Pandemic ties Israeli politicians in knots

Stumbling and kvetching. These are our themes. And perhaps not only Israel’s. Set in the context of a pandemic, as yet without a date for vaccine, along with plenty of arguments among the professionals about transmission, infection rates, treatment of the ill, and how to deal with those not yet infected. Plus plenty of politics, with paid lobbyists, articulate advocates, real suffering of those not able to work, and lots of preferences. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

You won’t exercise without this

Whether you want to electrify your peak performance under pressure at work, at home, or in your local park, boost your confidence and mental toughness in your gym, amplify your leadership or ignite team cohesion in your company it takes motivation, goal setting, relaxation, concentration, imagery, and self-talk. It takes an exceptional mental workout to arouse a healthy, wellbeing promoting physical workout, wherever that may take place. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D}

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Lifestyles, Michael Mantell, Sports & Competitions

A book reviewer’s search for Jewish stories

The author, born in 1990, earned her Mathematics degree from Middlebury College and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University in 2018. The novel is set in crisis plagued New York around 9/11 2001. The author drops almost poetic hints; “Lower Manhattan opened its gates to the general public again…a light northward breeze perfumed the air with drywall dust and soot…we looked south and saw the great gap tooth against the gullet of the sky.” We were at war, from where would the next terror come? [Oliver Pollak, PhD)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food

Hillel announces initiative to combat antisemitism

Last week, we carried the news that Rose Ritch stepped down from her position as student body vice president at the University of Southern California because of the harassment she had to endure for being a supporter of Israel.  On Monday, Hillel International announced a new initiative to train campus administrators on how to recognize and deal with antisemitism. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Spontaneous Lines: The Art of Rita Blitt  

The bountiful new book, Rita Blitt: Around and Round (Tra Publishing, 2020), looks back at the long and prolific career of this notable American artist. If Blitt’s work is about anything then it is about the exuberance, the joy, the sometimes almost mad ecstasy of creative spontaneity. Much of her work is suffused with a kind of wild and kinetic extemporaneity, which seems to resound with a forceful but unforced “Yes!” – a Yes to life, a Yes to the world, a Yes to the here and now, the living moment pregnant with infinite possibility. Her gestural art is dynamic, uninhibited, and no less sensuous for being abstract. In the improvisational, rhythmic musicality of her paintings, Blitt expresses with unerring directness the energy and intensity of embodied imaginative experience.   [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir

Those dang fish must be prejudiced!

It has been a constant sense of amazement to both my Christian wives, how quickly I can pack a suitcase when we leave on a trip. The spouses would begin packing a week or more before we set out. I never pack until the last few minutes before going out the door. There is a simple explanation, consider the history of my Jewish ancestors, and you can see why. For the last two thousand years, we have always been ready to leave town at a moment’s notice. With that in mind, it is easy to understand when I exclaim: “A Jew can spot anti-Semitism earlier and from more subtle sources than any other person.” We can pick them out in a sold Super Bowl football game, or smell one in a tropical jungle. I personally discovered a previously unknown, festering group, during a four-month road trip my wife Carole and I took around the U.S.A. when we first retired. [Ira Spector]

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Sports & Competitions, Travel and Food, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Leichtag Foundation urges Beirut relief donations

The Encinitas, California-based Leichtag Foundation expressed shock and sadness over the Aug. 4 explosion that destroyed most of the port of Beirut, Lebanon, killing more than 150 people and leaving thousands homeless. “Responding hospitals, already stretched thin due to COVID-19 are now at overcapacity,” reported Charlene Seidle and Sharyn Goodson, respectively the Foundation’s executive vice president and vice president for philanthropy and organizational development. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Ken Stone, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Stephen D. Bryen

Yes, indeed, we get and want letters

Authors want to be read. We write because we are compelled and think we have something to say. Authors need readers, publishers need purchasers and subscribers. The SDJW editor invites readers to “Leave a Comment” and post it. Comments are usually favorable. Readers can also correspond directly by email. [Oliver B. Pollak]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Oliver Pollak, San Diego County

A modern African-Israeli tale set in Tel Aviv

Oscar Orleans is a university-educated refugee from the Congo, who made his way to Israel, and in this mystery novel serves as a consultant to the Tel Aviv police department in cases involving other Black Africans, regardless of from which  part of the sub-Saharan continent they came.  (Donald H. Harrison)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East

Face to face with the Cambodian genocide

Lieng, our fortyish Cambodian woman guide, told us prisoners were brought to these rooms for four months of torture before they were killed. They were defiled day and night without rest. The jailers extracted the names and locations of all their relatives and friends from them. Those people were also arrested and brought to the prison. The first people to be killed once wore glasses. The Khmer Army leaders were ignorant peasants and reasoned that anyone who wore glasses was an intellectual and hence were the enemy. People threw away their glasses and stumbled around when they became aware of this irrational thinking. A similar fate followed for any professional person, doctor, teacher, businessman, bureaucrat, etcetera. The legacy of this stupidity is, that Cambodia desperately needs to rebuild its intellectual capital to fully function as an independent nation. Today it is totally dependent on the aid of other nations to support basic services and repair war damaged structures. [Ira Spector]

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International, Travel and Food

A Word of Torah: Blessings for those who do Mitzvot

The world has a saying, “The devil is in the details.” That is understood to mean that those details that many feel are minutiae, are actually quite important – essential even to achieving success. As Jews we look to the Torah for life-guiding wisdom. In this case we are saying that, “The G-dliness is in the details!” When we are mindful of the fine points of a Torah observant life we will indeed experience incredible blessings. [Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort]

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Jewish Religion, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi