	San Diego Jewish World 'There's a Jewish story everywhere'

                              Today's Postings

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Movie poses question when a Jew should stay or leave a country"

Rabbi Baruch Lederman in San Diego: "Gentle art of Jewish persuasion."

Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal in San Diego: "Excellent occasions to daven mincha"

                                      Photo Stories

Gevatron in San Diego..... Photos from Eyal Dagan

All Together, Grandma .... License Plate Photos from Melanie Rubin

                              The week in Review
                           (click on dates to see back issues)

Thursday, October 11

Carol Davis in Costa Mesa, California: "Shipwrecked! An Entertainment lives up to description in its name"

Garry Fabian in Melbourne, Australia: "Amcor anti-Semitic slur angers community" ... "Hilaly still teaching in Lakemba" ... "New Zealand welcomes Israel's envoy"

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Local foundation funds research, counsels patients on fighting prostate cancer"

Joe Naiman in Arcadia, California: "Other actresses can have Broadway; Abrams prefers to work at the track"

Larry Zeiger in San Diego: "Hey, Jude chases Lucy in the sky with diamonds across the universe"

Wednesday, October 10

Judy Lash Balint in Jerusalem: "Creating facts on the ground in a new battle for Jerusalem"

Cynthia Citron in Los Angeles: "Begin legacy stirs memories as L.A. crowd marks 30th anniversary of Egypt-Israel peace process"

Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "Better editing would have benefited the memoir Hilda"

Tuesday, October 9

Aaron Demsky in Ramat Gan, Israel: "Biblical names, popular in America, fraught with meaning"

Charles Gadda in New York: "Is Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit biased toward the Christian narrative?"

Gail Feinstein Forman in San Diego: "A Farewell to Marcel Marceau"

Sherry Berlin in San Diego: "Children's book author and illustrator Lori Mitchell will attend Book Fair's Family Day

Carol Ghitman in San Diego: "Hillel sandwich' helped former Mexican Catholic realize she could become a Jew"

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Foxman's book will prove valuable for American and Mideast historians"

David Meir-Levi in San Jose, California: "Hate crime suspected in torching of succah at San Jose State"

Sunday, October 7

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Mision Trails reverie: Moses, Kumeyaay Indians, U.S. history."

Joe Naiman in Lakeside, California: "Youkilis played part in Red Sox ALDS sweep over L.A. Angels"

Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "California Ballet dances Giselle"

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in Mevasseret Zion, Israel: "Life is returning to normal in Israel as it is finally 'after the holidays.'

Saturday, October 6

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "'Bubbie and Zadie,' who live in Taiwan, actually speak Yiddish"

Natasha Josefowitz in La Jolla, California: "Thinning out the wardrobe closet."

Ira Sharkansky in Jerusalem: "Are Abbas-Olmert negotiations diplomatic window-dressing?"

Isaac Yetiv in La Jolla, California: "Warming the North African winter with Maimonides"

Archive of Previous Issues

Rabbi Baruch Lederman

Amazing tales of Judaism
Congregation Kehillas Torah, San Diego

D'var Tora: Noach

Gentle art of Jewish persuasion

SAN DIEGO—It is said that Hashem (G-d) commanded Noach to build an ark because He wanted people to have the opportunity to see what was going on and repent.

Noach's job was not just to build a boat, but to lead people back to the proper path. The Seforno (Gen. 6:8) teaches that Noach failed in this mission because he emphasized the negative when he spoke to them.
He proclaimed, "You are sinners. You are transgressors." To effectively influence them, he should have spoken about the positive - he should have taught them to know Hashem. When we are shown the beauty of Hashem, Torah, and Mitzvos amazing things happen as the following true story illustrates:

A Rabbi was speaking to a Jewish senior citizen group in the 1970s. He told them a story of a young man who was a talmid (student) in Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim in Radin, Eastern Europe. The boy was seen smoking a cigarette on Shabbos. This was a serious situation. The Yeshiva maintained an atmosphere of fastidious mitzvah observance. In addition to being a desecration of Shabbos, it posed a threat to the supreme mitzvah environment fostered within the Yeshivah. This act could have a damaging impact on the entireYeshivah and this boy could be an injurious influence on the entire student body.

Many on the faculty felt that the boy should be expelled for this breach. It was decided that he should see the head of the Yeshivah, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Hakohen Kagen ztz"l, who was known simply as the Chofetz Chaim. Nobody knows what was said at that meeting, but it is said that the boy never violated Shabbos again.

The Rabbi added, "Would that I could have been a fly on the wall and heard the wise words eruditely employed by the Chofetz Chaim to persuade this boy to keep Shabbos faithfully."

"I can only speculate what was said. Perhaps the Chofetz Chaim elucidated the sanctity and holiness of Shabbos. Perhaps he emphasized the importance of Shabbos. Perhaps he meticulously outlined the intricate laws of Sabbath observance. Oh how I wish I was there to hear how the Chofetz Chaim promoted Shabbos observance," said the Rabbi as he segued into a brilliant sermon plumbing the philosophical depths of Shabbos. The Rabbi continued to speak masterfully.

After the speech was over and the audience had left, the Rabbi noticed that one man remained seated. When the Rabbi approached, he saw that the old man was pale as a ghost. Before the Rabbi could say anything, the old man blurted out, "I know what the Chofetz Chaim said to the boy."

The Rabbi didn't take this too seriously. It had long been established that no one knew what transpired within the room - the Chofetz Chaim never told anyone. "How do you know what happened?" he asked patronizingly.

"I know because I was the boy in the story."

It was now the young Rabbi's turn to turn white.

The Rabbi begged him to elaborate and the old man related, "It happened over 50 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was frightened like anything to go into the Chofetz Chaim's office. He was already an old man and I was a youth. I was afraid I would receive a long lecture and a berating. What actually happened is something I never anticipated. The Chofetz Chaim held my hand in his, looked at me with fatherly eyes and said, 'Shabbos Heilegeh Shabbos.' (Sabbath, The Holy Sabbath). He just kept on repeating these words over and over, that's all he said, each time with more heartfelt and heartbreaking emotion.

"Then I saw a tear form in his eye. It rolled down his cheek, down his beard and descended upon my hand. That tear burned me as if it were on fire. I felt a shared sense of pain and astonishment. I suddenly perceived how important Shabbos is. I vowed to myself that I would always observe Shabbos completely and faithfully; and I always did, ever since."

The elderly man then caressed the hand that bore the invisible scar of that precious tear. It had become his permanent reminder, indeed his sign for the "Heilegeh Shabbos."

Dedicated by Margaret Schaffer in memory of her parents Howard & Margaret Johnson.

Torah on One Foot

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
Tifereth Israel Synagogue, San Diego

Excellent occasions to daven mincha

SAN DIEGO—When I looked at the calendar for tonight’s Shabbat candle lighting time I realized how much earlier the sun is setting than during the preceding weeks. This means that I will need to make sure that all of my Shabbat preparations are complete and leave the office several minutes earlier than last Friday.

The religious life of the Jew is guided by the rotation of the earth and its orbit around the sun. Not only Shabbat but all Jewish days begin at sunset. The morning Shema is to be recited during a specific window of time after sunrise and the evening Shema before sunset. Mincha, the afternoon service, also has a set time which varies according to the length of the sunlit day.

It was the custom of Rabbi Pinchas of Koritz to rise before sunrise so that he could daven the morning service just when the first rays of sunlight appeared. He believed that by davening so early he could say his prayers with the correct kavanah, intent, without the morning’s distractions. At such an early hour his heart and mind were pure.

I have a difficult time identifying with Rabbi Pinchas’ custom. While I can understand his intent, I do not wish to emulate his actions. It is well known among our daily minyanaires that I am not a morning person. This morning when one minyanaire said that he also does not function well in the morning another said that the Rabbi was a member of the same club. I replied that I am not only a member; I am its founding president!

I much prefer the custom of Rabbi Simcha of Pesicha. Rabbi Simcha waited several hours after waking before davening. He would begin to pray the morning service at the last possible moment.

When asked about his custom he replied: "When people wake up in the morning their bodies are stiff and do not function freely. Since one is supposed to worship God ‘with all one’s limbs’ I wait until my body and mind are awake enough to worship God properly."

Rabbi Simcha is a man after my own heart!

ALL TOGETHER, GRANDMA—Melanie Rubin, our Jewish license plate spotter-in-chief, saw two recently. Kadima 7, Hebrew for "all together 7" and Saavta, Hebrew for Grandma. Both are added to our online collection.

Gevatron wows them in San Diego

ISRAEL CELEBRATION—As part of the international celebrations of Israel's upcoming 60th anniversary, Gevatron, a touring singing group from Kibbutz Geva, performed Thursday evening, October 11, at Congregation Beth Am in San Diego. Selecting popular songs from throughout Israel's six decades of nationhood, the group literally had audience members dancing in the aisles.
Photos provided by Eyal Dagan, UJF Israel Center

____________________
The Jewish Citizen
by Donald H. Harrison

Movie poses question when a Jew should stay or leave a country

SAN DIEGO—Sometimes the head and the heart just don't see eye to eye. How else can one explain a person’s attachment to a land where his life is in constant danger because of hostility toward his religion.

How else can one explain why a person in the freedom of the United States might find himself longing for the familiar routines and customs in the land of his birth, however hostile to him it might have been?

These are some of the questions one can ponder when watching the straightforward documentary, The Last Jews of Libya, which relates the Jewish experience in that North African Arab country prior to most Jews emigrating either to Israel or to the United States.

The film by Vivienne Roumani-Denn has been making the rounds of festivals, and is scheduled to

be shown on the Sundance cable channel at 10 p.m., Monday, December 3.

Roumani-Denn utilized historic footage, family photographs, and interviews with members of her own Roumani family to assemble the portrait of a community that no longer exists in Libya.

Narrated by actress Isabella Rossellini, the 50-minute documentary noted that in the early 20th century, while Libya was still part of the Ottoman empire, approximately 25,000 Jews lived in the Mediterranean coastal cities of Tripoli and Benghazi.

While there were some cordial relations among Arab and Jewish families, Jews always felt like outsiders, sometimes tolerated, sometimes not. When Italy was able to detach Libya from the Ottoman Empire in 1911, Jews were generally supportive of the Italians, attracted to the modernization that European civilization might bring.

Arabs, on the other hand, initially resented and resisted the Italians.

But when the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini came to power, describing his movement to Libyans as one that would help to liberate Islam, perceptions switched. The wariness of the Jews toward Mussolini was validated when Il Duce forged an alliance with Adolf Hitler.

The British came in 1939, temporarily ousting the Axis power. But they in turn were routed by the Germans in 1941, whereupon mixed mobs of Italians and Arabs looted Jewish stores in a pogrom. Some Jews were sent to camps in Italy, and eventually to Bergen-Belsen under Nazi German auspices.

Members of the Roumani family were interred in camps in Tunisia. Many died as casualties of war before the Allies were able to wrest control of Libya from the Axis in 1944. As local control was reasserted, there were pogroms against the Jews in 1945, 1948, and 1949. The one in 1945 claimed the lives of 129 people.

Once Israel was established in 1948 there were numerous anti-Jewish rallies in Libya, making it clear to most of the remaining community members that emigration was essential. The pattern was repeated in Arab countries across Africa and in western Asia, from which a total of one million Jewish refugees fled.

But some merchant-class Jews, including members of the Roumani family, persisted. The 1950s saw the rise in neighboring Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who preached a doctrine that mixed pan-Arabism with virulent anti-Israel propaganda.

While the remaining Jews felt unwelcome in Libya, they drew hope from an increasing American presence in Libya. There was an American military base there along with American businesses, and a diplomatic delegation, all comparatively friendly to the Jews. As they previously allied themselves with the Italians, and later the British, now the Jews developed an emotional attachment to the Americans.

In the Roumani family, this was evidenced by two sons attending Brandeis University in the early 1960s, and the entire family’s subsequent immigration to the Boston area.

But in this story, after arriving in America, they did not live happily ever after. They found that as Sephardic Jews, they were considered outside the pale by many U.S. Jews, who were of Ashkenazic background. Though the name “Roumani” was a proud Jewish name in Libya, Ashkenazic Jews had difficulty believing it was Jewish.

On a return visit to Libya in 1963, an older member of the Roumani family chatted with Arab acquaintances. Yes, the acquaintance observed, in America they have progress, but they don’t have respect.

Then Israel defeated combined Arab armies in the Six Day 1967 war, and feelings against Jews ran so high in Libya that the remaining members of the Jewish community there had to be airlifted for safety to Italy. Roumani relatives were on that airlift.

When matriarch Elisa Roumani died in the United States, her body was flown to Israel for burial at the Mount of Olives. Visiting her grave, some family members decided that they too belonged in Israel, but while they were still alive to enjoy it. So some made aliyah.

Now the family, once so close in Libya, is divided between the two major poles of world Judaism—Israel and the United States.