Please click on the ad above to visit the United Jewish Federation website and learn how UJF helps Jews at home, in Israel and all over the world.

Emergency campaign to rescue the Jews of Georgia

Dear Community Member,

Your gift to the United Jewish Federation’s Annual Campaign supports a global infrastructure that enables our overseas partners to respond immediately anytime and anywhere there are Jews or Jewish Communities in need. Since last week, with the escalation of fighting in the South Ossetia region of Georgia, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) have initiated an extensive and immediate operation in Israel and Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to provide all necessary assistance to the Georgian Jewish community, and especially to the tiny Jewish community of some 250 - 300 Jews in the city of Gori, which is adjacent to the battle zone.  

The United Jewish Federation of San Diego County has long been a supporter of JAFI and JDC’s efforts in the republics of the former Soviet Union, including Georgia (site of the Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission just a few short years ago). Please visit our website to learn what our overseas partners (JAFI and JDC) are doing to assist those in critical need during this latest crisis, and how you can help today!

Sincerely,

Michael S. Rassler
Chief Executive Officer, United Jewish Federation of San Diego County

THE VIEW FROM JINSA

Europe, dependent on Russian oil, unwilling to intervene in Georgia war

By Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Expelling Russia from the G-8 and suspending new partnership talks between the EU and Russia, along with support for Georgia in whatever political settlement is fashioned after the shooting stops were our first thoughts, and our second. President Bush called on Russia to "reverse the course that it appears to be on as a first step toward resolving this conflict."

What? No military option?

Viscerally satisfying as it would be to suggest sending in the Marines and Special Forces to help the Georgians in their quest to expel the Russians, it isn't a viable option. Even having the US Air Force fly a "no-go zone" above Georgia is unrealistic.

The United States - for all that we are called "cowboys" and denounced for "going it alone" - cannot and does not operate abroad without support from countries in the region. Saudi Arabia was our staging ground for the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Kuwait is our staging ground for operations in Iraq now. CENTCOM operates out of Qatar. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkey are essential partners in the region.

In Europe, of course, we have NATO. And NATO was, in fact, designed to counter Soviet aggression - Russian aggression is its successor. Except that Georgia is not a NATO country and it isn't at all clear that the Europeans can or want to be party to a war with Russia. Russia currently controls 25% of the oil imported by European countries and an even higher percentage of imported natural gas. It is August now, but it will be December soon. Russia's ability to cut off supplies changes the equation for them as a Saudi cutoff would for us.

It is ironic that with the primary countries of Europe governed by basically pro-American and fairly conservative leaders - Italy, France, Germany and Britain - the mortgaging of Europe's energy policy to Russia has made the Atlantic alliance impotent in the face of Russian subversion of Georgia. Aside from the obvious tragedy for Georgia and the growing threat to Ukraine, the revelation of the political implications of European dependence on Russia bodes ill for other areas struggling to democratize under threat. Even the Baltic States must be shuddering as Russia widens its sphere of influence.
It is also a serious impediment to America's ability to protect and defend friends abroad.

We have gone more than the extra mile and paid in blood to build an Iraq that can stand as a stable, modern and moderate Arab country in the very heart of the Arab world. Jordan's King Abdullah visited Baghdad yesterday for meetings with Prime Minister al Maliki. He announced the return of a Jordanian Ambassador to Baghdad and called on other Arab states to reinstate full relations with Iraq. Bravo.

But just as we prove we can stay the course and watch the tide turn in our favor in Iraq, the Georgian debacle is a reminder of our limitations if our friends can't or won't defend their own region.

Bryen is special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)

Please click on the above ad to learn about the many programs of the San Diego Community
College District




Please click on the advertisement above to visit the website of Soille San Diego Hebrew
Day School



Please click on the ad above to visit the Storm website






Please click on the ad above to visit the website of the Lawrence Family JCC



HAPPY SECURITY TEAM—With the JCC Maccabi Games having reached a successful conclusion, a light moment is shared at the Anti-Defamation League offices in San Diego by Phil Ginsburg, left, the JCC Maccabi Games security chief whose volunteer services were loaned to the games by the ADL; Heather Frank, ADL assistant director and Morris Casuto, ADL Regional Director

2008 JCC MACCABI GAMES


This security chief did so well, you haven't heard of him or his team

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—If you haven’t heard or read Phil Ginsburg’s name up to now in association with the recently held JCC Maccabi Games, it is because he and his volunteers did a wonderful job keeping safe every one of the venues at which some 1,600 Jewish athletes, aged 12 to 16, competed in a variety of sports. 

Had there been any untoward incidents—any attack against the young Jews or the institutions where they competed—everyone would have become familiar with his name via media outlets.  Ginsburg served as the volunteer security chairman of the JCC Maccabi Games, on special loan from the Anti-Defamation League.

Ginsburg is an attorney who has become a specialist as a volunteer in providing security for Jewish institutions since shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  At that point, as a member of Congregation Beth Israel, he and other congregants were recruited by the then-executive director Stuart Simmons to watch the parking lots and doors of Beth Israel and to report any suspicious activity.

He went on to become a member, and later chairman, of the Inter-Agency Security Committee of the Anti-Defamation League, under the tutelage of the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director in San Diego, Morris Casuto.  This volunteer position involved visiting synagogues, Jewish agencies and centers and assessing with their leadership the potential security risks to their institutions.  Was there a door that was constantly being opened and unwatched?  Could people get into the building without anyone noticing them?  Are there cameras to record suspicious or malicious activity during the nighttime hours?  Ginsburg would take note of the potential security soft spots and make recommendations for hardening them.

Ginsburg  was benefitted by having as his vice chairman Ted Parker, a retired employee of the Rand Corporation, who now volunteers for the police department in providing security advice to public and private institutions that request assistance.  The security mavens decided last year that they needed to have at least one member of their team serving as a coordinator at each venue of the games, someone who would take responsibility for organizing and training the volunteer security force to the specific needs of each place. 

Besides the Lawrence Family JCC, Jacobs Family Campus, which was the main headquarters for the games, there were also sports conducted in these places: La Jolla Country Day School, Nobel Recreation Area; three separate areas at UCSD: Warner Field, the baseball diamond and RIMAC, where basketball was played.  In the Carmel Valley area, meanwhile, games were played at San Diego Jewish Academy, Cathedral Catholic High School, and Canyon Crest Academy.   There was bowling competition at Mira Mesa Bowl, and three different days of golf, each at a separate golf course, including on the last day, Torrey Pines, where the U.S. Open had been played earlier in the year.

And, that was not all.  The 70-member volunteer security force had supporting roles to play in three special evening events: the opening ceremonies at Cox Arena, a night at Sea World and a night aboard the aircraft carrier museum, the USS Midway.

In most places, not one, but two, venue security chiefs were appointed to work in concert not only with the volunteers but also with the San Diego Police and UCSD Police departments, and with Omni Security, which provided professional security guards.

At the JCC, Dr. Bill Friedel and Louis Vener shared the responsibilities; at La Jolla Country Day, it was Dr. Nate Harrison and Jerry Gordon, and at the Nobel Recreation Area, it was Heather Frank, ADL’s assistant director.  On the UCSD campus, Alan Gorinstein took Warner Field, Gerry Wellman had the baseball diamond and Jerry Sampson and Greg Garver shared responsibilities at the RIMAC.

In Carmel Valley venues, Ginsburg’s team included Dr. Alan Spector and Cathi Marx at the San Diego Jewish Academy;  Dr. Jerry Spector and Greg Zweibel at Cathedral Catholic University; and Howard Dworkin and Jerry Niemark at Canyon Crest Academy.   Paul Krupsaw traveled with the golfers from course to course over three days of competition, and Stuart Simmons—the man who had gotten Ginsburg interested in security in the first place—became his volunteer at the bowling alley.

Additionally roving services among the various venues were provided by Simma Nemeth and Linda Diderman.

The security chiefs stayed in touch with Ginsburg and Parker and with their own teams at the venue by walkie talkies.  The two-way radios were also provided to the security guards from Omni as well as to the police teams, for whose services the Police Departments’ special events department was reimbursed by the JCC Maccabi Games.

Occasionally, at the Lawrence Family JCC—which sits right next to the Northern Division headquarters of the San Diego Police Department—other officers would come on their own time, among them Captain Shelley Zimmerman, a member of the Jewish community, who commented that she wished she had a chance to compete in the Maccabi games (started in 1973) when she was a youngster.

Ginsburg said all the security forces had a basic plan, which became known by the acronym DORR, for “deter, observe, report, and respond.”  The physical presence of security guards and police were the most obvious means of deterrence; the fact that they were obviously paying attention to their surroundings another.  “Observe” meant just that: were there people approaching the venue who seemed out of place?  Who didn't have proper credentials?  Whose behavior was suspicious?  “Report” involved communicating anything out of the ordinary by walkie talkie.   As for “respond,” said Ginsburg, “that doesn’t mean tackling the intruder.  It means responding in an appropriate way to take as many people out of harm’s way as possible.”  If the intruder had a gun, responding might mean screaming “get down!” or yelling “there’s a gun man.”  

“We thought about many scenarios,” Ginsburg said, ranging from the lone wolf terrorist to dealing with bomb scares or actual bomb plots. 

With 70 people participating in venue security, some working multiple five-hour shifts over the JCC Maccabi Games, the security aspects of the competition went off without a hitch.

Were there any incidents at all? I asked Ginsburg.

There was one, in which a man without credentials raised suspicion at the JCC.   Ginsburg as well as the JCC’s top lay leadership of President David Wax and Executive Director Michael Cohen and Associate Executive Director Nate Stein had told the coaches that although there was a separate security team, security was everyone’s business.  Craig Schloss reported that the man without credentials had said he was there to service the JCC’s fire extinguishers, but that he had disappeared.  With Schloss’s help, security cameras scanned the JCC parking lots and found the man, who was identified as indeed being the man who regularly comes to service the fire suppressant system.

Ginsburg said the police were impressed, not only that there was such quick action to identify a possible intruder but that there were people on premises who knew how to operate the security camera system for optimal effect.

Heather Frank, who was venue security chief at the Nobel Recreation Area, where soccer was played, said with other volunteers, two police officers on premises and two-hired security guards, there never was a problem, except for an occasional athlete who had to be sent back to the JCC to fetch forgotten credentials.

“I got to watch a lot of soccer,” Frank said.

“So many people gave up so much of their time to make sure that the games went on effectively and in safety!” Casuto said.

Now the assignment of Ginsburg to the JCC Maccabi Games has been completed and he plans to continue in his duties as a consultant to Jewish institutions.   He said he hopes that the 70 volunteers will bring security concerns and ideas back to their home agencies and synagogues, and that security will be an ongoing part of the planning process for any Jewish event or physical structure.

Harrison may be contacted at editor@sandiegojewishworld.com

Please click the ad above to learn more about JFS "On the Go" program for seniors. To read
a San Diego Jewish World story on the program, please click here.





MEDALISTS—Winning the UJF staff retreat cooking contest yesterday were from left, Eyal Dagan, Nadine Finkel, Michael Rassler, Jessica Harvey and Dana Levin.


THE JEWISH CITIZEN

Preparing lunch, fostering teamwork

By Donald H. Harrison

LA JOLLA, California--Last year, the United Jewish Federation’s staff built sandcastles. Yesterday, at the staff retreat, they built Chinese chicken salads, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate strawberries.  What did they get for their efforts?

Well, first of all lunch.

But besides that, said CEO Michael Rassler, the purpose was “to develop a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, to recognize that everybody has a wide variety of strengths, often in areas that we know nothing about, and to learn to work together to utilize those strengths and to allow ourselves to do the best job we can.”

The retreat was held at Congregation Adat Yeshurun under the supervision of member and professional caterer Felicia Gipsman, proprietor of Catering by Felicia G.  Six teams of five or six members each were formed, and were told that on a central table in the Orthodox synagogue’s kosher kitchen had been placed sufficient ingredients for all three dishes.  Scenes such as this at the right soon ensued.

Each team had to decide how many of each ingredient they needed and then to divide up responsibilities in preparing lunch.  Gipsman would be the main judge of their efforts.  “I have a very discriminating palate,” she told me.  “I can taste whether white pepper or black pepper was used in a salad dressing; I can really taste the different elements.”

The other judge was someone you might call “everyman,” a person who generally eats anything put in front of him without complaining, the kind of person who thinks there is no better dessert than a good conversation.  That would be me.

We decided to judge the winning team based upon the highest cumulative score. They would get two points for the presentation of their food; one point for the salad; one point for its dressing; one point for the cookies, and one point for the strawberries dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with nuts or other toppings.  So, a perfect performance would have been a score of 6.

One of my favorite Chinese salad presentations had stalks of vegetables coming together to form a nest for a piece of yellow carrot that had been carved into a six-pointed star.   I realized immediately the perfect ambiguity of this symbol: on the one hand it might be the Star of David, nearly universally recognized as a symbol of Judaism.  Or, given that this was a Chinese salad, it was possible that the team had carved the form of the game board for Chinese checkers!

In many cases, the “acid” test—and I use this term advisedly—was the salad dressing.  Gipsman made a point of personally tasting each dressing, and, in one case, as her face wrinkled in alarm, and she ran for a cleansing glass of water, I knew that the dressing had too much vinegar.   Right at that point, I decided to delegate to my fellow judge all the salad dressing issues.  It was clear her taste buds indeed were highly developed.

Perhaps in appreciation for this—or perhaps figuring by my waist line that I would enjoy such an assignment—Gipsman broke off some chocolate chip cookies and asked for my consumer’s opinion.  Well, gosh, I liked them all.  But I remember I thought that one was perhaps more gooey than the others, so we graded down for that.

When all was said and done, one team had emerged with a score of 5.5 as the clear winner in a close contest: The team consisted of Eyal Dagan (Israel Center); Nadine Finkel (Planning & Allocations); Jessica Harvey (Women’s Division); Dana Levin (Campaign), and Michael Rassler (CEO.)


SAMPLING THE FARE—UJF staff membrs sampled their creations at lunch during the staff
retreat. Reactions appeared mixed.

As the UJF staff members ate the "fruits of their labor" in the courtyard of Congregation Adat Yeshurun, I asked Levin how the winning team had organized itself.

She responded that Rassler had volunteered to do all the chopping.   I commented that was kind of scary when you realize that Rassler is the head of the organization.  Could this be the skill that he wanted to hone for the coming UJF year?  But he also made the dressing, Levin pointed out.  I happened to know that was one of the dressings that had pleased the Gipsman palate because of its light touch.

Dagan, whom she referred to as the “Israel strawberry master,” took responsibility for that part of the competition, and in truth his sculpted dipped creations were quite appetizing.  It could be he had an advantage, given his previous service in the Nahal, an Israeli Army unit that fills in the times between active duty by serving on kibbutzim.  His unit worked at  Kibbutz Jezreel in the Jezreel Valley near Mount Gilboa.  It’s an area known for its agriculture.

Finkel and Harvey worked together on the chocolate chip cookies, for which they had a pretty good idea of what measurements might be needed.

As for Levin, herself, cooking is one of her hobbies.  Not only does she do it at home, but she attends cooking classes.  So she volunteered to handle all the salad ingredients that required some stove time: the almonds, the won tons and the chicken.

So what skills from this cooking exercise did Levin believe will be useful at Federation?

“Delegation, compatibility, communication,” she answered.

“The teams started from scratch, and the first thing that needed to be done was to evaluate the people given the particular task or the project,” said Rassler.  “You take that to the office, and you have a lot of staff coming together at whatever level they are at, and when they are working on a new or different task, or something we have done for years, maybe they will find that there is a new way to look at it—a different way to consider how to address an issue.”

These were the lineups for the other teams:  1) Brooke Bremley, Carly Feuerstein, Alyssa Goldberg, Debbie Kempinski and Brenda Sanders. 2) Carole Brewer; Bob Calmanson; Daphne Lavi; Arielle Morrison, Barbara Sherman and Leslie Weening; 3) Tina Friedman, Lisa Haney, Temekia Leverton, Miriam Norton, Patty White and Lance Yeaman; 4) Raquel Benguiat, Jane Fantel, Nancy Feldman, Rachel Kitt and Liz Wolfson, and 5) Diane Beckel, Crystal Cruz, Phyllis Freeman, Eddie Levy, and Michael Sonduck.

So, I asked Levin, which was more fun?  Building sandcastles or lunches?

Lunches, she replied unhesitatingly.

She didn’t have to explain why.   You can’t eat a sandcastle.

Harrison may be contacted at editor@sandiegojewishworld.com



Please click on the advertisement above to visit the website of the Rhodes Marketing Group



Please click on the advertisement above to visit the website of the Jewish American Chamber
of Commerce, of which San Diego Jewish World is a proud member

Thursdays with the Songs of Hal Wingard

Editor's Note: We continue our presentation of the songs of Hal Wingard, moving this week to the songs he wrote on some perennial issues: loving, the lessons of life, and dying. Here is a link to an index of Wingard's songs published by San Diego Jewish World. To hear Hal performing the song, click on its title.

#304, Last Will and Testament

Were I to make this song my last,
     What might I want to say
To summarize the wisdom learned
     As I have tread life's way--
What sage advice in simple words
     Will give you inspiration,
Provide you strength to overcome
     Life's trials and tribulation?

I could advise that you choose love
     To govern all you do,
That you support devoted friends
     While to yourself you're true.
I could advise that you eat well,
     But eat in moderation,
And daily jog at least until
     You drip with perspiration.

But none of these alone can be
     The thrust of my advice.
So let me clarify these thoughts
     By being more precise.
Of all the factors you should heed
     There's only one that's prime:
Each day be sure to dress yourself
     Just one shoe at a time.

Were I to make this song my last,
     That's what I'd want to say
To summarize the wisdom learned
     As I have tread life's way.

© 2008 Hal Wingard; December 13, 2002 Words written December 10 & 11, 2002, while waiting to confer with the foreign language  teachers at Gavilan View Middle School in Salinas.  Melody developed between December 11 and 13.


#286, Dying

I wonder what it’s like to die.
          I’d really like to know.
I’d even make a dying try
          Before my time to go
          Before my time to go

The only problem I can see
          Is how most dying ends,
For once you’re dead there may not be
          Much contact with your friends.
          Contact with your friends.

And yet, I’d take a try at dying
          For knowledge I’d derive,
If I were sure that after trying
          I still would be alive.
          I still would be alive.
          Alive.

© 2008 Hal Wingard; November 6, 2000; Words completed November 2, while waiting at San Jose airport for flights to San Diego via Los Angeles

Please click the advertisement above to hear some of the world's most beautiful music.




ADVENTURES IN SAN DIEGO JEWISH HISTORY

Editor's Note: To create a permanent and accessible archive, we are reprinting news articles that appeared in back issues of various San Diego Jewish newspapers. You may access an index of the headlines of those articles by clicking here. You may also use the Google search program on our home page or on the headline index page to search for keywords or names.