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

                              Today's Postings

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Prayers amid the rubble and the ash."

Sandy Levin, Ph.D in La Jolla, California: "Women, listen to your hearts"

F. Jay Winheld in San Diego: "A century of Jewish cooking—an anthology of the good and the bad"

Larry Zeiger in San Diego: "Jersey Boys: Flashback to an era when anything seemed possible."

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

Friday, October 26
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"

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"

____________________

The Jewish Citizen
by Donald H. Harrison

Prayers amid rubble and the ash

POWAY, California—In one of the areas most devastated by the San Diego County wildfires, congregants of Temple Adat Shalom at Friday evening services consoled each other on the week of trauma they had passed through, offering special condolences to those among their membership who had lost their homes.

The Reform congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Tamar Malino, told of evacuating her home in the middle of the night with her life partner, Rabbi Elizabeth Goldstein, and their children, Aviel and Coby, and a dog and cat. They traveled first to coastal Del Mar and then to La Jolla while firefighters battled blazes in this inland city of Poway and the neighboring Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego.

Using the medium of poetry, to reach for insight perhaps unavailable in prose, Rabbi Malino continued:

“I thought very much of many previous generations of Jews:
Jews who left Egypt with their possessions on their backs and wandered in the desert,
Jews who were forced into exile from the land of Israel,
first by the Babylonians, and then later by the Romans,
many of their homes destroyed in sieges by fire,
Jews forced to leave Spain in the Middle Ages,
And Jews in America working as itinerant peddlers
with little to call their own.
We experienced an exile,
albeit a brief one for most of us,
and a permanent one for some of us.
The experiences and emotions of exile are so complicated—
if you are like me,
your week included moments of frenzied action,
and moments of forced inaction,
moments of panic and moments of calm,
great fear and great relief,
and anger and grief,
and even though the fires have died down,
a lingering feeling of insecurity.
Some of us will be able to return to our routines
in the coming days,
or have already returned to them,
and others of us will not return
to our previous lives for many weeks to come.
Generations of our people have taught us to persevere,
To find strength even when we thought we had none,
To be grateful for every single thing that we do have.
To know that even in exile,
even without our most prized possessions,
we have not lost who we are,
and we have not lost each other.

The congregation distributed a special pamphlet for that evening’s erev Shabbat services including prayers of consolation by Rabbi Paul Kipnes and Rabbi Zoe Klein for times such as these, as wel as a special prayer for firefighters whose battles against the flames prevented the wildfires from claiming even more homes and structures.

Klein’s prayer, “Take Our Burnt Offerings, Oh God,” concludes with the following three stanzas. Lines in regular print were read by te rabbi, those in italics by the congregation.

Dear God, remember Daniel,
Who walked out of the furnace alive.
Dear God, remember Moses,
Who saw the burning bush and survived
Dear God, remember Israel,
Who stood at the foot of the mountain while it was aflame
Dear God, remember us,
Who beg in your mercy to be saved.

Take our burnt offerings, oh God
Our heated fury at our loss.
Our searing terror and scorching devastation
Our smoldering fear and charred possessions,
Our fevered anguish and smoking grief,
Our fuming remorse and explosive laments

Take our burnt offerings, oh God,
And fan in us a scintilla of gratitude, for family and life,
Take our burnt offerings, oh God
And kindle in us instead an ember of love
Take this burnt offering, Oh God,
And spark in us the strength and the will to rebuild
Then we shall feast before the Lord our God, happy
We shall feast before God and be happy.

The last three stanzas of Rabbi Kipnes’ prayer, read in unison, included a call for action:

Be with us now, these smoke and fire-filled days.
Draw us close to those harmed by these flames, hearing their cry, responding to their needs.
Lead us to support those who fight the fires, who cared for the displaced, who bring healing to those suffering.
Though our attention spans seem so short, may we be slow to forget those who were in danger.

And may we embrace at least one lesson spoken aloud by so many who—facing the flames—rushed to pack up their valuables:
That memories of love and of time spent with family and friends are priceless, holy and sacred.
This can never be taken away.
As we rush to meet the challenge of living in this imperfect world of ours,
May we slow down enough to cherish those who are truly valuabe—kadosh/holy—to us.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Hamavdil bein kodesh l’chol
Blessed are You, O God, who differentiates between the truly valuable and everything else.

Mindful that while the incineration of their neighborhood had past, flames were still being battled in more remote portions of the county, the congregation also prayed for the firefighters’ welfare:

“May the One who blessed our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and our mothers Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, bless those fighting fires on our behalf. May God guard them, and keep them from all harm. When they find themselves in danger’s path, may God protect them so they return in safety to all those who love them. May it be Your will, Adonai, to lead them to safety and to protect them from all perils and hazards they encounter. May God make their efforts successful, and guard their going out and coming in with mercy and love, and let them be blessed to return home with life and peace, now and forever. And let us say: Amen.”

First Person
Jewish community members tell their stories

Women, listen to your hearts

By Sandy Levin, Ph.D.

LA JOLLA, California—Heart disease is the number-one killer of women; and one in four women will develop heart disease in their lifetime. I knew the statistics, yet thought it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen to me. I got annual checkups. My cholesterol was normal and my blood pressure was low. I ate healthy foods and exercised. I was not overweight. I didn’t smoke or drink alcohol. Yet last year, at age 54, I had a heart attack. I didn’t know I had a family history of heart disease. I didn’t know that women have different symptoms than men when having a heart attack. And, I didn’t know the more subtle risk factors for heart disease, like chronic stress, anxiety, suppressed anger, depression, and menopause. I want all women to know these facts.

Sandy Levin

Let me tell you my story. On that fateful July day, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. with extreme burning in my throat, like I have never felt before. I felt it from my breast bone to the top of my throat. I touched the area with the tip of my tongue and felt the heat. I’ve had heartburn before, though never so

severe. I got out of bed and took a Pepcid Complete. For the next half-hour, the burning continued. My right arm began to tingle, then became numb. I woke my husband and insisted that we go to Urgent Care. Neither of us suspected a heart problem, but I took two aspirin just in case. Ten minutes later, we arrived at Urgent Care and I could barely walk. My husband wrapped his arm around me and helped me into the waiting room where I was seen immediately.

I was lucky. I didn’t call 9-1-1, but I got to the hospital in time. Though the cardiologist on call told me I was too young and healthy to be having a heart attack, the staff gave me an EKG, tested my blood enzyme levels, and performed an angiogram to check for blockages in my coronary arteries. I later learned that my coronary arteries weren’t blocked with plaque or from a blood clot, but instead went into spasm because of chronic stress. Three days later, I left the hospital with a prescription and follow up appointment with the cardiologist. Only then did I realize that myocardial infarction was doctor speak for heart attack.

Despite the good medical care, I didn’t leave my health in the hands of the professionals. I took charge of my own health and six weeks later, I enrolled in the Healing Hearts Program
at Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in La Jolla. I underwent twelve weeks of monitored exercise, attended lectures that educated me about my heart and lifestyle. I learned to meditate, and deepened my yoga practice to reduce my stress. I revised my eating habits and began cooking healthy tofu and vegetarian recipes. I participated in music therapy classes to regulate my blood pressure. And, I dug deep into myself and found the underlying causes of my stress through group support and spirituality classes. Those twelve weeks were emotional and wonderful, but only the beginning of my journey. I then had to take the new habits I’d developed and carry them into my daily life. The changes happened gradually. I got my stress under control. I still have a lot of stress in my life. I still take care of a mother with Alzheimer’s Disease and have other family obligations. But now, thanks to Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine and my daily yoga practice, I have a variety of tools available to me to live a happier, healthier life.

I recently attended a four-day Science & Leadership Symposium co-hosted by WomenHeart and Mayo Clinic. I’ve become a spokeswoman for WomenHeart, the nation’s only patient advocacy organization serving 8,000,000 American women living with heart disease. The organization’s message is simple: Detect heart disease early, make sure you receive an accurate diagnosis, and insist on proper treatment.

The best way to avoid heart disease is to live a healthy lifestyle. If you smoke, stop. If you are overweight or obese, lose weight. If you are inactive, put on your walking shoes and start exercising. If you are under a lot of stress, learn ways to manage it through meditation, yoga or tai chi. Follow a diet with low-fat proteins, fruits and vegetables. Control your blood pressure, cholesterol and depression with medication.

Know your risk factors so that heart disease can be detected early. Risk factors for heart disease in women include:

• ● Smoking

• ● High cholesterol

• ● Diabetes

• ● Physical inactivity

• ● Stress

• ● Hypertension

• ● Obesity

• ● Family history

• ● Age

• ● High fat diet

• ● Menopause

Get regular checkups and know your numbers. Heart healthy goals for women are:

• ● LDL cholesterol less than or equal to 100 mg/dL

• ● HDL cholesterol greater than or equal to 50 mg/dL

• ● Triglycerides less than 150 mg/dL

• ● Blood pressure less than 120/80 mm Hg

• ● Fasting blood sugar less than 100 mg/dL

And when you do see a doctor, make sure you get an accurate diagnosis, and insist on proper treatment.

Many women do not exhibit the same symptoms as men, so learn the warning signs of a heart attack in women.

● Severe heartburn, discomfort, fullness, tightness, squeezing or pressure in center of chest that stays for more than a few minutes or comes and goes.

• ● Pressure or pain that spreads to upper back, shoulders, neck, jaw, or arms.

• ● Dizziness or nausea.

• ● Clammy sweats, heart flutters, or paleness.

• ● Unexplained feelings of anxiety, fatigue, or weakness – especially with exertion.

• ● Stomach or abdominal pain.

• ● Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.

If you think you are having a heart attack, take immediate action:

• ● Call 9-1-1 and tell the operator you are having heart attack symptoms and require an emergency response.

• ● Chew and swallow with water one regular full-strength aspirin as soon as possible to prevent blood clotting.

• ● Tell the emergency response team that you are having heart attack symptoms. When you arrive at the hospital, insist that the staff take your complaints seriously, that you are not made to wait, and that you are given a thorough cardiac evaluation including an electrocardiogram (EKG) or an echocardiogram, and a blood test to check your cardiac enzymes.

Go to http://womenheart.org for more information about women and heart disease.

In addition to her role as a spokeperson for WomenHeart, Sandy Levin creates stained glass windows, teaches yoga, and blogs about living with heart disease. You can check out her blog and website at http://sandylevin.comIf you would like her to speak to your women’s group or organization, you can contact her at (858) 692-4728 or by email sandylevin@sandylevin.com.

People of the Books

A century of Jewish cooking—an anthology of the good and the bad

Cooking Jewish: 556 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family; A Cookbook by Judy Bart Kancigor; Workman Publishing, September 2007

Reviewed by F. Jay Winheld

SAN DIEGO—In this compilation of “Jewish” recipes from her extended mishpucha, Judy Bart Kancigor, food columnist for the Orange County Register, presents to us over 100 years of Jewish cooking, from the shtetl to Southern California. She easily combines Yiddishkeit lore with her extended family’s history dating back to Lithuania in the 1880’s.

For the schedule for this and other Jewish Book Fair speakers, please click on the logo

Because her family’s journey paralleled that of my grandparents and parents, I found the introduction to the book to be the most fascinating. Her description of her mother and grandmother’s cooking techniques were the same I learned: “a glass flour,” ”beat the eggs good,” “ if too sweet, next time add less sugar,” “ cook until done.” She gives the following information for quantities: “shitterein (Yiddish): v. to add an unspecified amount adj. describing one who cooks from experience and touch without recipes or measuring.”

I also came to realize from this cookbook why all the men in my family had early demises: the foods that our grandmothers (and mothers) prepared were high

in animal fat, sugar, salt, and all those other ingredients that would make a dietician blanch. Yes, there are even instructions for gribinas (rendered chicken fat). Therein lays the inconsistencies in this book. In one recipe we are instructed to use low salt beef broth (from a can), and use two teaspoons of salt. In another, more modern recipe, we make chicken tortilla soup. My bubbes never even heard of a tortilla, let alone make soup of it. There is a recipe for a bundt cake using 1 box of yellow cake mix, 1 box instant pudding mix. These long deceased relatives would turn over in their graves.

There are two recipes here for chicken soup. I dutifully followed one of the recipes, buying ingredients that were probably unattainable pre World War II when my grandmother was cooking. Also, the amount of preparation time seemed to be extraordinary. While the end result was quite delicious, my

personal preference is a much simpler recipe handed down from my mother. The author also talks about kneidlach, and one’s preference for either “sinkers” or “floaters” (heavy or light). Unfortunately, she doesn’t tell us the secret to make either kind.

I really have mixed feelings about this cookbook: the history, the lore, the background are fascinating. Some of the recipes are very good, some need some adapting for current dietary guidelines. The author is blessed with many of her extended family who contributed to this opus.

Judy Bart Kancigor will appear at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center.

Larry Zeiger

Critic at large

Jersey Boys: Flashback to an era when anything seemed possible

SAN DIEGO—When I was 21, still in college, I received a phone call from Cleveland Heights from my friend, Bruce Flack. Bruce who was an accomplished pianist and one of the funniest people I knew, had gotten a gig at Faragher’s Back Room in Cleveland. He was going to perform standup comedy and wanted me to be the straight man and accompany him on the piano. He told me that this was where the Smothers Brothers once performed, and that if they could become a great success, so could we!

So we rehearsed a good portion of the summer and were scheduled for a three week run (weekends only). The first weekend was packed with all our former high school friends and relatives. We were a hit! The second weekend, we had leftover friends and a stray relative here and there. The performances were okay, nothing too great. And the last weekend, we performed to only a few drunks in the bar who found nothing we did the least bit amusing. I decided that I was not going to ever perform again, but Bruce continued his pursuit of theater/television and wound up being one of the top producers of TV comedy on the west coast.

Jersey Boys directed by Des McAnuff, currently showing at the Civic Theatre, brought back these memories of my friend and me thinking we would be the next Smothers Brothers or even form a singing group (I could never sing) and follow in the footsteps of some of the great do-op groups that were coming out of Cleveland and of course, “Joysey.” I mean Jersey, like the Four Seasons.

This was the fourth time seeing this wonderful show which I saw three times at its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse. I was very curious to see what changes, if any, had been done to the script, staging, and performances. The production is still as thrilling as ever. It appears that Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice have expanded the first act with more details about how these talented singer met. I always felt that this part was a bit rushed (and it still is) until we get to the Four Seasons first major hit, “Sherry.” The brilliant voices filled the theater and the audience responded with tumultuous applause.

From this point on, the show proceeds with a drive and a mission to entertain with some of the best musical talent and songs which bring back memories for many of the audience as well as introducing terrific music and vocals to a new generation of listeners.

So much goes on in the lives of these characters – their rise to fame, family breakups, trouble with the law, gambling, and even the tragic death of Frankie Valli’s daughter that at times it is difficult to take in all that is transpiring. The death of Valli’s daughter is a particularly poignant moment of the musical and he tells us that she had a “voice of an angel” but we are only introduced to her briefly and we never hear her sing. The narrative at times may be somewhat choppy but through the introspective monologues of the Four Seasons, we have an understanding of what makes them tick and how these guys who were not from the best part of town could come together and through hard work, dedication and a huge dose of talent create a body of pop music that defines a generation.

The cast is excellent and vocals are superb. Christopher Kale Jones as Frankie Valli all but steals the show with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Thunderous applause momentarily stopped the show after his rendition of one of the great song hits of the sixties. Jones’ falsetto just about matches the real Frankie Valli, and he has all the right moves to convey the energy and excitement of the young performer. Steve Gouveia as Nick Massi, Deven May as Tommy DeVito, and Ehrich Bergen as talented songwriter for the Seasons, Bob Gaudio, are all superb. While the Seasons all have completely different personalities, it is the music and intricate harmonies which bring them together.

The crowd literally goes wild with songs like “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Oh What a Night,” “Stay,” and “Who Loves You.” There is a dynamic pace once the Seasons come together with their first major hit, “Sherry,” and nothing can stop them. The ending is poignant as they all go their separate ways, but the music lives on.

Scenic Designs by Klara Zieglerova and Projection Design by Michael Clark are clever with multimedia graphics and video projected on multiple screens. Lighting Design by Howell Binkley is also superb. Sound was good for the Civic but there were a few lines which were hard to hear, a common problem in this huge theater. The show did feel more personal and intimate when it was previously performed at the La Jolla Playhouse; however, the overall design at the Civic is more lavish.

This is a terrific show that I predict will be one of the longest running musicals in Broadway’s history. It’s one you can see repeatedly and never tire of the terrific music and performances. Judging by the huge standing ovation at the end of the performance, Jersey Boys are here to stay for a very long time!

Jersey Boys continues at the Civic Theatre through November 11.