San Diego History Center inaugurates $100,000 campaign to preserve local Jewish history
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — The Balboa Park-based San Diego History Center has embarked on a $100,000 fundraising campaign “to edit, conserve and preserve” more than 90 hours of interviews that were conducted in preparation for its 2017-2018 exhibition Celebrate San Diego: The History of San Diego’s Jewish Community and a companion documentary film. To the Ends of the Earth: A Portrait of San Diego. The fundraising campaign is being led by Jeff and Karen Silberman.
In a letter to supporters, the History Center’s President and CEO Bill Lawrence and documentary filmmaker Isaac Artenstein said the $100,000 will be used to “edit the interviews, prepare printed transcripts and to secure these recordings at the San Diego History Center, where they will become a permanent part of the oral history archive of the San Diego/ Tijuana region.”
“In addition, five new oral history interviews will be added along with transcripts to the interviews, and digitized photos, home movies, media and documents,” the two men said in a joint letter. Besides his documentary film on San Diego, Artenstein will incorporate into the San Diego History Center’s collection “the recordings done a decade earlier for his documentary Tijuana Jews.”
Contributions may be made to the San Diego History Center, 1649 El Prado, Suite 3, San Diego, CA 92101.
*
Rand Levin Completes Tenure as Beth Jacob Congregation’s Executive Director; Heads for a Post in New York
Rand Levin, executive director of Beth Jacob Congregation, the oldest Orthodox congregation in San Diego County, bade goodbye to his fellow congregants in a moving letter that he titled “So Hard to Say Goodbye.” In it, he related that he moved with his young family in 1998 to San Diego, and eventually served on the congregation’s board of directors, as gabbai, and later, for four years, as the shul’s president.
During that time, he was laid off from his job as a television cameraman, during which time he had worked in particular with documentarian and story teller Ken Kramer. His family was devastated by the layoff, “but our Beth Jacob family was immediately there to lift our spirits and help us navigate that terrible time of uncertainty,” Levin wrote. “The good news is that I had a lot of time on my hands to dedicate to my role as President. Little did I know that those 4 years as President would serve as my training grounds as Beth Jacob’s first Shul Administrator and three years later, [to a promotion] to Executive Director. When I lost my [TV] job, I thought my life was over, but I often tell people Beth Jacob saved my life. For that, I’m eternally grateful.”
Levin described the congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Avram Bogopulsky, as a “true mentor and friend to me. He is always there to listen and guide us during times of joy and times of heartache. His advice is always spot on and I encourage everyone to take advantage of his wisdom and insight in order to better your lives and get closer to HaShem.”
Levin leaves San Diego to take a position at a Orthodox congregation in West Hempstead, New York.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com