Only more questions in wake of Israel’s election

The days before Monday’s balloting were as sleazy as any I recall, from watching Israeli elections since 1977. Bibi led the negative campaigning, bringing up issues against all the major figures in Blue and White that had been settled years ago, and charging Benny Gantz with faults up to incipient senility. Blue and White’s campaign pictured Turkey’s President Erdogan, speaking Bibi’s mantra against the charges of corruption, “There won’t be anything because there is nothing.” However, Blue and White’s campaign seemed mostly mild, repeating charges against Bibi, but not getting the air time that Bibi did. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D.}

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

12 Jews compete on San Diego County ballots

While San Diego Jewish World does not plan to make any formal endorsements until the November election, we would like our readers to be aware of the names of our fellow Jews who are on San Diego County ballots.  There are at least a dozen such candidates, whose Jewish affiliation has been made known to us.  Whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or independents, we would like to congratulate them for putting themselves out there. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, USA

Jewish trivia quiz: Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s campaign for the Democratic party presidential nomination received a huge boost with his big win in the South Carolina primary. Biden has a long history of support for Israel. At the 2013 AIPAC conference, Joe Biden spoke of his love for Israel and described the moment years earlier when he first realized that Israel mattered to him. As a child in 1948, he sat at his dinner table listening to his father speak about the debate over the establishment of a Jewish state, and it greatly impacted him. How did he describe what his father told him? [Mark D. Zimmerman]

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Mark D. Zimmerman, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Safa’s Story responds creatively to bullying

Safa is a fifth grader whose family hails from Zimbabwe. She’s precocious, curious, smart and very likable. But there’s a new kid in school, Ryan, who makes Safa the object of his taunts. Ryan isn’t hostile so much as immature. He’s “only joking,” but at Safa’s expense. And when Safa goes to the teacher for support, she’s labeled a “snitch,” which only makes matter worse. Halfway through the performance, the audience gets to weigh in, changing the outcome of the story by changing the characters choices, even stepping into their roles. We can be Safa, standing up for ourselves, her classmates being better friends or the teacher taking the situation more seriously. The one character we can’t replace is the bully. The only way to change him is to stand up to him. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

The radio rabbi shares his greatest hits

Award-winning Rabbi Joseph Potasnik is the “Radio Rabbi,” having been on the New York airways at 1010 WINS and 770 WABC since 1972, and starting in 1999, serving as Jewish Chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. In the introductory chapter of his newest book Just Give Me a Minute, Potasnik confesses that people ask him questions about anything and everything. In Just Give Me a Minute, Potasnik shares his insights and answers. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish Religion

SDJW correspondent publishes sixth novel

Our correspondent in Mevasseret Zion, Israel, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, has written a sixth novel, this one called A Ruffled Calm.  As with her previous five novels, Shefer-Vanson has illustrated the cover of her book with one of her own art pieces, seen to the right of this story. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish Religion, Middle East, USA

Two Arab viewpoints compete over life in Israel

A book called  Israelophobia and the West just published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, includes an essay by Khaled Abu-Toameh, a respected Arab-Israeli journalist about the Arabs in Israel. The author draws readers’ attention to “two contradictory Palestinian discourses.” One is driven by radical Palestinian academics and activists, often teaching in universities abroad, who advocate radical measures against Israel. The other wants “a far more pragmatic, cooperative Israeli Arab and West Bank Palestinian dialogue with Israel.” [Rabbi Dow Marmur]

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Middle East

A new Haggada, especially for children

The Koren Youth Haggada, an illustrated new 2020 Haggada for use during the Passover Seder has reflections about Passover and Jewish practices raises questions on most pages to prompt thinking and discussion, and is filled with instructions, drawings on ever other page, activities to experience, and thoughts or quotes or a story to attract children’s interest. Although designed for youngsters who will undoubtably like it, it will be enjoyed also by adults who will appreciate its contents and learn much from it. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Susan Davis provides fact sheet on coronavirus

Congresswoman Susan Davis, D-San Diego, has issued a fact sheet about the coronavirus.  We republish it here: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first identified on February 11, 2020 in Wuhan, China. The first infections were linked to a live animal market, but the virus is now spreading from person-to-person. It often spreads between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) and through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes…. [ Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, USA

Historians, biographers probe Jewish Cleveland

Cleveland Jews and the Making of a Midwestern Community contains a pair of biographical essays, which I read with considerable interest, and more than a majority of essays of the historical type, dealing with such phenomena as the growth of Jewish Orthodoxy in Cleveland; the impact of Jewish philanthropy on that city; the growth of Jewish schools; The development of feminist ideals among Jewish women’s organizations;  Black-Jewish relations in Cleveland; suburbanization of Cleveland’s Jewish community; Reform Judaism in the Cleveland suburbs; and programs to assimilate into Jewish society refugees from the Soviet Union. [Book review by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, USA

San Diegans’ dream trip leads to new website

In 2017, newlyweds Jonathan Moed and Zoe (Jurkowski) Moed went on a year-long dream trip around the world, and now Jonathan is pursuing a “passion project” to help high-tech start up entrepreneurs in developing nations realize dreams of their own. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA