SAN DIEGO (SDJW)– In technology similar to that seen at such presidential museums as the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, the Schindler family has preserved the memory of the late Holocaust survivor Rose Schindler by creating a hologram of her that can answer questions from students or other audience members.
Marsha Sutton of the Del Mar Times witnessed the hologram in action on January 25 when Ben Schindler, son of Rose and the late Max Schindler, and M. Lee Connolly, author of the Schindlers’ memoir, Two Who Survived, addressed an assembly for more than 2,000 students at Canyon Crest Academy in the Carmel Valley neighborhood of San Diego.
“This link connects to Rose Schindler’s holographic image and allows the viewer to pose questions,” Sutton reported. “Because she answers in her own voice and the viewer sees her speaking, it’s as if she’s really there.”
Rose, who died of pancreatic cancer last Feb. 19 at age 93, answered over 800 questions in a marathon taping session over four days, her son said. The assembly was sponsored by Canyon Crest Academy’s Jewish Culture Club. A related school activity related to the Holocaust enabled students to paint ceramic butterflies, each representing one of the estimated 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Holocaust. The hope of The Butterfly Project’s co-founders Cheryl Rattner Price and Jan Landau is that 1.5 million butterflies will be exhibited publicly all over the world in the slain children’s memory.
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San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera says the city’s new policy concerning individual city construction projects costing over $1 million will guarantee fair wages for workers. At the same time, commented City Councilmember Dr. Jennifer Campbell, costly delays will be avoided because there is a no-strike clause in the 58-page blanket Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for the City of San Diego. David Garrick, a writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, reported that Elo-Rivera called the pact “historic.” He quoted the city council president as saying “For decades, San Diego was a test lab for what comes when a greedy, conservative establishment runs a big city. It doesn’t work. This place is too expensive, folks aren’t paid enough, and more and more people are wondering how the hell they will continue to live in San Diego.”
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Superior Court Judge Howard Shore has denied making ‘racist and insensitive comments’ about Palestinians and Mexicans, as is contended by the San Diego County Public Defenders Office, which has asked that Shore be barred from hearing cases in which the Public Defender’s office is involved. Shore, who recently was censured by California’s Commission on Judicial Performance for missing 155 court days without authorization over a two-year period, was alleged to have compared Palestinian workers who crossed the border into Israel to “our Mexicans” — a comparison that the Public Defenders office described as derogatory. That charge among others against Shore was brought by Katherine Braner and Megan Marcotte, according to a San Diego Union-Tribune article by Alex Riggins. In a written response, Shore said “I deny referring to the people of Gaza as being similarly situated to ‘our Mexicans.’ I deny that my failure to raise or comment on the humanitarian costs of the war stems from any racial bias or prejudice.” Before he was censured by the California Commission on Judicial Performance, Shore said his absences on many Fridays stemmed from the need to go to Los Angeles to help his children with family matters and to arrive there before the start of the Jewish sabbath. Shore said he is shomer Shabbos.
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In testimony before a panel of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Master Chief Petty Officer James Honea thanked Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego) for including in the National Defense Authorization Act a provision including cost of housing on land for sailors in the lower enlisted ranks when their ships return from deployment and undergo maintenance at a shipyard. Honea said that the provision will allow the Navy to grant sailors extra pay to permit the to find their own housing. Up to now, he added, “Somewhere in the neighborhood, on average 800 sailors per aircraft carrier, we can’t find a bed for, we don’t have barrack space and we are not… allowed by law to pay them house allowance for them to go find themselves an apartment in town, so they live onboard the ship. That’s the number one quality-of-life concern of our sailors.”
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Coastal Roots Farm, the Jewish farming enterprise at the Leichtag Commons at 441 Saxony Road in Encinitas, seeks volunteers for its Sundays-in-the-Soil program from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Produce Packing on the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.; and Rise and Shine Volunteering on Wednesdays, from 8 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. Produce from the Farm is offered to purchasers at low prices, and is also distributed to food banks. Registration for these volunteer programs via this website.
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Nadia Farjood, an attorney and wife of San Diego City Councilman Raul Campillo, is running for the Zone 3 seat on the Grossmont Healthcare Board, and has garnered endorsements from numerous public officials, including U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs and San Diego Unified School Board President Shana Hazan. Farjood, who is of Iranian ancestry, is a board member of Jewish Family Service.
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Laurie Baron, the former director of the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies at San Diego State University, noted with sadness the death of Lawrence Langer, a professor at Simmons University in Boston, who was considered an expert on Holocaust literature. He wrote: Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory in 1991.
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SDJW Staff Report