 pages  plus 125 pages of notes and selected bibliography By Fred Reiss, Ed.D WINCHESTER, California — Who wrote the Hebrew Bible, that is, the so-called Old Testament? Jewish tradition says that Moses wrote

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Fred Reiss, EdD

Sleepless in Jerusalem over whether Israel is becoming as bad as any other nation

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM–When the early Zionists wanted to turn the Jews into a people like all other peoples, they didn’t dream that it would mean that the Jewish national home which became the State of Israel would treat other people in the way other people treated Jews. But that’s what’s happening nowadays, not

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Middle East

Debate over God's authorship of the Torah also a debate over meaning in the world

By Rabbi Philip Graubart LA JOLLA, California–Did God write the Torah?  The question came up in my son’s Jewish high school last week provoking some surprisingly heated discussions.  I say “surprisingly” because I wouldn’t have expected eleventh graders to care so passionately about a theological issue.  Also, this is a community Jewish school, a pluralistic,

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Travel and Food

Haiti field hospital demonstrates Israel’s humanitarianism, technical skills

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — Considering all of the bad press Israel receives, I was thrilled to see the NBC Nightly News positive coverage of the field hospital set up by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) following the earthquake in Haiti. If you did not see the NBC broadcast last Tuesday, you can

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International, Middle East

Has U.S. eliminated Israel's qualitative edge over possible Arab foes?

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Forward started it in December. Ha’aretz picked up the theme this month, writing, “The Bush administration violated security related agreements with Israel in which the U.S. promised to preserve the IDF’s qualitative military edge (QME) over Arab armies, according to senior officials in the Obama administration and Israel,” and

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Middle East, Shoshana Bryen, USA

B'nai B'rith wants airline personnel to be educated about Jewish religious articles

NEW YORK (Press Release)–Following the incident on US Airways flight 3709 from New York to Louisville on Jan. 21—which made an unscheduled landing when a flight attendant was alarmed by the Jewish religious article of a young passenger—B’nai B’rith International is urging aviation officials to more systematically equip both airline crew and airport security personnel

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Travel and Food

Hoekstra calls on Obama to rescind decision to close Guantanamo Bay prison

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)- U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Republican-Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued the following statement to mark the failure of the Obama administration to meet its rushed, self-imposed one year deadline to shutter the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and implement the so-called High Value Detainee Interrogation Group

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USA