UCSD celebrates international cultures
with a virtual journey around the world
By
Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO—UCSD's Thurgood Marshall College staged its
29th Annual ultural celebration today bringing together an international
assemblage of music, dancing, crafts, food, llama rides, face painting,
cotton candy, and booths where you could add your head to a painting of an
international costume.
Along
with my Israeli-born husband Shahar, I was there to provide some balloons
for the children. But my father, who is the editor of this website and whose
slogan is "There is a Jewish Story Everywhere" instructed us to bring him
home some Jewish-angled information. That turned out to be an easy
assignment.
Among those who found our Balloon Utopia set up were Ari and
Ziv Weizman, two young Israelis who were kind enough to model for us.
During
a short break, I found a clever booth run by students. You could tell
Stacy your name in English, and after writing it, she would pass it on to
Lana, who wrote it in Hebrew. Next it would go to Andrew who wrote in
Korean, then to Deepti who wrote in Hindi, and on down the line. My
5-year-old son's name is Shor, and we were able to collect transliterations
of his name in those languages plus Thai, Chinese, and Japanese.
Pretty neat!
These
are the kinds of events that are fun for everyone who attends, while serving
the important purpose of building international understanding among peoples.
Shahar and I were delighted to have been included.
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The
Jewish
Citizen
by Donald H. Harrison
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Holocaust lesson at a traffic light
I am a fan of personalized license plates, bumper stickers, appliqué
emblems and other automobile decorations by which people communicate with
unknown drivers and passengers behind them at a traffic light or on a
crowded freeway. I appreciate the people ahead of me for their
thoughtfulness in entertaining me.
Recently, I saw one of those variants in the appliqué
debate between evolution and Christianity. I'm sure you know what I
mean. On the Christian side of the debate, there is the outline of a
fish with a little cross for its eye. Another version contains the
legend IXOYE, which I'm told is a Greek abbreviation for "Jesus Christ,
God's son, Savior."
On the other side of the debate are other fish, but instead of Christian
symbols, they bear the name "Darwin." Ever since the 19th century when
Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species. in which he outlined
evolution as an alternative to the creation narrative found in Genesis, his
theory has been quite controversial. Many people, including many Jews,
believe the Bible is God's divine word and therefore must be error-free.
If so, they conclude, then evolution must be wrong.
People like me who think of the Bible as a sacred but metaphorical tradition
written by humans have no difficulty accepting the logic of evolution. Nor
are we particularly troubled by the many inconsistencies between this theory
and the Biblical narrative. What if God didn't actually create fish
and winged creatures on the first Thursday and land animals and humans on
the first Friday? Are the moral obligations that human beings bear
toward each other in any way lessened? Not in my opinion. Even
if it could be proven that God did not exist, as some people so firmly
believe, humans, in my view, still would bear responsibility for each other.
One of those responsibilities, I believe, is to refrain from gratuitously
insulting someone else's belief system. That is why I do not like seeing the
Darwin fish eating the Christian fish. Why is it necessary to hurt someone's
feelings as he or she pulls up behind you at a traffic light? To a
lesser degree, I get the same feeling when I see a fish emblem with the word
"gefilte" written inside of it. To me, it's like putting a cross inside the
emblem of a Magen David. It invades the integrity of another person's
belief system.
On that recent drive, I saw yet another Darwin fish consuming a Christian
fish on the rear of a car. What caused me to ponder was the license
plate on the same car: it bore the symbol for a Disabled Person.
The concept of a Disabled Person/ Darwinist was for me a matter of what
educators like to call "cognitive dissonance." During the late 19th
century, America had its share of Social Darwinists who took Darwin's
biological observations from the Galapagos Islands and applied to them the
concept of "survival of the fittest" coined by the British economist Herbert
Spencer. Only those who thrive should survive, some people believed.
Such Social Darwinism led to some people in the United States advocating
eugenics—that is, "purifying" the human race by eliminating people they
considered to be biologically inferior beings. In the 20th century, the
concept of eugenics found its most enthusiastic supporters among the German
Nazis, who figured anyone who wasn't a member of the "Aryan" race should be
made into a slave laborer or gassed.
It wasn't only us Jews whom Adolf Hitler and his followers wanted to
eliminate; they also wanted to murder people who were born or who had become
mentally or physically disabled.
Such were my thoughts as I sat behind the car with the ironic combination of
appliqué and license plate. Although the
records of all religious groups were spotty when it came to intervening in
behalf of Jews and other target peoples, it also occurred to me that those
who took the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Murder" literally were more likely
than others to protest or attempt to intervene against such genocide.
As the car in front of me changed lanes and made a right-hand turn, I took
one last sidelong look at the license plate and appliqué. It occurred to me
that the very same people whose religious beliefs that driver scorns in
another time might have been his only protectors.
As we commemorate the Shoah, let us recall that intolerance for other
people's beliefs is as nasty a practice as religious bigotry and racial
prejudice.
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Jews
in the News
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News spotters: Dan Brin in Los Angeles, Donald H.
Harrison in San Diego, Marsha Sutton in North San Diego County. To see a
source story click on the link within the respective paragraph.
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*Paul Cohen, director of research for Pacific American
Securities and a Qualcomm investor, believes a new suit by Broadcom against
the wireless technology leader was spurred by a federal court ruling in San
Diego. Kathryn Balint
reports in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
*U.S. Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego) says he is mulling
legislation to prevent defense contractor Blackwater from building a
training center near Potrero. Meanwhile, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El
Cajon), ranking minority member of the House Armed Services Committee, says
he favors construction of the facility. Anne Krueger
reports in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
*Gail Goldberg, former ranking official in San Diego's planning
department, has been making an impact as Los Angeles' chief planner. Steve
Hymon
reports in the Los Angeles Times.
*Israeli soldiers in Nablus are being accused of using two
Palestinian youths as human shields, according to an Associated Press story
carried in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Here is
a link to the Yediot Ahronot video of the incident.
*Mel Katz, chairman of the City of San Diego Library Commission, says
a proposed 3 percent reduction in library spending, will have some impact on
the system, but says overall he is "pleased" Mayor Jerry Sanders' cuts did
not go deeper. Matthew T. Hall and Jennifer Vigil have
an overview story on the budget cuts in today's
San Diego Union-Tribune.
*Dan Levin, formerly a senior Justice Department official, was
mentioned by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales, in a letter to White House Legal Counsel Harriet Miers
even before the firing of Kevin Ryan as U.S. Attorney in San Francisco.
Richard A. Serrano has the
story in the Los Angeles Times.
*KABC Talk Show Host Mark Levin of Los Angeles has been blasting
the Rev. Al Sharpton for his role in CBS's firing of syndicated talk show
host Don Imus. Martin Miller and John Horn shared the
story in the Los Angeles Times.
*U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey T. Miller's
ruling in a bribery case involving former Councilmembers Michael Zucchet
and Ralph Inzunza is being challenged by Zucchet's lawyers. They say
the judge made a mistake in his summary of Zucchet's past statements.
Kelly Thornton
reports in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
* In a controversial decision, federal prosecutors say they
intend to continue prosecuting Ed Rosenthal, the San Francisco area's
self-proclaimed guru of ganja, notwithstanding an appeals court decision.
Paul Elias of the Associated Press has
the story in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
*Mel Shapiro expresses alarm about the lack of oversight with
which Centre City Development Corporation is able to pass out
consulting projects for up to $25,000. Don Bauder reports
the story in
the San Diego Weekly Reader.
* Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), chairman of the Assembly's
Select Committee on Prison Construction and Operation, says reports are
wrong that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was attempting to hide news of the
construction of a new chamber where the death penalty can be administered by
lethal injection. The
story by Aaron C. Davis of the Associated Press is in The San Diego
Union-Tribune.
*Sports Agent Leigh Steinberg, after whom the Tom Cruse movie
Jerry Maguire was modeled, was arrested for drunken driving after
hitting three parked cars in Newport Beach. Garrett Therolf has the
story in the Los Angeles Times.
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