San Diego Jewish World

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 Vol. 1, No. 182

          Monday evening,  October 29, 2007
 
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                               Today's Postings


Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "Rabbis prepare for theological questions about the fires."

Morton A. Klein in New York: "Palestinian agenda dooms Annapolis conference to failure"

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in Jerusalem: "Scandals, corruption weaken Israel"

David Strom in San Diego: "The danger of substituting political faith for logic"

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



Sunday, October 28

Donald H. Harrison in San Diego: "And after it all, still there is music"
Natasha Josefowitz in La Jolla, California: 'Old age: A privilege denied to lots of people"

Joe Naiman in Lakeside, California: "Jewish trainer wins Arab-sponsored Breeders' Cup race"
 
Sheila Orysiek in San Diego: "Waiting for FEMA, DEMA, SCHEMA and EMA"


Saturday, October 27

 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."

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"



Archive of Previous Issues
 

____________________
The Jewish Citizen
             by Donald H. Harrison
 

Rabbis prepare for theological questions about the San Diego fires 

SAN DIEGO—Rabbi Ralph Dalin, the community chaplain who reaches out to unaffiliated Jews in times of crises, said today that with the first phase of the San Diego wildfires nearing a conclusion, a critical second phase is about to begin: the time when victims ask such questions as “Why did God allow this to happen?”


Rabbi Ralph Dalin

Initially family who lost their homes in the fires worried about pragmatic matters—where shall they stay, whom do they have to notify, how can they activate their insurance claims, and the like.  What reflection there may have been on theological matters may have been limited to a reflexive statement, “Thank God, we’re still alive!” said Dalin, who headquarters at the United Jewish Federation of San Diego.

Judging by his experiences four years ago counseling victims of

the Cedar fire, Dalin said after the immediate danger passes, for some people spiritual questions will arise.  That’s when he and his rabbinical colleagues—as well as clergy from all religions—will be kept busy.

In such situations, said Dalin, “my goal is always to draw out what their own thoughts are, rather than to offer simple answers.  I would hope that as a result of that process, they would realize that their home was not singled out because of anything that they did or didn’t do—it’s a matter of the nature of things when fires get out of control.”

He added that, “God is in the valiant efforts of the firefighters, those who want to save lives, and in the community that supports and helps the families.  God didn’t cause the fires.  The worst phraseology we have is that fires are an 'act of God,' that is not at all helpful.  Our responsibility that we have from God is to learn how to prevent fires, how to fight them, how to save lives and how to support the community.”

In bringing peace and solace to the afflicted, “we emulate God and become God’s partner,” Dalin said.

“An example came this past Shabbat, up in Ramona (a town in the mountains east of San Diego), when Rabbi Ben Leinow brought Shabbat dinner up to the community center,” Dalin said.

Reached by telephone, Leinow said that although he lives in Vista, near the North County Interfaith Community Service, from which he is now semi-retired, he became the part-time pulpit rabbi for the tiny Congregation Etz Chaim in Ramona just before the High Holidays. The congregation’s previous spiritual leader, Rabbi Marc Hurvitz, relocated with his wife, Rabbi Deborah Prinz, the former spiritual leader of Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, to the East Coast.

Besides the fires, the congregation had to cope with the deaths of two of its members recently but “it is a strong resilient group,” Leinow said. 

“A number of people chose to stay in Ramona up to the last moment, when they had to get out because in some places the water failed, and in other places, the power, so they couldn’t fight the fire," he said.

After the fires passed through Ramona,  residents were allowed to return but with the warning not to use the municipal water system. Under such circumstances, they did not have water for washing their vegetables, so Leinow, a widower, decided to pull together a Shabbat dinner for approximately 25 people, whom he arranged to meet at Ramona’s community senior center. 

He bought some chicken, prepared some salad, got challah, wine, candles, and rugelach, for dinner along with fresh flowers to decorate the tables.  One Ramona family, able to draw water from the well on their property, prepared beans to go with the dinner.  

L'CHAIMRabbi Ben Leinow, left, and Cantor Al Wollner of Congregation Etz Chaim join in the Kiddush at the community senior center in Ramona on Friday, Oct. 26
Although the senior center was serving dinner in another room that night, the main course, ham, simply wouldn’t have been right for Shabbat, Leinow said.

Along with the meal, Leinow brought news that other Reform congregations, including Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea and Temple Beth Ami of Valencia, Newhall and Saugus were concerned about their welfare and were helping him put together baskets for the rededication of their homes after the fires.

The baskets will include new mezuzot to hang on their doorposts, as well as the traditional items one takes into a new home: challah, salt, wine and candles.  “I am also going to include a note of support, and a package of hand wipes and paper towels,” Leinow said. “ Some congregations are sending gift cards that will allow our members to go to Target, or to Walmart, to get things that they need.”

Leinow said that chanting the Kiddush, the blessing over the wine, with the congregation’s 93-year-old cantor, Al Wollner, was a meaningful moment at the Shabbat dinner.  He said the news that other Jews care about them, and are trying to help in the wake of the fire, was received emotionally by the congregants.  “I thought I saw tears in a few eyes,” he said.

Normally, the small rural congregation holds services once a month. The next Shabbat services will be on November 8, which coincided with the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-inspired pogrom throughout Germany that many historians mark as the beginning of the Holocaust.

The observance, said Leinow, will focus on recovery and renewal. Even as s the worldwide Jewish community recovered from a far worse, far more malicious conflagration, so too shall local Jews gather their strength and rededicate themselves, he said.


 

People of the Books

The danger of substituting  political faith for logic


Statecraft, by Dennis Ross.  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2007, 370pp., $26.00

 Reviewed by David Strom

SAN DIEGO—Getting rid of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) was the George W. Bush administration’s stated main reason for going to war against Iraq.  After finding no WMD in Iraq, “the over riding objective was getting rid of Saddam.”  Get rid of Saddam, produce regime change, and everything would fall into place, not fall apart.  That was the critical assumption, and it was based on flawed assessment.  Statecraft must start with assessments based on reality, and not on faith.  If we are to understand the failures in Iraq, this is the starting point.”


Dennis Ross will address the San Diego Jewish Book Fair 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8, at the Lawrence Family JCC. For schedule of other events, please click the logo.

Unfortunately, the Administration chose faith-based logic instead of reasoning and what Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy and the chief negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, calls statecraft.  Statecraft is not just another way of referring to diplomacy. It is much more. However, it does include diplomacy.  Some define statecraft as the “art of conducting state affairs.”  Dennis Ross, a former policy maker, describes statecraft as knowing “how to integrate and use every asset or military, diplomatic, intelligence, public, economic or psychological tool we possess (or can manipulate) to meet our objectives.”