(Press Release) On Wednesday, the California Assembly and Senate released their joint budget agreement, a critical step in the State’s annual budget approval process. It affirmed the four Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC) priority items totaling $93.2 million in Governor Newsom’s May budget proposal will likely be funded, and included two new JPAC […]
By Jonathan S. Tobin (JNS) In the past year, controversies over whether critical race theory (CRT) and associated leftist ideologies were being imposed on public schools throughout the country have been something of a dialogue of the deaf. On the one hand, concerned parents worried about a trend in which educators have adopted radical ideas
(JNS) Representatives from the Weizmann Institute’s Physics Faculty in Rehovot joined more than 100 astronomers worldwide in a recent NASA planetary defense exercise. As part of the exercise, David Polishook, a member of the faculty and also director of Weizmann’s observatory, deleted a previously detected “near-Earth object” asteroid from the asteroid database, to see if
Israel’s Weizmann Institute Joins NASA Planetary Defense Exercise Read More »
Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA
By Toby Klein Greenwald EFRAT, Israel — How does a Jewish British immigrant to Israel come to be the composer of music being played in honor of the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II? Loretta Kay Feld was born in London and trained in music composition and drama at The Royal College and Guildhall School
The Lady Who Composed for the Queen Read More »
International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Toby Klein Greenwald, USA
By Doron Krakow Spring is a time of renewal. Longer, warmer days. Blooming trees and gardens. It is a season of beginnings—of new life. A season of weddings and graduations, major milestones in the lives of individuals and families. A season in which we come together, in settings both large and small, to mark these
To Everything There is a Season Read More »
Doron Krakow, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Opinion, San Diego County, USA
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — To start with, Tel Aviv features the Mediterranean Sea, with its long sandy beaches, kept relatively clean by the municipality, with designated areas for people to play games (ah, the dreaded “matkot” with their constant noisy batting to and fro of a ball against wooden bats), another area
Tel Aviv: Israel’s Playground Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Lifestyles, Middle East, Travel and Food
LOS ANGELES (Press Release) — On May 31, Cox Communications entered into a national affiliation agreement with Jewish Life TV (JLTV). As part of the agreement, JLTV launched in the San Diego market. JLTV is the nation’s largest and most robust English language, Jewish-themed television network in several markets, including California (San Diego, Orange County,
Jewish-Themed Television Comes to San Diego Read More »
California, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
By Bruce S. Ticker PHILADELPHIA — After Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Democrats in 2013 represented 184 million Americans in the Senate and Republicans represented 118 million, according to a guest on a news program this past week. Yet the Republicans stopped dead legislation to
William Paterson’s Senate Plan of 1787, No Gun Control in 2022 Read More »
Bruce Ticker, Opinion, USA
By Sam Ben-Meir Charles Ray (b. 1953) — undoubtedly one of the most conceptually and visually breathtaking sculptors alive today — is enjoying something of cultural moment at present, with four exhibitions on two continents, including “Charles Ray: Figure Ground” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Throughout his career, Ray has been engaged in
Charles Ray at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA
By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — I suspect Vladimir Putin of planning the mass shooting in Uvalde to overshadow news coverage of the war in Ukraine. The Texas legislature is considering a bill to arm fetuses with tiny Derringers. It plans to drum up popular support for the measure with the slogan, “The only thing
By Jacob Kamaras LA JOLLA, California — For the average New York transplant (or any baseball fan) living in San Diego, the first thing that comes to mind upon the mention of outfielder Darryl Strawberry or pitcher Dwight “Doc” Gooden is each player’s time with both the New York Mets and New York Yankees franchises
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — The German historian and political scientist Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf wrote, “Walter Rathenau (the future German Foreign Minister, assassinated by the Nationalists in 1922 as one of the ‘ Elders of Zion’ – A.G.), who visited Radek in a Berlin prison in 1919 as an authority and read him his elegant
The Bitter Laughter and Tragic Fate of the First Writer of Anti-Soviet Jokes Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Opinion
By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D. SAN DIEGO — This week’s parasha is read on the Shabbat before the celebration of Shavuot (this year beginning on Saturday evening, June 4, and concluding on Monday evening June 6). Both the parasha and the holiday involve counting. In the parasha, we learn of the importance of counting each
Parashat Bamidbar and Shavuot: The Multifaceted Importance of Counting Read More »
Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell
Ehrlich’s Café Shira is an imaginative series of vignettes that take place in an establishment much like Café Tmol Shilshom, wherein the regulars at each table have their own stories. Sometimes they are interwoven with the stories of waitresses Rutha and Rona and café owner Avigdor; other times, they are in a world of their own, made known to us only by the remarkable insight and intuition of the hard-working, extremely empathetic Rutha. [Donald H. Harrison]
Novel Incorporates Vignettes about Patrons of a Jerusalem Café Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East