Other items in today’s column include:
*Political bytes
*Scenes around San Diego County
*Recommended reading
SAN DIEGO – Eight students and four adult leaders from San Diego County who had expected to participate during April in the annual “March of the Living” – a two-week trip including the concentration camps in Poland and a visit to the nation of Israel – have received news that the journey has been indefinitely postponed because of the coronavirus.
A unanimous decision of the international group’s board of directors to reschedule the trip at a date to be decided was made after Israel’s Ministry of Health advised that it would not permit March of the Living Groups to enter Israel from Poland as a result of the spreading coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, world chair of the International March of the Living, said in Israel, “Our primary concern is the health of the many participants and the Holocaust survivors who would be joining them. Given that this is an international event involving 110 delegations from around the world, we have a responsibility to take precautionary measures in accordance with the guidelines given by authorities in various countries.”
The march’s San Diego regional director Marcia Tatz Wollner “with a truly heavy heart” notified the affected students and staff of the postponement. “I do believe that they have made the correct decision in light of the coronavirus,” she said in an email message.
“I truly believe that being on the March between Auschwitz and Birkenau is where I /we belong on Yom HaShoah and showing the world that we are here- but this year we will need to figure out alternative messaging,” Wollner told the San Diego contingent. In that she is also the western [U.S.] director for the march, she sent similar messages to participants elsewhere within her area of responsibility.
Among the students from San Diego whose plans were disrupted was Poway High School’s Talia Schauder, who last year was awarded the Peter Chortek Leadership Award by the Jewish Community Foundation for her activism telling the story about her grandfather’s experiences during the Holocaust. She has spoken about the Holocaust at various schools and other venues.
Since 1988, when the first march was conducted, thousands of Jews from around the world have walked from Auschwitz to Birkenau, in Poland, a distance of approximately three kilometers, and later have gone to Israel – their marches of the living a symbolic reversal of the fate of many Jewish prisoners who were murdered by the Nazis during “death marches” as the Allies were winning the final stages of World War II.
The annual marches are scheduled to coincide in Poland with Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Commemoration Day) and in Israel on Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Israel Independence Day). This year, those dates respectively are April 20-21 and April 28-29.
Not knowing when the coronavirus epidemic will end, the International March of the Living is considering possible alternative dates – possibly over summer vacation or possibly in November on the anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), which some historians consider to be the commencement of the Holocaust.
If the march has to be entirely cancelled in 2020, then participants who still want to go in 2021 would be immediately “rolled over” into that year’s enrollment, a spokesperson for the group said.
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Political bytes
*The Democratic presidential nominating process on Tuesday, March 10 will see 352 delegates up for grabs in six states, from largest to smallest in delegate count being Michigan (125), Washington (89), Missouri (68), Mississippi (36), Idaho (20) and North Dakota (14), the latter being a caucus state, the rest holding primaries.
*In the race for African-American endorsements of the two Democratic frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden has received those of two more former presidential rivals, U.S. Senators Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, while U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont picked up that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1988.
*In the continued counting on Monday by San Diego County’s Registrar of Voters, Barbara Bry has reduced the lead of Scott Sherman for second place for mayor of San Diego to 903 votes, compared to 1,264 on Sunday. Assemblyman Todd Gloria meanwhile continues to have a commanding lead, prompting newspapers across the country, including the New York Daily News, to write about the gay man of mixed ethnicity who might become a big city mayor.
There are approximately 90,000 ballots that remain to be counted from throughout the county, according to the Registrar of Voters.
In other races of interest, Marni Von Wilpert continued to lead Joe Leventhal for bragging rights in the 5th District, but whichever of these two candidates comes in first, they will have a runoff election on Nov. 3.
The hot Congressional races in the 50th and 53rd CDs held steady.
Ammar Campa-Najjar holds the first-place position in the 50th District which Duncan Hunter had to surrender after his conviction for misappropriation of funds. The Democrat is followed in the standings by two Republicans, former Congressman Darrell Issa, and former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, whose combined vote total outpaced Najjar’s, prompting commentators to predict that Campa-Najjar faces an uphill battle in the Nov. 3 runoff.
In the 53rd Congressional District, Sara Jacobs maintained her lead over San Diego City Council President Gloria Gonzales, who recently was endorsed by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
In the 78th Assembly District, San Diego City Councilman Chris Ward won more than a majority of the vote in the primary, but second-place finisher Sarah Davis was buoyed by a post’-election endorsement from the third place finisher Micah Perlin.
In the 3rd District of the County Board of Supervisors, standings remained the same with incumbent Kristin Gaspar, a Republican, leading the pack, followed by Terra Lawson-Remer, who was more than five percentage points ahead of Escondido City Councilwoman Olga Diaz, a fellow Democrat.
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Scenes Around San Diego County
Becky Bar-Lev Henning took photos of Purim festivities at Ner Tamid Synagogue in Poway. In photo above, three girls made paperbag hats representing a joint costume of coffee with creamer and whipped cream from Luke’s Cafe, a reference to the popular TV Show Gilmore Girls. At left, Morah (Teacher) Leora shows children of the congregation learn how to make hamantaschen. And at right, a little girl dresses as a tree.
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Coming our way
*Voting ends Wednesday in the election for American delegates to the World Zionist Congress meeting in Jerusalem next October. It will take some time before the final results can be announced, according to American Zionist Movement spokesperson Sarah Garfinkel. Paper ballots mailed on or before March 11 will have to be received and calculated before it can be determined how many delegates will be apportioned to the 15 slates on the ballot. Thereafter, it will take even more time for slates to determine which members will fill the allotted slots. There is still time to vote in the election via this website.
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Recommended reading
*Aaron Raimi writes in Times of Israel that when it comes to politics, there are two kinds of Jews: universalists whose outlook is similar to that of Bernie Sanders, and religious/nationalists who cannot understand why he calls himself a “proud Jew.”
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Donald H. Harrison is the editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com