When campaign issues go beyond the pale

Come this year, and we were suddenly notified in a press release sent out by the campaign of Marni von Wilpert, a candidate for San Diego City Council in the 5th District, that Tony Krvaric, the soon-to-retire chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party, had appeared in a video as a young man that made light of Hitler, Nazism, and all that it represented.  The thrust of the press release was that Joe Leventhal, the candidate opposing von Wilpert for the council seat, had received a $1,200 contribution from Krvaric and ought to immediately repudiate Krvaric and Nazism, and return Krvaric’s donation. The press release was based on a new story carried by KPBS-Television, which Leventhal said he hadn’t even seen, before his opponent let loose with the press release. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, USA

‘Crip Camp’ Espouses Jewish Values

I recently watched the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution on Netlix. It begins in 1971 at Camp Jened, a summer camp in the Catskills for people with disabilities such as blindness, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, parapalegia, dwarfism …etc. What made Camp Jened different from other camps was that the campers weren’t held to lower standards. They all swam and played baseball. Whatever it took to make them full participants in the camp experience, they did. And they all had a voice, speaking their minds in open fora that could last into the wee hours. For many of them, this meant being treated as equal human beings for the first time in their lives. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

An impressionistic tour of France

Our first night in France we slept at a farmhouse with many goats, sheep, geese and chickens. We had petit dejeuner(little meal) on a massive wood table in the owner’s family room. Orange juice cheeses, cold meats, yogurt, bread and rolls, home made jam and butter and hot or cold cereal with great coffee. Little breakfast? We drove west toward the coast through the Burgundy countryside which was draped with vineyards on every hill and valley. We came upon an obscure town on a hillside town far from the usual tourist route, and found the historic first public outdoor toilet in France, “The Pissotiere De Glockhemerle.” I gratefully added my portion to its history, and we drove on. [Ira Spector]

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International, Travel and Food, USA

Memoir relates childhood trauma, eventual recovery

This memoir is approximately 320 pages of despair, and 30 pages of hope and forgiveness.  If you are depressed, or feel nobody can understand the troubles you have,  you might take solace in this book, knowing that someone else has suffered through deep psychological pain and has emerged on the other side.  Reading it made me wonder if listening, as I was doing in the form of reading, without making any comment, was what it must be like to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist.  I listened and listened as author Kott vented and eventually came to some decisions about herself.  Sometimes, I think, the greatest gift we can give someone is to be a quiet audience. [Book review by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

An impressionistic tour of Germany and Austria

Our guide book indicated the location of Hitler’s underground Chancellery on our walk. The place where he died has no marker anywhere. There are nomarkers anywhere in the world memorializing Hitler’s existence. The location shown on our map was Potsdamer Platz, where an entire city within the city of Berlin was under construction. We counted twenty-five giant cranes in this ten square block area. I could only approximate where the Chancellery was, and so a symbolic spit was the best I could do to memorialize “Der Fuhrer.” [Ira Spector]

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International, Jewish History, Travel and Food

Wildfires illustrate difference between spiritual and physical

Even while back in Petaluma, our family experienced life on the wild side, or better worded: wild-fire side. We awoke to find ashes on the car and all windows in the house closed to protect from the low air quality.  As we kept a watchful eye as the Lightning Complex Fires continued to spread, we tried to look at the events around us to see what we could learn to become better people. We looked at the difference between the physical and spiritual.  [Rabbi Rafi Andrusier]

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Lifestyles, The World We Share, Travel and Food, USA

COVID-19: Medical breakthroughs, research cooperation

This book describes “a battle that pits viral biology against human intellect and capability.”

An exciting approach to generating treatments for Covid19 is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Taking the known structure of the virus, scientists are able to inquire as to susceptible target sites on the virus for creating drug treatments and vaccines. The goal: theoretical structure and synthesis of biomedical compounds to achieve therapeutic results. [Irv Jacobs, MD, MPH]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Irv Jacobs, MD, Science, Medicine, & Education

The Ballot (To the melody of The Letter)

Mail boxes disappearing
As election season is nearing.                                                                                                                                  
If we’re gonna beat him                                                                                                                                              
And soundly defeat him,                                                                                                                               
Then we all have to cast our votes early.          [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Nazi symbolism found in GOP County Chair’s old video

A decades-old video involving San Diego County Republican chairman Tony Krvaric and images of Adolf Hitler and Nazi symbols has been brought to light by KPBS reporters Amita Sharma and JW August. It prompted San Diego City Council candidate Marni von Wilpert to call upon her opponent Joe Leventhal — who is Jewish — to return a $1,200 contribution he received from Krvaric “and demand new leadership in the Republican party that doesn’t casually traffic in hate.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Entertaining God, Hollywood style

A sincere group of people in the movie making industry felt the need to rekindle ties to their Jewish heritage. Aware they had a special talent and perspective to bring to religious worship and celebration of God, they formed their own synagogue up north in Los Angeles. They chose an ordained rabbi from the movie business who was a producer and scriptwriter to be their spiritual leader. He graduated from the same high school as myself, Thomas Jefferson in Brooklyn New York. [Ira Spector]

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Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Making a feline friend in a new sunny city

After graduating college in New York, I moved to Seattle.  Having finally landed my first job, I was excited to put my aeronautical engineering degree to work and design jumbo jets for a premier aerospace company.  Everything was great—Seattle has a thriving Jewish community, a vibrant arts scene, and spectacular nature.  However, it also has rain.  A lot of rain.  Did I mention the rain? [Teresa Konopka]

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Lifestyles, San Diego County, Teresa_Konopka, The World We Share, Travel and Food