By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, in a newsletter to constituents, provided this background for introducing a proposed ordinance to protect renters that will be heard next week: “Imagine being at home with your family and opening the mail to find that you’ll need to move. You’ve always paid your rent on time and there are no accusations that you’ve broken a term of your lease. Nonetheless, you are being evicted and need to find a new place to live. Imagine the stress of breaking the news to your family coupled with the stress of trying to find a home you can afford when rental prices have skyrocketed to an average of over $3,000 per month for a modest two-bedroom apartment. Would you be able to afford to continue to live in San Diego?”
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South African singer Sharron Katz, who now lives in San Diego County, has released a new album, “Leaving Eden,” in which she suggests the biblical Eve simply wanted to expand her opportunities: “Now some say that Eve never had a choice/ But I think that Eve simply found her voice/ The apple so tasty—the apple so moist/ If an apple meant freedom – she would rejoice. Leaving Eden – YouTube
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Sandy Scheller, curator of the Holocaust exhibit that will open next month at the Rancho San Diego branch of the San Diego County Public Library, was nominated by Assemblyman Chris Ward as District 78’s Holocaust Remembrance Honoree.
CALIFORNIA
The California Jewish Legislative Caucus currently has 13 voting members and five associate members, according to the caucus’ consultant Garrett Layton (who grew up at Congregation Beth Israel in La Jolla). Voting members are those who self-identify as Jews, whereas associate members have strong ties to the Jewish community but are not themselves Jewish. The caucus is co-chaired by Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel and State Sen. Scott Wiener. Sen. Josh Becker is the vice chair. Other voting members are Senators Ben Allen, Steven Glazer, Josh Newman and Harry Stern and Assemblymembers Dawn Addis, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Marc Berman, Laura Friedman, Matt Haney, and Josh Lowenthal. Associate members Sen. Susan Rubio, Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, and Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur are descendants of Conversos, who were forced to become Catholics or be expelled from 15th Century Spain. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin raised her children Jewish and attends synagogue services. Assemblymember Chris Ward of San Diego had been a staff member for former State Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego), who was a founder of the Jewish Legislative Caucus, and has maintained his interest in its mission ever since. Layton writes that “the Jewish Caucus is a voice for justice, equality, and progress in the California State Legislature. Over the past two years, the Jewish Caucus has secured nearly $250 million to fund top Jewish community priorities and championed legislation to address top Jewish priorities such as crimes, antisemitism, community security and Holocaust education.”
NATIONAL
Jolie Brislin, the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director in Nevada, has condemned the “violent, antisemitic act” that an unknown person or persons committed on March 9 by carving a swastika onto the back of a nonverbal, autistic student who wears a kippah at Clark High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 17-year-old student was not identified by name. The FBI has been investigating the case.
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U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) was the choice of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) to temporarily replace on the Senate Judiciary Committee the ailing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California). But Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and other members of his caucus have announced their opposition to the temporary assignment, saying its intent was to give committee approval to judicial appointees who otherwise would be blocked from a full Senate vote.
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Problem Solver Caucus co-chairs Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) helped craft a bipartisan approach to the debt ceiling negotiations. “We can both suspend the debt ceiling and help prevent our nation’s economy from driving off a fiscal cliff, and address our nation’s longer-term fiscal health,” Gottheimer said. “It’s a false choice to say we can only do one or the other. Nobody should use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip and I look forward to continuing our bipartisan work to prevent a debt crisis. We can protect Americans’ savings and our standing in the world.” Fitzpatrick agreed, saying “We must never allow our nation to default on our debt, we must never put our nation’s full faith and credit at risk, and we must insist on responsible budget reform measures. I am proud of our Caucus’ tireless work to find common ground on this bipartisan framework, which is the first of multiple steps in this process. I hope our colleagues on both sides will join us in this mission.”
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U.S. Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) in an interview with the Jewish News Syndicate said he learned a lot from his bubbe, Ruth Ratner Miller, a businesswoman who was a trustee of Cleveland State University and an appointee of President Ronald Reagan and later George H.W. Bush to the Holocaust Memorial Council’s board of trustees. President Donald Trump appointed Max Miller to the same board during Miller’s service as Trump’s director of presidential advance. Grandma Miller, who lectured at Case Western University, where she had earned her doctorate, had hosted a large Shabbat dinner every Friday night, typically drawing some 40 people. Miller grew up in a Conservative Jewish home, where the family kept kosher. Miller and Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tennessee) are the only two Jewish Republican members of the House of Representatives.
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U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) is critical of Republican -sponsored bill that would require people applying for asylum to do so at an official U.S. port of entry and pay a $50-per-adult fee, among other provisions. “Republicans have chosen a narrow path that imposes extreme pain and hardship on the most vulnerable people while doing nothing to actually solve the problem,” Nadler said Wednesday.
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U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a hearing Wednesday of the House Homeland Security Committee, “Do you believe that all of us have a responsibility to elevate our rhetoric and to denounce antisemitism and anti-police rhetoric in this country so that Jewish Americans and police officers can be safer?” Mayorkas replied: “Congressman, I do.” In another exchange, Mayorkas was called a “liar” by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) after he said his department is fighting drug trafficking that brings deadly fentanyl across the border. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee) ruled Greene had violated committee rules concerning language and had her remarks removed from the committee’s official record. He also halted her interrogation of Mayorkas.
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Allen Weisselberg, formerly the CFO of the Trump Organization, was released from Riker’s Island jail on Wednesday at the end of a three-month sentence for tax evasion. Questions remained whether Weisselberg, 75, will be called as a witness in former President Donald Trump’s trial in Manhattan in which Trump is accused of covering up hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels by falsifying business records.
INTERNATIONAL
Joyce Fienberg, one of 11 people slain by a gunman who invaded the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in October of 2018, will be among worldwide Jewish victims of terrorism and defenders of Israel who will be specifically memorialized during televised Yom HaZikaron ceremonies at Latrun, Israel, on Monday, April 24. The ceremony, organized by Masa Israel Journey, will be attended either in person or virtually by a variety of Americans including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Eric Fingerhut and Julie Platt, respectively the CEO and board chair of the Jewish Federations of North America.
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Knesset Member May Golan, who led a campaign to deport African asylum seekers from Israel, has been offered the job as Israel’s consul general in New York City, according to news reports. A member of the Likud party, she has been a vocal critic of Israel’s Supreme Court.
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World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder spoke at an 80th anniversary observance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, held at the Square of the Ghetto Heroes of Warsaw. “I first came here in the 1970s, more than 50 years ago,” he recalled. “Parts of the ghetto still lay in ruins. I stood where I am standing now. It was at night and there was a full moon … In the shadows, you could see the outline of where the streets of the ghetto once were. Even though it was so silent, in my mind I could hear the screams, the machine guns, the explosions, all in an overpowering silence. A silence still haunts me.”
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Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, announcing an invitation to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) to address the Knesset described him as a real friend of Israel, with the emphasis on the word “real” seen by some observers as a way of criticizing U.S. President Joe Biden who has been at odds with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over his plan to curb the power of Israel’s judiciary.
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PBS aired the documentary How Saba Kept Singing in which narrator Avi Wisnia leads his grandfather David Wisnia on tours of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and Warsaw, Poland, where he had lived before the Holocaust. The elder Wisnia had an operatic voice and according to this documentary he was kept alive for 2 ½ years at Auschwitz doing a nice, inside job sorting clothes because the Nazi guards would have him sing for them. Tzipi Helen Spitzer, although Jewish, was entrusted for an even longer period as a record keeper, according to the documentary for which Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton served as executive producers. Allowed to travel between the men’s and women’s camps, “Tzipi” found her way to Wisnia and they became lovers while other prisoners served as lookouts. After escaping from a “death march,” David found his way to the the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, which found his knowledge of Polish, German and Yiddish useful. He never made it back to Warsaw where Tzipi and he had vowed to meet in front of the old Jewish Community Center. In 1946, David settled in the United States where he became a cantor. As for Tzipi, who was 8 years older than David, she also was married. In the documentary, old, widowed and bedridden, she had a reunion with David and divulged that on five occasions she took his name off “lists,” most likely saving his life. Asked by Avi how he felt while singing for the Nazis, Wisnia said he imagined that it was his slain family members he was singing for, not the guards. Wisnia told Avi: “You are the proof that Hitler did not win … He didn’t win. He did not win.”
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com