Holocaust answers in de Wind memoir

Not all members of today’s de Wind family, although all descendants of the Patriarch Issachar, are Jewish.

After a “mini-diaspora” from “Holland” in the late 1800s and early 1900s to places as close as Belgium and Spain and as far as Asia and the Americas, the Levys-de Winds married into other nationalities, ethnicities and religions.

But most have never forgotten their Jewish roots.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorian de Wind, International, Jewish History

It’s Siberia, Not Walden

Where they live there is no horizon. There is only the dazzling white snow that stretches all around them as far as the eye can see. And then it transforms seamlessly into a sky that is exactly the same color. The white world encloses them like goldfish in a glass bowl.

The film is called Aga, and it was written and directed by Milko Lazarov. It is Bulgaria’s entry into the 2019 Academy Awards competition as Best International Feature Film and it has already won four major awards at European film festivals

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Cynthia Citron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Our Shtetl San Diego: September 29, 2019

Japanese-born artist JUURI is painting a portrait of Hannah Senesh, the Israeli pioneer who parachuted behind Nazi lines to help Hungarian Jews and was captured and  killed.

The mural is being installed at the Super Block building at 15th and F and will be the subject of  tours from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 4, as part of the Women Who Paint Festival. Tours begin at 889 Park Boulevard.

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Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Noura and the problems of immigrant families

Heather Raffo’s new play, Noura, the Old Globe’s West Coast premiere, unveils the story of a Chaldean couple who are Iraqi refugees. They’ve been in America for seven years, but are celebrating their first Christmas as American citizens. Their new passports sport new American names, Tareq is now Tim, Noura is now Nora, and their son, Yazen has morphed into Alex. While Tim seems happy with this development, Noura is resentful and doesn’t like the adaptation.

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Jewish Trivia Quiz: The Shofar

Jews around the world will once again hear the sound of the shofar as Rosh Hashanah is celebrated this week. The shofar is typically made of a ram’s horn, but in Yemenite tradition the horn of a kudu is used. The shofar ceremony comprises two blessings followed by a series of blasts consisting of three different notes: tekiah–one long blast, shevarim–three broken sounds, and teruah–nine staccato notes. The total number of blasts is traditionally 100 for Ashkenazic Jews and 101 for Sephardim, with Yemenite Jews sounding 41 blasts. The shofar has also made appearances in popular movies, songs, and television programs, including which of the following? (To read more, please click the headline)

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Jewish Religion, Mark D. Zimmerman, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Actual year of Hebrew calendar quite debatable

Many people, secular and religious, of different cultures and worldviews, have attempted to calculate the age of the world. There is no agreement between them, simply because it is an impossible task. Christians, Muslims, and Jews have tried to do the calculation based on a literal reading of the Bible and have come up with different times. The following shows the impossibility by focusing on the widely used Jewish version.

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Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 28, 2019

Items in today’s column include:  *How various public schools named for Jews rank academically *Archaeology in Israel will be subject of day-long colloquium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography *Political Bytes *Honorable Menschen *Passages By Donald H. Harrison How various public schools named for Jews rank academically SAN DIEGO  — Voice of San Diego recently published “A

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education

‘Just Kidding’: Trump tries to be funny with Zelensky

Like most Americans, President Trump learned only recently that before Volodymyr Zelensky became the President of Ukraine, he was a professional comedian.

And not just a comedian – but a Jewish comedian.

So, with visions of lox and gefilte fish and brisket dancing in his head, Trump is planning to appeal to Zelensky as one jokester to another, in order to convince him to get politically damaging dirt on former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

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Joel H. Cohen, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Tuskegee Civil Rights Trail is dedicated

Friday, September 20, 2019, in the Tuskegee City Municipal Center, the 13-marker Tuskegee Civil Rights and Historic Trail was dedicated.  The Trail was the ten-year dream of Tuskegee University History professor and Archivist Dana Chandler.  The Trail will be included in the U.S. Park Service’s Civil Rights trails. The Trail came to be because of a biracial, multi-religious partnership in Tuskegee, Alabama.

It had been a long-frustrated dream because Dr. Chandler was unable to find funding to create the system.  Grant monies did not come through. State and local funding did not happen. Private funding seemed impossible, until, with indomitable persistence he spoke with the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Jerry Klinger, about his idea. (To read more, please click on headline.)

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA