Donald H. Harrison

Donald H. Harrison

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.

San Diego Jewish World Honors Community Leaders From the ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — This publication held its first annual event on Sunday, July 31, at an afternoon reception in a private home with a sweeping panoramic view of the La Jolla coastline. Jacob Kamaras, San Diego Jewish World’s editor and publisher, emceed the affair at which Roz Rothstein, a co-founder and CEO […]

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Donald H. Harrison, Opinion, San Diego County

Where I-5 Jewish Stories Are Found

The three-book series offers 90 stories in all – a mosaic of Jewish life, personalities, and influences along the Interstate 5 corridor from the Mexican border to the Orange County line. It has been a pleasure authoring this trilogy, which has been augmented by the photography of Dr. Ben Dishman and Fred Kropveld, two fellow congregants of Tifereth Israel Synagogue. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Ben Dishman, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Fred Kropveld, San Diego County, Travel and Food

A Scroll of Ancient Music that Leads to a Romance

This book is a fictionalized account of Jacqueline Semha Gmach’s life in Tunisia and Canada before settling in San Diego where her store of cultural knowledge for many years defined programming at the Lawrence Family JCC.  It is also a love story, travelogue, and collection of photos that are dear to Gmach. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, San Diego County

Three Stories for Young Children from PJ Library

Jennifer Wolf Kam wrote and Sally Walker illustrated Until the Blueberries Grow about a young boy named Ben who successfully delays his grandfather for a year from selling his home and moving to a retirement community (hopefully like our Seacrest Village in Encinitas).  During the year of delay, Ben and his zayde have many adventures such as picking and eating blueberries together; eating jelly sandwiches in the sukkah; drinking hot chocolate by the light of the chanukiah; and secreting and finding afikomen outside in the lilac bushes.  But after the year delay, zayde tells Ben he just doesn’t want to keep climbing the stairs to his second-floor bedroom.  So, he moves to a retirement community, and when Ben visits him there, he brings a gift.  Blueberries! [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Fiction

Single Mom Stokes Her Son’s and Her Own Jewish Faith

After her divorce from her cantor husband, author Zark wanted to make certain that the small son whose custody they shared would be brought up Jewishly in both homes.  She wanted to make Shabbats and the full range of Jewish holidays interesting and accessible to her son, and in the process, she reflected upon the meanings of the holidays, Torah passages, and various Jewish customs. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles

Kolender Was City’s First Jewish Police Chief, County’s First Jewish Sheriff

A member of the Jewish community, known for his self-deprecating sense of humor, Kolender grew up at the Reform Congregation Beth Israel. However, when it was time for his bar mitzvah, he honored his grandfather’s wishes and had it at Beth Jacob Congregation, which is Orthodox. “The rabbi there was Baruch Stern, and it was the first bar mitzvah for him after the war,” Kolender told me back in 1996 when I profiled him for the now defunct San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage. Rabbi Stern’s children “had been killed in front of him by the Nazis, and he started crying and I started crying, and I’m not sure if we ever did get through the whole thing. It was something I never will forget.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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California, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

How a Sightseeing Company Got its Start in San Diego

This chapter is a chance for me to step again from third-person history into first-person history because I was highly involved in the start-up in 1989 of Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego. It came about because through The Harrison Enterprises, the public relations agency which I owned, I served as the executive director of the San Diego Cruise Industry Consortium. The consortium was created in 1983 under the aegis of Acting Mayor Bill Cleator to attract cruise ships to the Port of San Diego. Previously, I had served as communications director for Cleator during the period he served as a city councilman and acting mayor. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

Four Jews Who Served as Port Commissioners Tell of Their Tenures

Members of the Jewish community who have served on the Port Commission since its creation in 1962 were Harvey Furgatch (appointed 1969), Milton “Mickey” Fredman (1970), Ben Cohen (1977) and Louis Wolfsheimer (1979), all of whom had passed away prior to my undertaking this book, and Robert Penner (1988), Lynn Schenk (1990), Stephen Cushman (1998) and Laurie Black (2007), all of whom I had the opportunity to interview. All these Jewish Port Commissioners represented the City of San Diego, except for Penner and Cohen, who were appointed by Chula Vista and Coronado respectively. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Travel and Food, USA

Crime, Estranged Lovers Themes of Mystery Novel

Argentine mystery writer Sergio Olguín has conjured a hard-hitting Jewish investigative journalist Verónica Rosenthal as his protagonist in a mystery that begins with a traffic accident victim’s missing wife and child and eventuates into an investigation into illegal adoptions and sales of human body parts. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Originally Named for Charles Lindbergh, Airport Downplays Connection with the Nazi Sympathizer.

There was a time the San Diego International Airport was known by everyone as Lindbergh Field after the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who spent a lot of time in town overseeing the construction of his airplane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” by Ryan Aircraft. After the job was completed, Lindbergh made several stops across country en route to New York, including in St. Louis.  This was where donors lived who had financed his plane. Then, on May 21, 1927, Lindbergh, the 25-year-old pilot, completed the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, in the process becoming an international celebrity. If he had simply retired on his laurels at that point in his life, the name “Lindbergh Field” today might still be emblazoned across the airport entrance. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Travel and Food, USA

H’nai Matov: Brothers Working and Surviving Together

Here is a Holocaust memoir that is so well told that you feel like you are sitting in the room with Harry Lenga, listening to him as he relates the meaningful episodes of his life.  His narrative, as transcribed and edited by his son Scott, is at times folksy, other times philosophical, and always interesting. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Jewish History

A German Catholic Girl Learned of Life as a Persecuted Jew

Sabine Fröhlich grew up a Catholic in Breslau, Germany, but her ancestry was Jewish.  Along with her parents and her older brother Andreas, she was declared to be a Jew according to the Nazis’ bizarre racial classifications.  Like self-identified Jews in Germany, she was systematically excluded from normal life—even the Catholic school which she had attended.  Her parents wisely decided to send her to England, but after they made it across the border to the Netherlands, the family reunited. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Jewish History

Greg Smith: A Quarter Century as Assessor, Recorder, Clerk

If he were so inclined, Greg Smith could have a lot to brag about. Over a period of 25 years, he won seven elections to serve as the San Diego County Assessor as well as the county’s recorder and clerk. He headed a staff of between 400 and 500 county workers in the combined operations of assessor-recorder-clerk. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, California, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, San Diego County, Travel and Food