Donald H. Harrison is the publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.
Harrison began his journalism career in 1962 on the UCLA Daily Bruin. Following graduation he joined the staff of the Associated Press, and later became politics writer for The San Diego Union. Afterwards he pursued a career in tourism, helping to establish San Diego’s Cruise Ship Program as well as Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego. He also wrote for such Jewish publications as the San Diego Jewish Press Heritage and San Diego Jewish Times before starting San Diego Jewish World in 2007.
Don’s latest work is the three-volume Schlepping and Schmoozing Along the Interstate 5.
He is the author of six previous books. Those with links may be obtained on Amazon.
Hello, I think I’ve been transported back to 1955, when I was 10 years old. That’s not really my late mother calling, but it’s possible that author Catherine Newman has channeled her and other parents who tried to teach my generation the essence of being a good person, a mensch. [Donald H. Harrison]
A Jewish Book of Practical Tips for Pre-Teens Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison
From PJ Library comes two Passover-related books suitable for reading to children. Meet the Matzah is the kind of silly story that children will giggle over. In this case, different kinds of breads and matzah have been anthropomorphized as students in a classroom where they learn about all kinds of holidays and the breads that are served. For example, one might eat naan during the Hindu festival of Diwali and tortillas on the Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos. [Donald H. Harrison]
PJ Library Serves Up Stories About Passover and Mimouna Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East
Almost all arguments about Israel revolve around one or more of the following themes: security, collective identity, freedom, and territory. Authors Gringras and Sterne help us to conceptualize these arguments with a series of analogies. They challenge us to argue, in the classic sense of the word, about right and wrong in the hope that we may learn from each other. Arguments are different from fights; they are mental exercises, not physical, and they are laid out methodically, with each side trying to educate the other using such tools as logic and empathy. [Donald H. Harrison]
Reframing the Arguments in Israel and the Palestinian Authority Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education
The International House of Pancakes at the Bay Plaza Shopping Center in National City was built in conformance with the shopping center’s architectural guidelines, rather than in IHOP’s usual configuration. However, it still has a trademark blue roof, and its menu is fairly typical of some 1,500 other establishments in the family restaurant chain created by two Jewish brothers. Al Lapin Jr. and Jerry Lapin started IHOP in 1958 in the tony San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Toluca Lake. [Donald H. Harrison]
Jewish Brothers Al Lapin Jr. and Jerry Lapin Founded IHOP Chain Read More »
Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA
Mike King, a Jewish pediatric dentist, has transported “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” from the North Pole to the Middle East. In the process, he changed him into Enamel the Camel and made his teeth, rather than his nose, shine brightly enough to help his fellow camels find their way through a blinding sandstorm. [Donald H. Harrison]
Pun-ditry in the Desert Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Trivia, Humor & Satire
We’re interested in the turnaround of the Ford family, starting with automotive pioneer Henry Ford, who was a vicious antisemite, and continuing with his grandson Henry Ford II, known as “Hank the Deuce,” who became a large supporter of Jewish and Zionist causes, and onto Bill Ford, Ford Motor Co’s current executive chairman. who traveled in 2019 to Tel Aviv to inaugurate a new Ford Research Center there. [Donald H. Harrison]
Founded by an Antisemite, Ford Motor Co’s Leaders Became Pro-Zionists Read More »
Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Technology, Travel and Food, USA
This is a novel that traces a Jewish family through several generations from a shtetl in Poland to the big city of Warsaw, and later onward to Scotland, Germany, and England over the course of pogroms and two world wars. It is marred in the telling by a series of errors that might have been eliminated through more careful research or fact checking [Donald H. Harrison]
Factual Errors Detract from Jewish Family Saga Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison
Lowell Blankfort, a liberal Jewish Democrat, became co-publisher and editor of the staid, very conservative Star-News in 1961, and immediately began to shake up the old order. In his very first editorial, he announced that the community newspaper no longer would run columns by U.S. Rep. James Utt. Blankfort explained that Utt’s “so-called ‘column’ from Washington, or weekly political diatribe, is being dropped, pronto. Mr. Utt is the Republican Congressman from Santa Ana who, due to some deft GOP gerrymandering 10 years ago, also has been foisted on National City and Bonita.” [Donald H. Harrison]
Liberal Jewish Newspaper Publisher Made His Mark in a Conservative Town Read More »
Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA
Before I tell you how Siggi Wilzig became a “Wall Street legend,” let me tell you about the kind of jobs he had after immigrating to the United States as a survivor of Auschwitz. [Donald H. Harrison]
Holocaust Survivor’s Story: From Snow Shoveler to Multimillionaire Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Jewish History, USA
Rabbi Samuel is also a prodigious author of books on Jewish religion, Jewish ethics, philosophy, and social issues. A recent book was God and the Pandemic, A Judaic Reflection on the Coronavirus.” Other works include sets of books on how both Philo and Maimonides understood each of the five books of the Torah. The two interpreters of the Jewish religion lived respectively in 1st Century Alexandria, Egypt, and in 12th Century Spain. [Donald H. Harrison]
Jewish Philosophers Believed in Truth, Whatever Its Source Might Be Read More »
California, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA
If you hear of a Jew appointed to a position of authority at one of the Nazi concentration camps, what word comes immediately to mind? Is it “collaborator?” In “The Nazis Knew My Name,” the late Magda Hellinger tells of her experience being appointed first as a block leader and later as a camp leader by the Nazis during her three year incarceration in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex. She relates that it was never her choice to be a block or camp leader, and that had she refused, she most likely would have been severely disciplined or sent to the gas chambers. As a leader, she was expected to keep order in the block, and later in a full camp, or else. [Donald H. Harrison]
Camp Leader at Auschwitz Details How She Helped Other Jewish Prisoners Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History
However, there are other ways that the process of conversion can be completed, much closer to home, as Dr. Mark Scheller, an anesthesiologist, learned in 2015 when he waded from the shore of Chula Vista’s Bayside Park into the cold waters of San Diego Bay. [Donald H. Harrison]
There’s More Than One Kind of Mikvah for Conversion Ceremonies Read More »
California, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA
Author Susan J. Cohen is a compassionate attorney who handles many immigration cases on a pro bono basis for the Boston branch of the national Mintz Levin law firm. This book, written with the help of journalist Steven T. Taylor, tells of eleven cases in which she helped immigrants obtain asylum or permanent residency in the United States. [Donald H. Harrison]
Attorney Provides Insight into U.S.’s Broken Immigration System Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, USA
A Girl During the War by Anita Abriel; New York: Atria Books © 2022; ISBN 9781982-181185; 317 pages; $17. SAN DIEGO – Many people have asked themselves if they had lived under the Hitler regime, and if they weren’t Jewish, would they have had the courage to protect a Jew, knowing if they were caught
World War II Novel Glosses over a Tough Moral Decision Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts