Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Universities urge Pass/No Pass grades this semester

With in-person classes transferred to Internet learning at UC Berkeley, my grandson, Shor Masori, is back home in San Diego, monitoring his classes via computer.  Recently, he and his fellow undergraduates received a notice from Bob Jacobsen, Letters & Science Dean of Undergraduate Studies.  It began, “The chair of the Academic Senate has written to explain that for this semester only, the default grades that instructors will give are Pass and No Pass.” [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Shor M. Masori, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food

Briefing songs for President Trump

Whether Donald Trump holds his daily coronavirus press conferences to calm and inform the public or as a social distance substitute for his campaign rallies, the disinformation he disseminates through them is dangerous.  Since he doesn’t read, I am encouraging his closest advisors to have him listen to these cautionary songs before he utters a word.  [Satire column by Laurie Baron]                

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Lawrence Baron, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Waxie hires staff as demand for toilet paper, supplies swells

It’s not every day that Charles Wax, owner of Waxie Sanitary Supply, receives phone calls from mayors, county supervisors, or governors. But these are not everyday times. As the largest privately owned janitorial and sanitary supply company in America, Waxie Sanitary Supply stocks the bathrooms and janitorial supply cabinets of many schools, hospitals, government office buildings, prisons, and other institutions throughout the nine western states. To do so, it has 200 delivery vehicles stationed at 25 regional warehouses. Headquarters for the entire operation is in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Meet Ted Stern, SD’s king of pedal steel guitar

In ancient times, kings ruled local fiefdoms.  In the world of pedal steel guitar, it is much the same way. Ted Stern, is San Diego’s king of pedal steel guitar! My wife Kyra and I caught the Jeff Berkeley Band, playing in East County. Being from Texas, I was thrilled to hear a Pedal Steel Guitar and a player who knew his stuff.  He wasn’t just good, but really good.  Who is this guy?  I didn’t think anyone played pedal steel guitar in California.  His name is Ted Stern.  How did a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, New York, become San Diego’s pedal steel king? [Mark Thomas]

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Many S.D. Jewish institutions announcing coronavirus precautions

More and more Jewish organizations in San Diego County are announcing precautions and responses to the coronavirus pandemic, including Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Federation of San Diego County, Jewish National Fund, Lawrence Family JCC, Ohr Shalom Synagogue, Seacrest Village Retirement Community, Tifereth Israel Synagogue, and Western Jewish Studies Association. Following in alphabetical order, is a report about each. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA, Videos

U.S. Attorney Brewer reassures Jewish community on security

U.S. Attorney Robert S. Brewer Jr. experienced  first-hand in San Diego the concerns shared by Jewish congregations around the country about anti-Semitism — a concern that prompted U.S. Attorney General William Barr to send a directive to U.S. Attorneys throughout the United States to arrange meetings with Jewish community leaders.   At a kosher lunch meeting on Wednesday sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, rabbi after rabbi — ranging from Reform to Chassidic–expressed their worries about the safety of their congregants at a time when there has been an increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. [Our shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi

Awe struck by 13-year-old Israeli cellist

I felt blessed to experience the extra-ordinary talent of the young Israeli cellist, Nahar Eliaz last Saturday evening in the sanctuary of Congregation Beth Am. Her’s was meaningful music-making of the highest order, music that touched the heart and replenished the soul. There was no awareness of technique. Every pitch was perfectly in tune, every dynamic, judiciously observed, every phrase, fluently expressed with natural ease. But it was more. The music had excitement, passion, and beauty. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

History tells of Nazi looting of Rosenberg gallery in Paris

Based on extensive research, the author describes what happened to the Paris art gallery that her grandfather, Paul Rosenberg, owned and directed in the first part of the twentieth century, until the invasion and occupation of France by the Germans in 1940. When France was taken over by the Germans all Jews, including the Rosenbergs, were deprived of their citizenship and property. In its heyday the Rosenberg Gallery exhibited the works of painters such as Matisse, Braque, Picasso and others with whom Paul Rosenberg maintained warm relations and in some cases, especially that of Picasso, a close friendship. Many of these artists were defined as ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis, although that did not prevent them from using these works for their own ends, often selling them to museums and collectors who paid handsomely for them.[Dorothea Shefer Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA

13-year-old cello virtuoso to perform in San Diego

SAN DIEGO — Fresh from winning gold medals in two major international music competitions, the 13-year-old Israeli cellist, Nahar Eliaz, will be coming to San Diego for a recital Saturday evening, March 7, 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth Am, 5050 Del Mar Heights Rd., San Diego, CA, 92130. The prodigious young talent received the grand prize in the London virtuoso competition which will lead to a performance at the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 14 of this year.  She also received two top prizes earlier this month from the Vienna Music Competition. In this contest, Nahar garnered the gold medal in the Strings-Young Artist division, and the Beethoven Centenary Award for the most outstanding performance of a work by the great composer.  Beethoven’s 250th birthday is being celebrated throughout the world. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Liberator and POW fast friends 75 years later

The liberation of a prisoner-of-war camp in Manila, Philippines, in 1945 forged a bond many years later between a Jewish band leader and a Coronado civil servant. Lou Berger, a drummer and leader of the “Berger Kings,” was playing a Saturday night gig at the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego about 15 years ago for an ex-prisoners of war organization when he was introduced to Tom Crosby, a longtime purchasing agent and risk manager for the City of Coronado, who also was known as a  successful volunteer springboard diving coach. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

The cacophony of politicians talking about music

Two politicians in Israel recently referred to music in one context or another. This made me prick up my ears and pay attention, which is not something I usually do when I come across statements by politicians, in Israel or anywhere else. The first was the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked why he preferred to stand trial for the crimes and misdemeanors of which he is accused, he replied (not his exact words, but the gist of them): “The judges in Jerusalem go to synagogue and the judges in Tel Aviv go to the Philharmonic.” What he was implying was that the judges in Jerusalem are honest, god-fearing people, while the ones in Tel Aviv are hedonistic heathen. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Beautiful music with compelling stories

The 30th San Diego International Jewish Film Festival is underway. These aren’t your big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. These are indie films with heart that speak to who we are as a people. I managed to catch two Israeli films with music themes on Monday at the Reading Cinema in Claremont Square. And I was delighted to sit in nearly full houses. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Ohr Shalom, other Jewish venues, rated as architectural gems

Approximately 50 cities worldwide, including San Diego and three others in the United States, offer free Open Houses at venues considered to be architecturally significant.  This year, March 6-8, San Diego will put on display 93 different locations, including Ohr Shalom Synagogue at 3rd and Laurel Streets in Bankers Hill as well as a few other places with ties to prominent members of the Jewish community. Those include the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, founded by Jonas Salk and designed by architect Louis Kahn;  the IGPP Munk Laboratory designed by the late oceanographer Walter Munk and his wife Judith Horton Munk in association with architect Lloyd Ruocco; the San Diego Central Library at the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Common, named for the co-founder of Qualcomm and his wife;  and the Hotel del Coronado, which underwent considerable expansion during the period it was owned by M. Larry Lawrence. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA