Other items in today’s column include
*San Diego Jewish Business News
*Jewish community news
*San Diego County Judaica
*In memoriam
SAN DIEGO — I owe thanks to my wife Nancy’s cousin, Harry Jacobson-Beyer of Louisville, Kentucky, for the title of this column: for many years since his retirement as a librarian, he has introduced himself as a “surveyor of the passing scene” who is “gainfully unemployed.” With coronavirus keeping me home-bound, I am gathering most of the news and features from Vimeo, Zoom, Facebook and other Social Media, so the title seems appropriate.
Let me start off with a kind offer from Sandy Scheller of Chula Vista who volunteers to sew cloth face masks at no charge like the one she is wearing at the right for people who contact her via her email. When she lived in Las Vegas, Sandy had a business called “Kosher Couture.” Those who take her up on her kind offer will have to arrange to pick up the masks. Scheller also is the organizer of the year-long Project RUTH — Remember Us The Holocaust exhibit which is now shuttered, along with everything else, at the main branch of the Chula Vista Public Library. So, sewing masks gives her desire to serve the community another beneficial outlet.
With everyone who leaves their home encouraged to wear face masks — in addition to keeping their physical distance from others at 6 feet, masks are becoming another way for folks to make fashion statements, encourage others to keep safe, or express their senses of humor. At left, Jeanne Shenkman, a resident of Seacrest Village Retirement Community in Encinitas, took this photo with an explanation that she was protecting the world from
herself. That prompted friends to inquire if she was okay, and, yes, she is. Her comment was meant to be ironic, not alarming. At right, Rand Levin, the executive director of Beth Jacob Congregation, expresses his admiration and loyalty to the San Diego State University Aztecs by re-purposing a bandana into a face mask. He said the collector’s item was a giveaway at an Aztec basketball game.
San Diego Jewish Business News
While we’re on the subject of the coronavirus, how to sanitize your car and other belongings led to a plug over Los Angeles television for San Diego based Waxie Sanitary Supply, owned by Charles Wax, who many remember as the first president of the San Diego Jewish Academy. In the television interview, an officer of the Pomona Police Department was shown spraying the steering wheel of his car with a very visible can of Waxie sanitizer spray. … Olga Worm, co-owner with her husband Oscar of Bekker’s Catering, has been helping another local business, Bivouac Ciderworks, owned by
her daughter Lara Wendy. Worm, wearing masks and gloves, has been going door to door in the East County delivering ciders with such intriguing names as “Alpine Butterfly” and “San Diego Jam.”
Jewish community news
Meanwhile, Passover is approaching and KUSI-TV invited Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort of Chabad of La Costa onto a morning show to explain what the holiday is all about. He talked about “how we eat Matzah on Pesach, showed some handmade Israeli Shmurah Matzah, showed a Haggadah, and showed a Seder plate,” Rabbi Eilfort recounted. “Then I told what each of the ingredients of the plate is and what it is for. … Roxanne Katz urged her friends to watch The Windermere Children on KPBS at 10 p.m. tonight (Sunday, April 5), noting that her late father Max Schiller was one of those Holocaust orphans whose lives are dramatized in this show. See the trailer above.
San Diego County Judaica
Our Judaica photo collection grows and grows. Above, top, Stacie Bresler-Reinstein and Jonathan Reinstein stand in front of their Ketubah designed by Amy Fagin, which was signed at their San Diego wedding in August 2003. I t was purchased at the now-closed Dor L’Dor Judaica shop. They are holding the Ketubah of Jonathan’s parents, Daniel (z’l) and June Reinstein (z’l), that was signed in November 1963. “Several months ago as Jonathan was looking more closely at his parents’ Ketubah, he noticed that his father’s Hebrew name ended with “HaLevi”, and inquired about its significance,” Bresler-Reinstein reported. “His rabbis responded that he is a ‘Levi’ and in November 2019, Jonathan was called for an aliyah to the Torah for the first time as a Levi.” Above, second, is a self-portrait sculpture of Sheldon Foster Merel, cantor emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel, appearing to be looking at a framed shofar. At left, Melanie Rubin, who directs senior activities at the Lawrence Family JCC, holds a seder plate which “is special to me because I painted it myself (so of course I chose purple!) at a JCC singles event I led in 1999, and have been using it for our annual Senior Model Passover at the JCC for the past 18 or so years that I have been working with the seniors.” The green item in her other hand is a ceramic Hanukkiah that my mother made for me so that has sentimental value to me as well.”
In memoriam
Rita Margot (Lachotzki) Kreisberg, 96, died Friday, April 3, Am Israel Mortuary reported. She will buried at 1 p.m, Monday, April 6 in a service to be officiated by Rabbi Devorah Marcus of Temple Emanuel at Eternal Hills Memorial Park, 1999 El Camino Real, Oceanside.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com Obituaries in San Diego Jewish World are sponsored by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg.