‘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

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 27, 2019

Items in this column include:
*Gun Show this weekend and next year seem a legal certainty
*Political dots and dashes
*Jewish community conundrum: safety vs. welcoming the stranger
*Laura Walcher shares lighter memories of the ate George Mitrovich
*A speaking engagement at Congregation Beth Israel
*As we enter the Jewish New Year

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego Calendar, San Diego County

StandWithUs launches petition against NSJP anti- Semitism

  LOS ANGELES — StandWithUs has launched a campaign calling out National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) for spreading antisemitism, supporting violence, and violating free speech. This builds on a similar effort in 2018. The campaign features a petition against the National SJP Conference at University of Minnesota (UMN) being held November 1-3, social

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Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 26, 2019

Items in today’s column include: 
*Scripps Institution of Oceanography grad now in space
*Jewish Community Fundraisers
*Demanding the ‘perfect’ may impede progress
*Political Dots and Dashes
*Sports
*World War II collector auctioning Hitler memorabilia
* Mazel tov! Mazel tov!

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Donald H. Harrison, International, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions

Global Jewish population estimated at 14.8 million

As we prepare to welcome the Jewish year 5780, the number of Jews worldwide stands at 14.8 million, compared to 14.7 million in 5779. Of these, 8.1 million live outside Israel (including 5.7 million in the United States). In Israel, the number of Jews is 6.7 million (compared to 6.6 million in 5779). The updated estimates were published by Professor Sergio Della Pergola of Hebrew University in the American Jewish Year Book 2019. (To read more please click headline.)

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International, Judaism, Middle East, USA

The letter that Avigdor Liberman will never write

The “letter” below has, of course, never been written; it’s a product of my imagination. Yet without a move along its lines, Israel won’t have a government and we may have to go to elections again, which is both ridiculous and scandalous. Avigdor Lieberman could save us from it. But will he?

Dear Jewish citizens of Israel,
(To read more, please click on the headline)

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Middle East

‘A Trace of Smoke’ set in pre-war Berlin

Excerpt: I chose this book by Rebecca Cantrell because it promised to describe what life was like in Berlin in the early 1930s. I was not disappointed. Apart from the somewhat lurid plot of the novel, the book contains a vivid account of the way Berliners lived and loved at that time, the rising political power and physical presence of the Nazi party and – in a particularly sensational way – the life of the homosexual community there. (To read more, please click on the headline)

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Some results, but not enough, from U.N. Climate Action Summit

I could not possibly applaud enough the young men and women who flooded the streets in hundreds of cities around the world demanding from their government to take immediate and long-term action to combat climate change. By the same token, I could not condemn and denounce more vehemently Mr. Trump and many of his ilk, like Bolsonaro of Brazil, for their criminal disregard of the catastrophic peril that climate change represents. By denying the threat that climate change poses and its devastating harm to countless living creatures, they are systematically undermining any chance we still have of avoiding a terrible catastrophe, including a mass extinction of species the likes of which the modern world has never seen. (To read more, please click on headline)

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Alon Ben-Meir, International, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, USA

Notes on Torah reading for September 28, 2019

The thrust of this parasha is modeled after the format of an ancient covenant treaty. The scene is set in the Plains of Moab on the east side of the Jordan, shortly before the death of Moses.  This is to be followed by entrance to the promised land under Joshua’s leadership.

A word about ancient covenants.  Unlike modern times wherein parties sign an arranged legal contract, the ancients performed ceremonies, characterized by proclamations, writings of the terms, proclamations of blessings and curses, erection of steles, and sacrifices.  Curses include acts that symbolized the fate of violators.  They would cut up the body of an animal, then the parties passed between the pieces, symbolizing what would happen to either if he/she violated the treaty.   

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Irv Jacobs, MD, Jewish Religion

Our Shtetl San Diego County: September 25, 2019

Items in this column include: 
*A few of Bern Schwartz’s works now at Museum of Photographic Arts
*Jewish Federation’s Men’s Event Dec. 8 to feature comedian Modi Rosenfeld
*Political Dots and Dashes
*Cohn Group of Restaurants to temporarily manage four more eateries
*Mazel tov! Mazel tov!

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Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food