San Diego Jewish World

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 Vol. 1, No. 179

         Friday evening,  October 26, 2007
 
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                               Today's Postings


Shoshana Bryen
in Washington D.C.: "After withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, should Israel risk West Bank departure?"

Donald H. Harrison
in San Diego: "As evacuation center, Qualcomm Stadium hosted all-around team."

Rabbi Baruch Lederman
and Ron Cruger in San Diego: "Slipping the key out of the lock—for what may be the final time"

Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal in San Diego: "
God was not in the fires, but in the 'still small voices' of responders"


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



Thursday, October 25

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "100+ Jewish homes lost in San Diego County fires; donations mounting"

Joe Naiman in Lakeside, California: "Youkilis,
2-5, three runs, two doubles in World Series debut"

 Ira Sharkansky in Jerusalem: "Myths and the making of policy."


Wednesday, October 24

Shoshana Bryen in Washington, D.C.: "Turks, Kurds, and the PKK"

Garry Fabian
in Melbourne, Australia: "Neo-Nazi concert too close for comfort... Jewish pilot off to Antarctica .... Bipartisan support for security funding... Carl Bernstein to tour Australia for JNF"

Donald H. Harrison
in San Diego: "
Seacrest Village seniors return after camping out at Beth Israel"

Lynne Thrope
in San Diego: "Restaurant community pitches in for victims of wildfires"



Tuesday, October 23

Shoshana Bryen in Washington: "Gates sees U.S. consensus on Iraq"

Donald H. Harrison
in San Diego: "
Acts of kindness, large and small, characterize response to fires"

J. Zel Lurie
in Delray Beach, Florida: "Watching the media and the media watchers"

Joe Naiman
in Lakeside, California: "Youkilis sets two LCS records,
ties mark for most LCS hits"

Ira Sharkansky
in Jerusalem: "Jewish American success stories"


Monday, October 22

Shoshana Bryen in Washington DC "Gates underscores threat of Iran and the jihadists in speech to JINSA"



                       



Donald H. Harrison
in San Diego: "
Jewish community rallies to help victims, as wildfires sweep San Diego County"

Ira Sharkansky
in Jerusalem: "
Abbas' response to plot on Olmert's life raises questions about Palestinian intentions"


Sunday, October 21, 2007

"Cynthia Citron
in Los Angeles: "Divorce, Jewish playwright style"

Donald H. Harrison
in San Diego: "
Partying at the Air & Space Museum for Seacrest Village Retirement Communities"

Joe Naiman
in San Diego: "
Horseracing debuts as Hall of Champions' featured sport"

Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "
Yiddish still alive, tickling"



Saturday, October 20

Shoshana Bryen in Washington DC: "Glad he spoke, but JINSA doesn't agree with all that Gates had to say"

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego:
Comedian ponders relations between U.S. Jews, Christians"

Ira Sharkansky in Jerusalem: "He thinks he shall never see a peace conference as lovely as a tree"

Eileen Wingard in San Diego: "A golden baton winner looks back on TICO's endorphin-filled season"

Larry Zeiger in San Diego: "Book of David grows tiresome with its extended biblical metaphor."



 




Archive of Previous Issues
 

Rabbi Baruch Lederman

Amazing tales of Judaism
   
Congregation Kehillas Torah, San Diego

D'var Torah: Vayeira

Slipping the key out of the lock—
for what may be the final time


SAN DIEGO—Dear Readers: Allow me to thank all of the many many people from around the world that called and emailed us during the San Diego fires to express their concern for our well being and to offer help. Many of our congregants were evacuated, and at the time of this mailing, most have been allowed to reenter their homes. We spent much of our time and effort during the crisis, helping and comforting these families.  Happily for us, our home and our shul were not in the evacuation zone although it was quite close. We could see the flames and smoke from our house. Nonetheless our location was safe and our house became a shelter for evacuees from the Rancho Bernardo area. We are happy to be alive and healthy and able to resume our normal lives. We were touched by the outpouring of help and concern from our fellow Jews around the world. Sincerely,  Rabbi Baruch Lederman


Avraham was subjected to test after test, trial after tribulation. In all, G-d gave Avraham ten major tests of faith. Each time, Avraham passed with flying colors. It is difficult to know how we will feel and react to a given situation until we are in it, particularly a stressful one, as the following account, written by San Diego resident Ron Cruger, illustrates:

By Ron Cruger

SAN DIEGO—I took the key from my pocket and placed it into the front door lock. I heard the click of the lock and returned the key to my pocket.  This time it wasn't a thoughtless, automatic reaction. This time I realized that I might never take the key from my pocket and open or close that familiar front door again.

The fire was approaching our neighborhood and we had to evacuate our home.

The San Diego Wildfire was no longer a show, an interesting reality program on television; it was a monster, an aggressor, an enemy threatening our home. We had been ordered
to leave. We could smell the smoke, the sky darkened, the sun's rays being shadowed by ash and fumes.

This time when I took the key and locked the front door I stood there with my wife for a quiet moment. Our thoughts were the same. The fears, the doubts, the questions transmitted
from one to the other.

We had spent the past 30-minutes quickly stacking framed family photographs and photo albums into shopping bags. We were doing our best to preserve our families' history.
Check books, phone books insurance policies, birth certificates, death certificates were loaded into bags. A single change of clothing, the bare minimum. Time was running out.

Turning the key in the door lock for perhaps the last time became a ceremony; a realization that our lives are precious as are our homes. We take both for granted; we will be alive
and healthy forever and our homes will always be there; awaiting the entrance of our key in the front door lock. Or will they?

Removing the key from the door lock had become an emotional milepost making us realize that this simple act done a thousand times was now significant. Our home. Our home.

Would they still be there tomorrow - the walls that protect us, the windows that we see from, the kitchen table where we eat our meals and read our newspaper. The couch where we
rest and relax, the beds that offer us sleep. Will we return to them the way they are now?

We started to walk towards the loaded car. This vehicle that now contains our most important objects. Oddly, we both stopped halfway to the car and turned towards our home. All
that we both offered was a small, honest grin of understanding.

We walked back to the front door and for perhaps the last time I took the key from my pocket and slid it into the door lock. I pushed the door open and we entered our home.

For what could be the last time we looked at the kitchen, our dining room, the living room, each bedroom, even the bathrooms. We took metaphysical photographs of all the sights
our eyes could gather. Our memories had become our family photo albums.

Once again we left our home. We drove the car away from our home and our neighborhood. We didn't look back.

We were gone two days, miles away from our home. Two days had passed without any indication of whether our home had been reduced to ashes or remained upright as in our
mental albums. Our home.

At last, we heard that it was permissible to drive the roads leading to our home. Smoke and soot painted the skies as we quietly drove home. There was little to say when we saw
our home erect and healthy. The feelings were beyond joy. Beyond relief.

We sat in the car for a moment enjoying our walls, our windows, our roof. They'll never again be taken for granted. We walked up the walk to the front door and I removed my key and slid it into the front door lock. It seemed to work much easier this time.

Dedicated by the Ariel Werba to the San Diego fire victims.
 



____________________
The Jewish Citizen
             
by Donald H. Harrison
 


Qualcomm Stadium from San Diego Trolley Platform (file shot)

As evacuation center, Qualcomm Stadium hosted all-around team

SAN DIEGO—For many thousands of San Diegans, Qualcomm Stadium will no longer be simply the home of the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League, nor the former home of the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball.

It will be long remembered as the place where families who had to evacuate from the 2007 San Diego wild fires experienced the comfort of knowing that people care for each other in time of need.

The stadium's status as an emergency shelter ended at noon today after most people in metropolitan San Diego County were permitted to return to their homes—although the wildfires continued to play havoc in more remote areas of the county.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff put his finger on some of what made the Qualcomm experience special when he spoke today in Washington D.C. to the International Association of Fire Chiefs:

"
At various times, evacuation orders went out to literally hundreds of thousands of people, a lot of it through the reverse 911 system, which is a significant improvement that California has made since the 2003 Cedar fire," Chertoff said, according to a transcript made available to news media.

"And with all that, it was possible for the authorities to stand up shelters that accommodated I think at one point over 20,000 people, including over 10,000 at Qualcomm Stadium.

"We worked with state and locals, with the military to make sure we had cots. Generous donations of food and water of all kinds literally filled the stadium. I remember I was struck there was kosher food for people who wanted kosher food," added the Cabinet officer, who himself is Jewish.  

"They were giving massages out. I’m sure totally legitimate... On the third floor of the stadium. I think they were doing acupuncture. There were bands playing. Obviously, nothing can make up for the anxiety and stress that people feel when they’re worried about whether their houses and their possessions are going to be there when they get back, and we understand that. But I think good planning and good coordination try to ease the stress as much as possible for people in the Qualcomm Center. And I’m delighted that we were able to do that.
"

Alan and Laurie Rathsam spent all day Monday, October 22, and half of Tuesday, October 23, at the stadium where they parked two cars side by side.  They slept across the front and back seats of one; their 85-pound mixed Great Dane/ Labrador "Argo" slept in the other. 
 


EVACUEES—Alan Rathsam eats a meal among the cars of evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium and below, Argo, camps out.  Laurie Rathsam photos

Laurie Rathsam helps to tutor bar/ bat mitzvah students at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway and she and Alan, who  retired after 35 years as a civilian engineer from the U.S. Navy, have a wide circle of social acquaintances.  But in the confusion of the evacuation, they didn't think about which friends might have rooms where they could stay; they simply headed for safety.

"The biggest surprise for me, was that normally they say in a disaster you should leave with three days of provisions, and then to arrive in a place where so many of our needs were anticipated and available, it was quite a pleasant surprise," said Alan Rathsam.  "It certainly exceeded people's expectations."

At one point, "they had so much food, they couldn't handle it all," he added.  "Restaurants sent in high quality food; there were salads and pizza.  There were people in the parking lot handing food out—'Do you want pizza? Can you use water? Muffins?'—it was like a giant cocktail party."

On Monday evening, he said, "people were given camping equipment, pillows, blankets and tents.  I saw one truckload of animal cages; there was pet food that people were donating.  People certainly were willing to share—although sometimes, unfortunately, not everything they brought were things that people needed," he said.

"One troubling thing that did develop: some people abused the generosity.  You formed a line for pillows and blankets, and people would thrust them at you: brand new blankets, still in the wrapper.  If you took one, it came in handy, but some people took more than they could use, taking advantage of the generosity."

Although the Rathsams slept in their cars—"eventually you find a position in which you can make yourself comfortable"—they went into the stadium to use the restroom facilities instead of the port-a-potties that had been set up in the parking lot.

"Having flush toilets was more comfortable," he explained. In the restroom that he used, "someone had put up a cardboard sign which said, 'Hey, this isn't a Chargers' game; clean up after your messes.' And there was no litter at all."

Television coverage of the fires was shown throughout the stadium, helping evacuees monitor the fates of their neighborhoods, Rathsam noted.  Another convenience was the fact that one telephone company permitted evacuees to make free long distance calls.  "My sense of it was that it was a little unfair: we didn't know if we had lost our homes, yet people were treating us as if we had."

As it turned out, the Rathsams' home in the Rancho Bernardo area of San Diego survived the fires; although  ash  fell all over their property, there was no permanent damage.

On Tuesday, the Rathsams moved from Qualcomm—as pleasant as it was—to the home of a friend who lives in El Cajon.  On Wednesday, they returned to their own home.

Reflecting today on the Qualcomm experience, Rathsam described it as a place that "allowed people to collect their thoughts and come to grips with their situations." Furthermore it enabled people to feel well cared for and safe amid the patrols by numerous police officers and National Guards troops.

It was even a place where the Rathsams who are animal lovers could admire other people's pets.  "We saw a parrot, caged parakeets, numerous dogs.  Cats weren't given as much free rein.  We even saw someone with a rabbit on a leash."
 

 

Torah on One Foot

By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
 Tifereth Israel Synagogue, San Diego

 

God was not in the fires, but in the 'still small voices' of responders

SA
N DIEGO—In reflecting on the fires of this past week the prophet Elijah came to mind. I spoke about Elijah during my Yom Kippur sermon about Hurricane Katrina two years ago. What I said about the devastation wrought by Katrina applies to California’s files as well:

"After Elijah had defeated and put to death the prophets of the pagan god, Baal, he fled for his life from the wrath of their patroness, Queen Jezebel. He hid in a cave at Horeb, another name for Mt. Sinai, and prayed to God for protection.

"The Bible records: ‘And lo, the LORD passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind–an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake–fire; but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire–kol demama dakah-a still small voice.’ (I Kings 19:11-12)

"Elijah was looking for God, but he did not find him in the natural phenomena surrounding him, the wind, earthquake, or fire. Elijah found God in the still small voice which spoke to his heart.

"Natural disasters are a challenge to faith. Where was God in the hurricane? Why did God allow this to happen? Why didn’t God intervene?..

"Just as Elijah, I do not find God in wind, earthquakes or fire. I find God in the still small voice that speaks inside of us, urging us to do the right thing, to reach out, and to help. I find God in the work of those who took their own boats to comb the flooded streets of New Orleans for survivors. I find God in the work of doctors and nurses who stayed behind to care for sick patients. I find God in the noble deeds of thousands of volunteers who put their own lives on hold to travel to the Gulf Coast and help. I find God in those who donated goods, housing, or money to the rescue effort, in those who are working to return the survivors to their homes or resettle them new ones, and in those who are trying to reestablish normalcy in their lives."

As I write, the fires are still raging and endangering lives and properties. Although most people have been allowed to return to their homes over 1,000 people have no home to which to return. Their houses and possessions have been destroyed by the fires. To my knowledge, no member of Tifereth Israel has lost his or her home, but we share in the suffering of all who did.

If there is any brightness to be found in the midst of the darkness it is from the response of the firefighters and law enforcement officers who risk their lives fighting the fires, and protecting people and property, and the response of so many Diegans who volunteered and contributed to help those who were affected.

We have sent out several emails with information regarding relief efforts and where your monetary donations can be sent. (Jewish Disaster Relief Fund, c/o Jewish Community Foundation, 4950 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92123).  Beth Klareich is coordinating our collecting of food, clothing, and other items to distribute to Jewish Family service and other relief agencies, as well as directly to families who have been affected. We will continue to collect your donations at least through the end of next week.

As Jews we have an obligation to be witnesses to God’s goodness and kindness. We do this best by demonstrating through our deeds that God loves and cares for all human beings who are in pain and distress.

 

 



 

After withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, should Israel risk West Bank departure?

By Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—As the date for the presumed U.S.-sponsored Middle East "peace conference" draws closer, a comment by Secretary of State Rice caught our attention. She was returning from a sweep of the region, and told a reporter on the plane:

I really did spend a lot of time on the confidence-building measures and the phase one obligations. I spent a lot of time on security issues, not on-the-ground today security issues, but how would you envision the security of two states living side by side, because they're going to have to come up with a security concept between them. It's one of the problems that we're dealing with, frankly, in the Israeli population. And I heard it not just from the Israeli officials but from a broad range of Israelis. They had the withdrawal from Lebanon and it brought instability in Lebanon. They had the withdrawal from the Gaza, and look what happened in Gaza.

If, in fact, they're going to be asked to withdraw from the West Bank at some point, what does that mean for the security of Israel? That's a fair question. It really is. And so one of the things that I take back is that we are going to need to spend a lot of time thinking about how this state, if we are fortunate enough to be able to bring it into being, how it is going to relate to the security of its neighbor and vice versa.

Yes, Madame Secretary, it is a fair question. And it begs another: President Bush said in his seminal speech on the two-state solution, "when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, [the U.S.] will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional." How can you, as the representative of the President, move toward the creation of an independent Palestine, and ask Israel to accept that movement, in the absence of any of the President's required changes in Palestinian attitudes, institutions, leaders and behaviors?

* *
Remembering Norman Hascoe

It is with great sadness that the Officers and the Board of Directors of JINSA inform the membership of the passing of our president, Norman Hascoe. Norman had been battling serious illness for a very long time, using the same strength and resolve with which he tackled all of life's obstacles. Norman was a force to be reckoned with and even death knew it. We were a little bit surprised that he didn't cheat death one more time.

Norman, during his life, did not seek honors. In fact, he shied away from them and from publicity, though he never dodged

responsibility. And honor was his. He preferred to  "do good" from behind the scenes, and he "did good" extraordinarily well. Most his work on behalf of mankind, whether in the arts, medicine or national security was done silently and passionately. His presidency of JINSA was one of the few occasions on which he stepped in front of the curtain. We were, and we are, honored by that. And those of us who worked with him and loved him will miss him.

We join with his family in mourning a very serious loss not only on a personal level, but also for the community, our country and the world.

Bryen is director of special projects for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
 

 







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