By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Observant Jews will be ridding their household of food products with leavening in advance of the Passover holiday that begins the evening of Wednesday, April 5.
While checking the labels, they might also want to see if any of the foods they are consuming contain brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, red dye 3, or titanium dioxide.
Those are the chemicals that a bill (AB 418) by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) would ban from food manufactured or sold in California. The chemicals already are banned as toxic by Europe, where some manufacturers have consequently reformulated products that had contained them.
Chemical additives are used in processed foods for a variety of reasons, including preserving freshness and making the foods look more appealing.
This is far from a complete list but brominated vegetable oil may be found in various sodas made from citrus fruits. Potassium bromate may be found in pizza dough, various flours and in some white bread. Propylparaden may be found in some tortillas, trail mixes and baked goods. Red Dye No. 3 is found in strawberry Nesquik, Hot Tamales candy, and some baked goods. Titanium dioxide is found in such candies as Skittles and M&M’s, and in some brands of fat-free cheddar cheese.
While it might be feasible for a family used to checking labels before Passover to rid themselves of such products, one wonders if the same families will buy back those products after the Passover holiday ends on Thursday evening, April 13. Or will they simply throw them out and restock their pantries with similar products that don’t use those chemicals?
And what about grocery outlets and specialty stores that have stocked these products in good faith? Will manufacturers allow them to return the products, or will these small businesses have to endure financial losses?
I’ve long believed in the motto, “Safety first,” but California legislators should also be cognizant of the added cost that unsuspecting families and retailers may have to pay for products they purchased on the assumption that the federal Food and Drug Administration has protected us against tainted foods.
The question arises whether that assumption was false, or whether the FDA has better information about these products than the banning European countries have?
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Technology
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has fired a salvo in what may develop into a proxy fight at Illumina, a San Diego-based biotechnology company, over its decision to pay $7.1 billion for Grail, which has developed cancer screening technology. Pointing out that the deal has not yet been approved by European antitrust authorities, Icahn suggested that the acquisition was approved by Illumina’s board only after its members were immunized against possible losses by a generous insurance policy. Said Icahn: “This smells strongly to us like a quid pro quo — a group of trepidatious directors were dragged reluctantly, kicking and screaming, by management into an extremely risky deal and ultimately conditioned their approval upon receiving an even thicker blanket of immunity than the extremely luxuriant comforter which they already possessed.”
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Students at the Technion Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering named for San Diegans Andrew and Erna Viterbi have combined a computer’s random access memory (RAM) and central processing unit (CPU) functions into a single chip. According to Technion Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky this Israeli invention “allows the device to operate more like a human brain.” Kvatinsky and his students tested the chip’s capabilities by displaying different examples of handwriting. “The chip was able to process the samples and differentiate them with 97% accuracy,” the professor reported. He said another possible way the chip could be utilized would be “to improve the picture-taking function in devices such as smartphones. It would allow the phone to process the raw image it is capturing before it stores it instead of converting the physical object into digital data first.” Andrew Viterbi was a co-founder of Qualcomm along with Irwin Jacobs.
Jewish Political Scene
NATIONAL
King David, or at least Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of him as a young man, is the subject of controversy in Tallahassee, Florida. Un a unit about Renaissance art, sixth-grade students at Tallahassee Classical School were show a picture of the nude sculpture, prompting complaints from some parents. Principal Hope Carrasquilla was told to resign or be fired by the school board on grounds that she had not notified parents in advance that their children would be exposed to the nude sculpture.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has not only alienated Republicans but also some Democrats who might otherwise expected to be supportive. Among the latter is Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) who has expressed frustration over DHS ordering a bigger wall at Friendship Park, the southwestern-most corner of the continental United States which initially was conceived — and dedicated by former First Lady Pat Nixon — as a place for citizens of the United States and Mexico to meet in friendship.
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U.S. Sen Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, was one of the three Democrats and three Republicans on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics who voted to admonish Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, for making a fundraising appeal inside the Capitol Building for Herschel Walker during Walker’s unsuccessful campaign last year to defeat U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, for reelection. The appeal came during a television interview, violating rules against political campaigning in government buildings. Admonishment is essentially a slap on the wrist. Graham after the Ethics Committee vote apologized for not restricting his campaigning to non-governmental venues.
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Halie Sofer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, has called on Michigan Republican Party Chair Kristin Karamo to resign in a controversy over the Michigan GOP’s tweet comparing a gun control measure an early step in the Holocaust. The tweet showed a box full of wedding rings, presumably removed from the fingers of concentration camp victims, and said: “Before they collected all these wedding rings … thy collected all the guns.” Sofer called the tweet the latest “example of how the Republican Party is normalizing Holocaust extortion for political gain.”
CALIFORNIA
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, campaigning to succeed the retiring U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, touts his human rights record, saying he has “led efforts to recognize the Armenian Genocide and worked closely with the American community in Los Angeles. He has also been a champion of Ukrainian sovereignty and has visited President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy in Kyiv during the war. Schiff is a champion of LGBTQ+ rights in Congress as the Vice Chair of the Equality Caucus and has introduced numerous bills to protect the rights of all Americans no matter who they love.”
Before the two sides reached agreement, another Democratic aspirant for Feinstein’s Senate seat – U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland – announced support for striking education workers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The janitors, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and teacher aides who care for our children day-in and day-out are an essential part of our public education system,” she said. “They are underpaid and undervalued, earning poverty wages from the nation’s second largest school district and then subject to harassment and intimidation when they demand better. This is simply unacceptable.” Lee also announced she has been endorsed by the Alameda County Building and Construction Trades Council and by Congressman Ro Khanna, a San Francisco Bay area Democrat who also had been considering running for Feinstein’s seat. “I believe that representation matters,” Khanna said. “And for too long, our country’s institutions have failed to reflect that reality. Black women are the core of the Democratic Party, yet there isn’t a single Black woman currently serving in the Senate. We can finally change that.” This was a bit of overstatement: the last Black woman sent by California to the U.S. Senate was Kamala Harris, now the U.S. Vice President whom the Constitution empowers to cast a deciding vote in the Senate whenever there is a tie.
A poll cosponsored by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times taken in February showed Schiff with 22 percent of Democratic voters; U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County with 20 percent; Rep. Lee with 6 percent; Rep. Khanna with 4 percent, and undecided voters at approximately 40 percent. It showed voters over 55 preferred Schiff while younger Democratic voters liked Porter, a Progressive.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera says an ordinance to protect tenants may be brought to a vote in April. “A renter who has paid their rent on time and is abiding by their lease should not face housing instability, or worse yet potential homelessness, due to an eviction that is no faut of their own,” he wrote in a report to constituents. He added that he is working closely with Mayor Todd Gloria on renter protection.
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Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego) recently toured the Crown Child Development Center in Coronado with Congressman Adam Smith (D-Washington), who is the ranking minority party member on the House Armed Services Committee. “In San Diego, the childcare waitlist for military families is 4,000 spots long, undermining our military readiness and ability to recruit and retain the very best for our Armed Forces,” Jacobs commented. “I will keep pushing to invest more money in military child care and other issues affecting service members’ quality of life in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.” Smith commented that it will be important for Congress to “address these and other challenges head on.”
In the House of Representatives, Jacobs gave a floor speech outlining her objections to H.R. 5, the so-called “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” authored by Congresswoman Julia Letlow (R-Louisiana) and 72 GOP coauthors. Jacobs said the measure would give a very limited group of parents the ability to ban books and prevent teaching about crucial eras in American history, such as the Civil Rights Movement. Furthermore, she added, “while I’m thankful that the Rules Committee supported two of my amendments, it’s shameful that they rejected my amendment to ensure that teaching about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in schools should be taught with the acknowledgment that those actions were immoral. Amid skyrocketing antisemitic rhetoric, especially from some of my colleagues in this body, and growing violence targeting the Jewish community, Congress needs to use its power to end hatred and discrimination against Jews. That work starts with our actions and ensuring that “Never Again” is a reality – by teaching about the Holocaust and the lingering hate that still exists today. And in the height of irony, this bill even includes a Sense of Congress that all public elementary and secondary school students should have opportunities to learn the history of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism….but that means very little if we’re unwilling to mandate how wrong and immoral those actions were.”
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County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer serves on the county board that is divided among three liberal Democrats and two conservative Republicans. In fundraising letters, she forecasts major policy changes if her seat should be flipped to the Republicans. Previously she said that in such an event the board would not be committed to protecting LGBTQ+ rights. In a more recent appeal, she said that along with her fellow Democrats, she has passed “some of the strictest gun safety laws in the country … from banning untraceable ghost guns to suing the reckless manufacturers who profit at the expense of our lives … but all of our progress is at risk in the next election.” As vice chair of Community Power, the government-run energy company competing with SDG&E, she was among those deciding that the company must switch by 2035 to renewable energy sources exclusively.
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Fernando Z. López, executive director of San Diego Pride, has protested the decision of the San Diego Union-Tribune to run on March 19 Op-Eds by “an anti-LGBTQ Pastor alongside LGBTQ-affirming faith leaders.” Lopez declared: “Our existence isn’t up for debate. Period. I am Jewish. I am Mexican-American. Would the UT of today publish faith leaders promoting antisemitism or anti-Mexican commentary for the sake of ‘both sides?’ I doubt it. So, why is it ok to do so for the LGBTQ community?”
Jewish Sports & Entertainment
Daniel & Phyllis Epstein were saluted by UC San Diego in a full-page advertisement on Sunday honoring their financial contribution for the Epstein Family Amphitheatre, which it described as a “world class performing arts center [that will bring] globally recognized talent to campus and invites a cultural exchange between students, faculty and SoCal residents.
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Ryan Lavarnway, whose 15-year Major League Baseball career as a catcher included eight teams as well as the 2023 Team Israel in the just concluded World Baseball Classic, has announced his retirement. He is 35, and among Team Israel fans will remain a legend. He was the team’s MVP that year, and went on to compete in the 2020-2021 Olympics, before completing his career this year.
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Retired baseball superstar Reggie Jackson told YouTube TV host Howard Stern that he wanted to purchase the Oakland Athletics on which he had many successful seasons but was prevented from doing so by the then commissioner of baseball Bud Selig. He said Selig arranged for the team to be sold instead to his old college buddy Lew Wolff, who has since sold it.
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Aaron Sorkin, Emmy-winning creator of television’s West Wing, is recovering from a stroke. The 61-year-old screenwriter says the stroke was a “loud wake-up call” and in response he has given up smoking, watches what he eats, and is exercising more.
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Antisemitism was the theme of last week’s “Deadline” episode of television’s Law and Order. The fictional story started with the exterior of the apartment of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jacob Ackerman (Alex Shafer) being spray-painted with the word “Jew.” As Ackerman is about to place a 911 call to the police, he is interrupted and stabbed to death. Detectives Frank Cosgrove (Jeffrey Donovan) and Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) initially arrest neo-Nazi Lucas Hobbs (Forrest Weber) for the crime, but he only committed the vandalism, not the murder. So, the detectives at the suggestion of Lt. Kate Dixon (Camryn Manheim) look into what articles Ackerman was writing or researching. They learn he had been working with reporter Julie McAlister (Emma Van Lare) on suspicious circumstances surrounding a fire that killed six people. Supposedly, the city paid $5 million to a company to maintain such properties, but the company was non-existent. It was a case of embezzlement. Then Deputy Mayor Pat Simonian in charge of disbursing funds, is also found murdered. The detectives identify the embezzler as David Costa (Andrew Rothenberg), follow him in his car, and stop him after he rolls through a stop sign. Seeing that he has recent bruises, they get a warrant to search his apartment where they find the murder knife.
However, the case goes south when Judge Renee Gitkins (Hannah Cabell) agrees with defense attorney Keith Hollins (Kevin Dunn) that two homicide detectives making a traffic stop was obviously a premeditated ploy to put Costa into custody, and rules that the knife cannot be entered into evidence because it is “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Then Hobbs, who subsequently was arrested for brutally beating a Jewish woman (not portrayed) in the street, tells prosecutors Nolan Price (Hugh Dancy) and Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) that he saw Costa running from Ackerman’s apartment. He describes the knife that Costa was carrying. He says he will testify, but only if the DA’s office refrains from prosecuting him for beating the Jewish woman. District Attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) says if it were his case he’d go after the murderer, even at the price of letting the neo-Nazi, go, but Price is seriously troubled by the ethics of such a decision. Price reluctantly accepted McCoy’s advice. If a case like that were to happen in San Diego, what would you want the district attorney’s office to do?
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com. Names in boldface type are those of people known to be Jewish community members. It’s possible that the name of a Jewish community member unfamiliar to us might appear in lightface type.