‘Legacy of Light and Love’ to provide care for needy elderly

Seacrest Foundation is hosting the 2020 Women’s Auxiliary Gala, “Legacy of Light and Love,” to benefit the increasing numbers of community members in the greatest need.  The event will take place on Saturday, February 22nd, from 6-11 pm, and all proceeds raised will support Seacrest Village Retirement Community’s Resident Assistance Fund. I was informed that this year alone, Seacrest will provide nearly $2.5 million in charitable care. [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, Lifestyles, San Diego County

How about educating for real jobs?

Not one of Bloomberg’s adversaries bothered to criticize the mayor about a comment he was quoted saying dating back to November 17, 2016, which is the real subject of this article’s focus. “If you think about it, the agrarian society lasted 3,000 years, and we can teach processes. I can teach anybody – even people in this room, so no offense intended – to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes corn. You can learn that. Then you had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in direction of arrow and you can have a job. And we created a lot of jobs. At one point, 98% of the world worked in agriculture. Today it’s 2% of the United States.” (Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]

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Business & Finance, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

On female slaves, cities of refuge, hospitality

This parasha contains the first body of legislation in the Torah, and is called in English the”Book of the Covenant.” It is by no means complete. In general, it emphasizes humanitarian considerations, provoked by and promised, by the divine. I have chosen three passages, with regard to seeking, via the internet, similarities with other ancient literature. [Mishpatim commentary by Irv Jacobs, M.D.]

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Irv Jacobs, MD, Jewish Religion

Diversionary premieres ‘A Kind of Weather’

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — Playwright Sylvan Oswald identifies as a transmasculine interdisciplinary artist. That’s a mouthful for those of us just getting used to the words ‘trans’ or ‘transitioning’ or ‘transgender’, gender nonconformity, transsexual, gender reassignment, queer gender or labeling ones self as we/they or us. In the words of other mortals, “Get

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Carol Davis, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Pardons and partisanship

  During the 2016 campaign, President Trump declared: “We must maintain law and order at the highest level or we will cease to have a country, 100 percent. I am the law and order candidate.”  His record of commutations and pardons suggests the enforcement of law and order is selective and only applies to poor common criminals and not white (white) collar criminals, particularly if they are cronies of the President.  [Satire by Laurie Baron]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Victory against anti-Semitism at SDSU

Congratulations are due to San Diego State Professors Peter C. Herman and Risa Levitt Kohn, as well as to representatives of the campus Hillel, and the regional Anti-Defamation League for protesting the proposed inclusion of two anti-Semitic speakers on a planned, as yet unscheduled, panel presentation on whether African-Americans deserve reparations for the time their ancestors were enslaved and the subsequent institutional discrimination against their people. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

The cacophony of politicians talking about music

Two politicians in Israel recently referred to music in one context or another. This made me prick up my ears and pay attention, which is not something I usually do when I come across statements by politicians, in Israel or anywhere else. The first was the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked why he preferred to stand trial for the crimes and misdemeanors of which he is accused, he replied (not his exact words, but the gist of them): “The judges in Jerusalem go to synagogue and the judges in Tel Aviv go to the Philharmonic.” What he was implying was that the judges in Jerusalem are honest, god-fearing people, while the ones in Tel Aviv are hedonistic heathen. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

‘Hurricane’ Schwartz dishes on debut novel

”If you’ve lived in the Philadelphia area and have watched NBC10 on TV in the last 25 years, you’ve seen most likely Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz sweeping his arm over satellite images and telling you whether you’ll need an umbrella.” That was the opening line from Jewish Exponent news reporter Jesse Bernstein introducing the popular Philly TV weatherman Glenn Schwartz and his new novel titled The Weathermaker, a book I recently reviewed on this website. [Dan Bloom]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, The World We Share

Without Netanyahu, a coalition government?

Lieberman says not only that he doesn’t want to share power with the extreme Orthodox parties (though he has done so in the past), but, more important, he wants a unity government without Netanyahu at the helm. That would, indeed, be the best solution. Likud and Blue and White could form a government without any other party (even without Lieberman!). As far as the Israeli public can discern, the two major parties seem to have almost identical policies and thus could run the country with a measure of consistency and stability not seen recently. [Rabbi Dow Marmur]

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Middle East

Deicide libel against Jews surfaces in Nova Scotia

Someone finally did it – publicly blaming the Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus and, even more disgracefully, applying this libel to explain Israel’s so-called occupation of the Palestinian territories. Henry M. Bradford’s words were printed on Jan. 27 in The Chronicle Herald, the daily newspaper serving Halifax in Canada’s Nova Scotia. His letter to the editor responded to a commentary about anti-Semitism by freelance journalist Ralph Surette. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, International, Jewish History, Middle East, USA

Hadassah Magazine article prompted OH! San Diego

The March 6-8 Open House San Diego in which 93 venues will open their doors to visitors can trace its origin to an article in the Winter 2012 edition of Hadassah Magazine, which featured an article about the Open House programs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Susanne Friestedt said the article so resonated with her that she traveled to London, headquarters for the Open House architectural movement, to learn what she would need to do to add San Diego (and environs) to the list of cities in the Open House program. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

It’s not the creed, it’s the deed

In our Parasha, Mishpatim, laws, are two of more than 30 times that the Torah warns us against mistreating the sojourner, V’ger lo teelchatz “Do not oppress the stranger”(Shemot, 23:9). We learn about the value of treating others properly, equitably, impartially and what the way we treat others reveals about ourselves. These are certainly universal values that are essential to a healthy, fair, society. How do you live, not just profess, these values? [Michael Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell