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

                              Today's Postings

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Sentimental short stories depict men living up to Judaism's tenets"

Shahar Masori in San Diego: "The Land of Milk and Honey: the film, the song, and the country"

Susie Meltzer in San Diego: "What skill level will you choose for a raft ride through Judaism?"

                                              Photo Stories

Three Agencies, One Building—Agency for Jewish Education joins the United Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation in common quarters in San Diego.

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

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego, California: "Jumping rooftops over the streets of Pop"

Joe Naiman in Lakeside, California: "How MLB Jews performed in 2007"

Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "Malashock Dance presents Let’s Duet, a studio series, at the Dance Place"

Michelle Rizzi in Coronado, California: "Ghosts, hiding places, U.S. Presidents: Growing up at the Hotel del Coronado"

Saturday, October 13

Ellen B. Graber in Palatine, Illinois: "Never again: Why I signed the petition to remove JewWatch from the Google list."

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Temple Solel bar mitzvah student wins big on TV's Jeopardy show"

Joel Moskowitz, MD and Arlene Moskowitz, JD in La Jolla: "A genetic detective story to be told at San Diego Jewish Book Fair"

Friday, October 12

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

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"

Archive of Previous Issues

What skill level will you choose for a raft ride through Judaism?

By Susie Meltzer

SAN DIEGO—This past summer, my husband Eli and I went white-water rafting on the Rogue River in Oregon with a group of friends. It was an exhilarating experience to be in the wilderness, to enjoy for a few days the pace of nature, to observe its inhabitants up close and to tackle the challenges of navigating a wild river.

The focus was on the white-water adventure. Three rafting choices were offered for travel on this commanding river. We chose first to float effortlessly on the lead boat, letting the guide do all the work while we gazed at the pristine scenery. Next, we paddled in a smaller raft, with four other rugged novices and one experienced guide, learning to synchronize our strokes to avoid the rocks and crevices as we sped along.

I was having a great time and soon found myself thinking about the third level of travel — riding in a two-man inflatable kayak. With some outside coaxing and much talking with myself, I decided finally I was ready to ride the next series of rapids in the kayak with Eli. To me it meant facing perceived danger, placing my trust in the professional staff and shoring up my belief that the result would be both exciting and rewarding. The bonus, as always, came in having Eli as my partner to share the ride.

This kayaking trip turned out to more than simply a passage through rough water. I was able to see the beauty and the power of the wilderness from different eyes – from the wilderness itself. Scenes changed in rapid-fire motion with every movement of the raft. Each scene was brighter and more beautiful than the one before it. I watched a few people tumble out of their kayaks with their life-jackets on and continue to float safely down the river, carried along by the current, still having the time of their lives. Our guides watched ever-closely from the sidelines, never losing awareness of their awesome responsibility. That day, while traveling down the river, I discovered a meaning in the journey that expands my daily life.

I believe the Jewish year flows like the river just conquered, and the mode we choose to travel will determine our experience. If Jewish life seems lacking in intensity and devoid of sunlight and spirituality, perhaps it is because we are merely floating down this river, without engaging in it, without challenging it and, yes, without a paddle.

So, as we begin our annual expedition down the river of the Jewish year 5768, let us try to actively paddle for as much of the journey as we can. Let us try doing Judaism, rather than merely being Jewish. Instead of floating down the river while someone else paddles, let us each find our own special oars and help steer the boat. I think we might surprise ourselves if we do this. Judaism might come alive in new ways, revealing for us its deepest grace and rhythm and flow.

I hope that for all of us the year ahead will be filled with meaningful pursuits, sprinkled with life cycles, shared with family and friends, intense at moments, infused with peace, and challenging to us, both intellectually and spiritually.

From the High Holy Days to Shabbat, from Sukkot to Shavuoth, this is what I learned on the Rogue River, and what is true for one river, must be true for them all.

Meltzer is president of Ohr Shalom Synagogue, a Conservative congregation in San Diego. This article initially appeared in that congregation's monthly newsletter.

THREE AGENCIES, ONE BUILDING—By affixing the mezuzah on its new offices at 4950 Murphy Canyon Road, the Agency for Jewish Education on Sunday, October 14, officially became the third Jewish communal agency to occupy the Joseph and Lenka Finci Building. Here, Michael Rassler, chief executive officer of the United Jewish Federation, left, joins Alan Rusonik and Monica Handler Penner, respectively executive director and president of the Agency for Jewish Education, and, at right, Charlene Seidle, associate director of the Jewish Community Foundation. UJF photo

The Land of Milk and Honey: the film, the song, and the country

By Shahar Masori

SAN DIEGO -- When The Land of Milk and Honey is screened October 22 at the Lawrence Family JCC, patrons will see not only a story about Israel based on the biblical verse in Exodus 3:8 in which God, speaking from the Burning Bush, tells Moses to conduct the Israelites to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Ozeri, Gamliel and Moutal

The movie by Robert Moutal and Zeji Ozeri is also about the Hebrew song that every Israeli knows, taken from those magical words, here in transliteration: Eretz (land) Zavat (flowing) Halav (milk) v’Devash (and honey).

Ozeri, an Israeli now living in San Diego, hosts this trilingual documentary, capturing in Hebrew, Spanish and a little English the essence of the land of Israel. In a short period, he is able to communicate what makes Israel so special. He does it not only with his voice, but with his eyes: as he interviews people about Israel, you can see love and approval flowing through them.

The movie includes dance, music and scenes of Israel, but its chief focus is what Israel means to Israelis.   Not surprisingly, all Israelis, myself included, refer to Israel as Ha’aretz, the land, because for us it is the only place that we will ever be fully at home. For us, this is the only place where the true meaning of being Jewish can be celebrated by all without the fear of being an outcast or belittled.

Although Israel is a fairly new country—the state, not the land—is is quite inspiring to see what happened in just 60 years. Jews from all over the world came to the “Holy Land” after thousands of years in exile and finally had a home, a place of their own. However we did not at first have a unique identity.

To forge that identity, the one source utilized most was the Bible. Many lyrics sung by early settlers were taken from the Bible. In the 1950s one man in particular was given the task of composing a tune to “the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey.” His name was Eliyahu Gamliel.   Born in Tiberius, Gamliel bequeathed an incredible amount of love to his country and people.

Today 81, Gamliel was asked by Ozeri how he came up with the specific tune, with its contagious melody. “I thought of the people of Israel standing before the land after 40 years in the desert awaiting the spies to tell them about the land of milk and honey, and I imagined them ecstatic, signing very passionately ‘Erez Zavat Halav v’Devash,’ and the music kind of wrote itself.”

Asked if Israel is truly the land of milk and honey, needless to say Gamliel response with a definite yes. Whereas others had responded to the same question literally with answers about milk production and Israel’s bounty of produce, Gamliel spoke more figuratively, mentioning how Israel has become a world leader in technology.

Many interviewees described Israel as a place where one can make friends easily, noting that in times of trouble, Israel becomes one very close nation. The example was cited that in Israel you could meet somebody anywhere and in a matter of minutes, by talking about the Army and about mutual acquaintances, you could become best friends.

So, what does it mean for Jews to live in Israel.

One person responded with a verse almost as famous to Israelis as Exodus 3:8.   It is a line from Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem. “Lihiyot am hofshy beartzenu” – to be free people in our land!

____________________
The Jewish Citizen
by Donald H. Harrison

Sentimental short stories depict
men living up to Judaism's tenets

The King of Shabbos and Other Stories of Return by Zalman Velvel. (Garden City Park, N.Y: Square One Publishers, 2007), 216 pages including Glossary, $24.95.

SAN DIEGO—The King of Shabbos is a sentimental collection of short stories which begins with the imaginary doings of a small Chabad congregation in “Sunshine,” Florida, where the shaliach, Rabbi Yaakov Levi, patiently struggles to find a minyan. Although his congregants are ritually observant, they struggle with life’s temptations and vicissitudes and often need to find their way—or be led—back to the right path.

Author Zalman Velvel describes himself in the introduction as bal teshuvah, that is, as one who embraced observant Judaism late in life, and his writing reflects both his knowledge of the secular world and of the precepts of the Lubavitcher movement.

There is a structural difficulty in this book. One begins reading the 18 stories thinking that they are each part of an unfolding drama that will reach its denouement at the end of the book. Although the first stories build upon each other, the flow eventually is interrupted with unrelated stories about Israel and about an airplane flight—reflections perhaps that author Velvel makes fairly regular trips to Israel. But there is no alter ego from Rabbi Levi’s congregation making these trips, and readers must adjust to new, unrelated, characters.

The problem with this is that whereas in a full length book we are willing to exercise patience in getting to know Rabbi Levi or the dirt-poor-but-righteous Yussie Yablonski or the gluttonous Heshy Pupchik or the richest man in the congregation, Michael Fein, this book frustrates us with suddenly truncated story lines and a lack of characterization. Although we are interested in them, we never really get to know what makes the characters tick. We never get to their core.

Women appear in this book, but they are shunted to the sidelines through the device of their being visitors to Sunshine, rather than permanent members of the congregation. We meet Yussie’s sister this way. We also watch the rabbi attempting to mediate a longstanding quarrel between a mother, who makes a surprise visit, and a daughter, who after the episode, disappears from the book. As for the rabbi’s wife, Rebecca, she is usually offstage, either in the kitchen cooking up a nice