Preserving History
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INA GARTEN
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Preserving History One Story at a Time
Memories shape our identities. Sharing them provides a sense of belonging. We can relive joyful moments and learn from mistakes. We can maintain and strengthen connections and find solace in our memories. Shared memories preserve our culture and our history. Gathering first-person stories captures history and preserves the truth.
Holocaust Museum LA works to educate all of us about the truth and horror of unchecked hatred. A Holocaust survivor and one of the co-founders of the museum stated, “It’s important to teach the young generation about the Holocaust. The world wants us to forget the biggest horror mankind ever created... I am fighting against forgetting.” Although Jews make up less than 2% of the US population, 60% of all hate crimes target Jews, and since Oct. 7, antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assaults have increased by 388%. The museum’s mandate — Educate to Stop the Hate — is more critical now than ever before.
Rabbi Eilfort states that the world views Jews as different but reminds us that the key to our specialness is joy. Bea Gold’s memoirs preserve and celebrate family, culture and the timeless joy of sharing meals. Ina Garten, the beloved Barefoot Contessa, says that the food we enjoy most connects to our deepest memories of when we felt happy, comfortable and nourished.
Andrea Simantov states that this year, the most remarkable trait of Israelis is their unity under fire, and Galia Sprung relates how, since Israel’s inception, all of its soldiers have been considered family by all of its citizens. Both are grateful for the historical outpouring of belief in Israel’s cause.
Trevor McNeil tells us about a writer who broke into English-language prose by writing a memoir, and Marnie Macauley writes that our memories of irreplaceable people are our legacy.
SDJJ hopes that you enjoy this issue and cherish your memories. A
Online
We Bought the Viral Amazon ‘Tuchus’ Boxes for Sukkot. What Does That Say About Us?
by Philissa Cramer, JTA News
The brightly colored “Sukkot boxes” offered up on Amazon boasted the colors of spring, not fall; had no ostensible use for the Jewish holiday; and contained a Hebrew misspelling that bordered on obscene.
Reader, I bought them.
And it wasn’t just me. Enabled by our Prime accounts, Jews across the United States shelled out about $15 for a dozen ready-to-construct cardboard boxes emblazoned with Hebrew letters that spelled out a phonetic variation on “tuchus”— the Yiddish word meaning “butt.”
“It was a bit of an impulse buy, but I thought it was hilarious,” said Erin Stern of Baltimore, who said she definitely would not have purchased the product had it spelled “Sukkot” correctly. “My husband thinks I’m crazy.”
Stern, like many others who clicked “buy,” made the purchase after seeing the product — with its botched Hebrew and incongruous iconography that included, for some reason, a man’s black hat — mocked on social media.
UK Group Urges Families to ‘Save a Seat in the Sukkah’ for Hostages in Gaza, in a New Take on a Jewish Tradition by Jackie Hajdenberg, JTA News
For centuries, Jews have symbolically invited the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to their sukkahs.
This year, some will invite Omer, Matan, Itay and Liri.
As Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the fall festival of Sukkot, the leading British Jewish organization is asking them to remember the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by setting a seat for them in the sukkah. The initiative hearkens back to an age-old Jewish tradition called “ushpizin,” the practice of inviting symbolic guests.
From Snout to Tail, a 3,000-Year History of Jews and The Pig
A professor of religious studies explores how the pig became the ultimate Jewish taboo — and an inadvertent marker of Jewish identity.
by Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA News
In 2021, the Orthodox Union declined to put its kosher certification on Impossible Pork, even though similarly vegan “Impossible” foods carried the OU seal of approval.
“The Impossible Pork, we didn’t give an ‘OU’ to it, not because it wasn’t kosher per se,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s kosher division, told JTA at
the time. “It may indeed be completely [kosher] in terms of its ingredients: If it’s completely plant-derived, it’s kosher. Just in terms of sensitivities to the consumer...it didn’t get it.”
Continue reading these stories at sdjewishjournal.com
Our Town
by Linda Bennett and Emily Bartell
The Hats Off to Hadassah Reception and Silent Auction was held outdoors at a beautifully landscaped private residence in Carmel Valley on September 8. The featured speaker was Richard Leib, who serves on the Board of Regents of the University of California as the Chair of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee. He spoke on “The Rising Level of Antisemitism on our College Campuses.” We enjoyed this very well-attended program. Some of those we ran into were Sheryl Klein, Alex Klein, Shirley Pidgeon, Esther Houge, Jessica Koren, Sharna Shachair, Emily and Chris Jennewein, Sue Applebaum, Robyn Perlin, Rona Dosick, Marsha Eisman, Perla and Jeff Myers, Myla Wingard and Lou Rosen, Rochelle Schwartz, and Lisa Kalel
Trying to make sense of the senseless attack of Oct. 7, 2023, the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center held the San Diego premiere of “We Will Dance Again,” a harrowing glimpse through the eyes of individuals who endured the brutal onslaught at the Nova Music Festival. Sponsored by the Murray Galinson San DiegoIsrael Initiative, Impact Cubed, and the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, the theater was overflowing with emotions and people. Some of those in the audience we connected with were Francis Lobman, Sandy Sherman, Geri Shaevel, Betsy Schneider, Barbara and Terry Rakov, Laurie Ratner, Angela and Harris Steinberg, Ruth Levy, Yivtak Levy, Lynette Allen, Barbara and Sandy Rosenthal, and Avril Copans.
On September 10, Jewish Family Service of San Diego held their Friends of the Family Reception outdoors at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla. The purpose of this lovely event was to honor their evergrowing group of special donors. Enjoying this beautiful sunset event with us were Heather and Brandon Keith,
Ann Jaffe, Maxi Jaffe, Kimberly and Pam Carnot, Rachael and Jeff Schindler, Susanna and Michael Flaster, Rachel Swimmer Flores, Lisa Braun Glazer and Jeff Glazer, Dianne and Eliott Feuerstein, Elissa and Gary Davis, Teresa Dupuis, Barbara Loonin, Arlene and Louis Navias, and Jackie and Charlie Mann
Mazel Tov to Charles and Oliver Kassar on becoming B’nai Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Israel on September 21. Happy parents are Kate and John Kassar
Charles and Oliver are grandsons of Carol and Ron (z”l) Fox, Sophie and Henry Haimsohn, and Penny (z”l) and Julius Kassar
Yom Huledets Sameach to...
George Kaplan celebrating his 89th birthday.
Susie Meltzer celebrating her 80th birthday.
Amy Spielman celebrating her 80th birthday.
CELEBRATING
Wedding
Anniversaries
with infinite love & happiness, Mazel Tov to…
Marjorie and Sanford Schane, 64 years.
Jane and Herbert Lazerow, 61 years.
Irene and Alfredo Jalowayski, 60 years.
Linda and Louis Levy, 58 years.
Linda and David Bachrach, 55 years.
Linda and Gerold Goldberg, 53 years.
Evelyn and Edward Singer, 52 years.
Vicky and Steven Klug, 51 years.
Julie and Mitchell Dubick, 50 years.
Deborah Horwitz and Paul Nierman, 50 years
The Scene
by Emily Parker
Brad Sondak Earns MVP Award
Brad Sondak never swung a bat for the San Diego Padres. He never threw a fastball or tagged a runner out at the plate. Nevertheless, the San Diego resident was recognized by the Padres organization as MVP in an honors ceremony on the field prior to a ballgame at Petco Park.
Sondak leads tours at the ballpark, giving fans insights into the behind-the-scenes operation and answering their questions about the Padres and baseball in general. He also helps enhance the experience for fans visiting the Padres Hall of Fame.
Brad is the son of SDJJ’s long-time regular columnist, Eileen Sondak. Congrats to Brad and Eileen!
Photo: Brad Sondak in the middle between the Swinging Friar and Ken Kawachi, a senior vice president for the San Diego Padres.
PHOTO BY EILEEN SONDAK.
LIVING ON THE FRONT PAGE
by Andrea Simantov | andreasimantov@gmail.com
Clean Slate
We closed out the year of shock, fear and trepidation, and I was here. For many years, I traveled to the US over Sukkot to visit my elderly mother, but this year, I could not find the will to leave my beloved Israel at such a poignant time. Because last year, I assayed to return, desperate to be nearer to my son, who raced to battle with other heroes. I ached to be with my husband, children, grandchildren, neighbors and strangers, all mercilessly under siege. I needed to be ‘under siege’ alongside the holy citizenry of Israel. It took one full week, 20,000 still-unaccountedfor-shekels, wet-wipe cleanses in public toilets, agonizing hours of short dozes on airport floors in Istanbul, Paris, Rome, Newark and Baltimore, and prayer. I thought I knew how to pray before Oct. 7, 2023. I knew nothing. I know less now.
And if the massacre wasn’t staggering enough, the months that ensued brought new emotional paralysis. We couldn’t envision the euphoria that occurred by a smattering of hostage releases, only to be followed by more soldier fatalities, errors caused by ‘friendly fire,’ school closings, entire communities irreparably traumatized by the cacophony of blasts that relentlessly accompanied countless escapes into shelters and safe rooms.
Diaspora Jewry, along with Christian friends and millions of other moral people, sent staggering amounts of
money and supplies to help our nation at an unprecedented time of need. They did not split hairs and question our (frequently) restrained responses to the onslaught but, instead, opened their wallets and, materially, made certain that our soldiers could, indeed, soldier on. We have an eternity to reflect on this historical outpouring of belief in our cause.
Reflecting on the previous year, however, I can unequivocally state that the most remarkable trait of the Israeli people is their “unity under fire.” Hotels that were closed due to a dearth of tourists opened their revolving doors to evacuees from both the north and south of the country. Entire communities made space in their classrooms for (literally) shellshocked children who might otherwise lose valuable months of education. Pop-up weddings became the norm on army bases around the country, with khaki-clad brides and grooms listening to the ketubah (marriage contract) read along with the sound of rocket fire in the distance. And believe you me, until you’ve seen a veiled kallah wearing jungle camo and Tavor assault rifle slung over her left shoulder, you haven’t seen anything.
Anyone with a washer and dryer has happily laundered filthy field wear for the approximately 7,000 lone soldiers who have heeded the call to protect our people. We are baking and cooking and sewing, sending tons of home-cooked victuals to supplement the occasionally bland army meals. Privately funded barbecues are de rigueur every month, lifting the spirits of our selfless warriors. Every service provider I’ve met, whether it be the yogurt and doughnut shops, movies and concerts, health clubs and spas, transportation providers and others, offers free goods and services for these warriors. Facebook is replete with weekly invitations for any chayal (soldier) who is without a holiday or Shabbat meal to join respective families. The only requirements are that they
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WRITTEN IN FIRE
by T.S. McNeil tremcneil1980@gmail.com
Out of Left Field
Sometimes, power can come in the most unassuming packages. Most people who saw Paul Auster would not have likely taken him for a powerhouse intellect with a dogged work ethic and something intelligent, if biting, to say about almost everything.
Born in obscurity in Newark, New Jersey, two years into the postwar period, Auster’s parents were middle-class Jews originally from Austria. A divorce in Auster’s later teen years left him living with his mother, who was known as “Queenie.” Always a good student, Auster graduated from Columbia University in 1970 with an M.A. in English with a specialization in comparative literature.
Auster’s first job in the publishing industry came soon after graduation when he moved to Paris and spent four years translating French books into English. He continued working on translations after returning to the United States to help pay the bills as he got his own poems and essays together, eventually working on books by Maurice Blanchot and Georges Simenon, who created the popular Maigret series of mystery novels. Auster published four books of poetry during this period including “Wall Writing” (1976) and “Facing the Music” (1980).
In 1982, Auster broke into Englishlanguage prose writing with the memoir “The Invention of Solitude.” The book earned him enough clout to publish a trilogy of novellas, collectively known as the “New York Trilogy,” including “City of Glass,” “Ghosts” and “The
Successfully surviving the brutal Hollywood machine with his sanity intact, Auster got right back to what he did best, novel[s].
and 2007, including “Blue in the Face” with Harvey Keitel and Lou Reed, and “The Inner Life of Martin Frost,” which was an adaptation of Auster’s 2002 novel “The Book of Illusions.”
Successfully surviving the brutal Hollywood machine with his sanity intact, Auster got right back to what he did best, releasing the novel “Man in the Dark” right after “The Secret Life of Martin Frost.” Between 1993 and 2013, he also released four more memoirs, catching onto the notion of autofiction years before Karl Ove Knausgard started his “My Struggle” series. Auster’s titles include “Hand to Mouth” (1997), “Winter Journal” (2012) and “Report from the Interior” (2013).
Locked Room,” published between 1985 and 1986. Despite some confusion about form (Auster only meant to nod to the structure of detective fiction without writing traditional mystery stories), the trilogy gained a similar level of acclaim to “The Invention of Solitude.”
1982 also saw the release of his first novel, “Squeeze Play,” though it was under the pen name Paul Benjamin; it was Auster’s first contribution to the mystery genre. The book turned out to be what’s known in the industry as a ‘potboiler.’
Keeping up a regular pace, Auster released three full-length novels between 1987 and 1990, closing out the decade with “The Music of Chance.” Turning his talents to movies, Auster also wrote three full-length screenplays between 1995
As time went on, Auster’s productivity slowed down a little, at least in terms of fiction. “Invisible” and “Sunset Park,” published at his usual yearly interval, came out in 2009 and 2010, respectively. His last three novels, “Day/Night” (2013), “4 3 2 1” (2017) and “Baumgartner” (2023), had multi-year delays between each.
One thing keeping him from fiction was a growing career in nonfiction, which was not about himself. Beginning in 1992 with “The Art of Hunger,” the sheer size of Auster’s nonfiction body of work rivals that of his fiction, numbering nine in a span of 31 years. The frequency picking up exponentially around the same time his novels dropped off, his nonfiction output reached one a year by the time of his final three, “Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane” (2021),
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Israeli Lifestyle continued
come as they are, schlep a friend or three, and bring along a hearty appetite.
During the Days of Awe, my reservist son was fighting up north. Although I’d dropped him a WhatsApp before lighting Rosh HaShanah candles, when the three-day observance ended, I saw that he hadn’t opened the message. This lack of contact could only mean that he was deep in battle. Like so many mothers, I could not/did not sleep. I checked the phone constantly, took long walks, ate a lot and badly, and prayed. When his
voice message finally appeared, weakly uttering the words, “I’m alive and in Israel.” I exhaled for the first time in ten days. It did not matter that he was in an army infirmary with others, sleeping, healing and eating. He was alive. He was in Israel. Not every parent gets those glorious messages.
Autumn ends, and winter looms, rife with expectation. We prayed and beseeched and passed over that dreaded anniversary — the one that changed the landscape for Eretz Yisroel in our
Literature continued
“Long Live King Kobe: Following the Murder of Tyler Kobe Nichols” (2022) and “Bloodbath Nation” (2023). Whichever of the many forms he chose to turn his hand to, Auster was a force to be reckoned with, never holding back in his opinions or condemnation. Taking on the political, the controversial and especially the existential with startling candor, he was the closest thing America had to a 20th and 21st-century David Henry Thoreau.
Leaning more to the left than a onelegged unicyclist on the L.A. freeway, he once referred to conservative Republicans as “Jihadists” mostly because of the religious basis, or at least excuses, for the majority of their actions, including the invasion of Iraq and the election of Donald Trump as “the most appalling thing[s] I’ve seen in politics in my life.” Paul Auster died in spring 2024 of lung cancer. A
generation. With unity, love and clarity of vision, the months that stretch in front of us can provide hope and solace. G-d will do His part. The question remains: Will we? A
New York-born Andrea Simantov moved to Israel 29 years ago. She is a small-business owner and both a print and media journalist. Her popular podcast, “Pull Up a Chair,” is produced by Israel News Talk Radio. She can be reached at andrea@israelnewstalkradio.com
Growing up in the far north, Trevor James McNeil had little to do other than read when the temperature went below 40 Celsius, and he developed an affinity for stories of all sorts. Graduating from the University of Victoria in 2009, he has been reading and writing in a professional capacity since. He lives in a cabin in the woods with his dog, and firmly believes The Smiths would have been better as a trio.
MARKED BY DARKNESS MAGEN DAVID ADOM DELIVERED IN A YEAR
We can’t ensure this Rosh HaShanah will usher in a peaceful year. But with your support, Magen David Adom can continue to be a source of light, hope, and lifesaving care to all Israelis — no matter what 5785 brings.
Support Israel’s lifesavers at afmda.org/give or 866.632.2763.
Holocaust Museum LA Sees Growth for Generations
by Makayla Hoppe
Since 1961, Holocaust Museum Los Angeles has taught millions of students and visitors about the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust. Founded by a group of Survivors, it is the oldest museum of its kind in the United States. The museum is free to all students, and because of its overwhelming popularity, the museum has had to turn away schools due to reaching capacity. Visitors to the museum have increased by 400% since 2011; to meet the demand, the museum has expanded its footprint in Pan Pacific Park with the Jona Goldrich Campus.
Ground broke on the new campus on Nov. 15, 2023. The space will feature a learning center, which includes a 200-seat theater for film screenings and concerts, large classrooms for student groups, outdoor reflective spaces and a 2,500 sq. ft. exhibit area. There will also be a 50-seat theater for the USC Shoah Foundation “Dimensions in Testimony” Exhibit.
“The Shoah Foundation interviewed around 50 Holocaust survivors using 116 cameras, and they asked them thousands of questions over the course of a few days,” said Beth Kean, CEO of Holocaust Museum LA. “They have these algorithms in the back end so that you
At top: Survivor Joe Alexander, a regular speaker at the museum. He will turn 102 in November. PHOTOS: Tamara Leigh, courtesy of Tamara Leigh/Holocaust Museum LA.
could ask the survivor a question, and then they reply to you in real-time.”
In addition to the Shoah Foundation exhibit, Holocaust Museum LA will also be partnering with the technology company Magnopus to create an app that shows the Sobibor death camp.
“They developed for us this augmented reality app that basically recreates this model that we have at the museum of the Sobibor death camp that was created by survivor Thomas Blatt,” Beth
said.
“He’s one of 50 people who survived this death camp in Poland, where around 250,000 people were killed.”
According to Beth, the model was created from Thomas’ memory. In October 1943, 200 prisoners working for the Nazis planned an escape where they killed off the Nazis one by one. As he was escaping, Thomas’ jacket was caught on barbed wire, and it saved him from the landmines right outside the camp that killed his fellow prisoners. He lived in the forest for the remainder of the war. Because of the successful escape, the Nazis attempted to cover up the camp by destroying it and planting trees over the area.
“[Thomas] created this model in the 1970s and started telling his story to young people,” Beth said. “So, we started meeting with Magnopus in 2019 about doing this. When COVID hit, we realized, okay, this is really more urgent—we need to get this story out. We need to start educating young people where they are. Let’s get this story to students in classrooms around the globe. The app allows us to make Holocaust education really accessible to anyone,
anywhere in the world, and we have this comprehensive teacher guide that goes with it, and there’s a virtual docent that’s part of the app.”
The new campus expansion and technological exhibits will be funded in part by the museum’s annual gala, which will take place on Dec. 3, 2024 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. This year’s theme is “Shaping the Future.” Magnopus will be one of the gala’s honorees, along with Amy Conroy and Amanda Markowitz Wizenberg. Amy and Amanda are first cousins and granddaughters of Holocaust survivors.
“We have this program called ‘Descendants of Remembrance’ that we started last year,” Beth said. “Since the survivor population is dwindling, and they’re very fragile, we need the children and grandchildren of survivors to start telling their stories—their parents’ and grandparents’ stories. So, we started training them so that they can talk to students. Amy and Amanda are really active, and they talk to students a lot at the museum. They are social activists in the community, so we’re honoring them for the work that they’re doing and their involvement.”
In June, the museum temporarily shut down to install The Boxcar Pavilion. “We had to move our artifacts off of the museum floor because we had to get the roof ready for the delivery of the boxcar,” Beth said. “The boxcar was actually found outside of the Majdanek death camp, and it probably transported people from Lublin, Poland to that death camp... They uncovered it, and a donor in our community found out about it; he brought it to Los Angeles, and it’s been in storage for the last couple of years. He’s donating it to the museum, and we’re building a really unique exhibit around it.”
The museum reopens to the public on Nov. 12, 2024 to view The Boxcar Pavilion and existing exhibits. It will still be a while before the new Jona Goldrich Campus opens, but the investments in technology and expansion to reach a greater audience will be worth the wait. A
Ina Garten’s new memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” hits bookstores this month. (Crown)
In Her Long-Awaited Biography, Superstar Chef Ina Garten Opens Up About Her Abusive Jewish Parents
by Rachel Ringler, JTA
It was, I thought, a Jewish food writer’s dream assignment. Nearly four years ago, during the first autumn of the COVID pandemic, I sat down (virtually) with food superstar Ina Garten to learn about her childhood memories of home, family and food — and the impact those memories had on her career as a widely beloved foodie, television personality and author of, at that time, 12 enormously successful cookbooks.
The interview was for The Nosher, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s partner food site, and as such I was particularly interested in hearing about Garten’s Jewish food memories. Given the
number of classic Ashkenazi recipes she has in her books — from chopped liver to stuffed cabbage, chicken soup to rugelach — I was sure there was lots to unpack. So I asked what I assumed was a softball question to get the conversation going: Do you have memories of your childhood kitchen and food?
“I don’t. I didn’t have the happiest childhood,” Garten told me.
Garten is known for her velvety voice and easy laugh, and her books are filled with quotes about the role that a home plays in one’s life and how the kitchen is the heartbeat of the house. So I was shocked to learn that her life before she
met Jeffrey Garten, her husband of 56 years, was unhappy and that it was a subject from which she stayed away.
“I think a lot of what I do is creating what I always wanted rather than a memory of something,” she said then.
“The minute I got married I really started cooking. I was never allowed to cook. I was never allowed in the kitchen.”
Lucky for Garten’s fans, in the years since that interview, Garten has apparently reconsidered her reticence.
In her new memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” Garten opens up about her painful childhood, first in Brooklyn and then in Stamford, Connecticut, and
the winding road that led her to carving out a place in the food world.
Her love of cooking and hosting clearly didn’t come from her mother. Garten describes her mother as emotionally detached, a person who “cooked and didn’t enjoy it.” Garten’s father, a physician, was tall and handsome, but with a dark streak to his personality.
“When he got angry,” she wrote, “which was often, anything could happen. He’d hit me or pull me around by my hair.” Their parenting style was tyrannical. Her mother’s approach to child-rearing was, wrote Garten, “basically making sure that we [ my brother and I] did what she thought we were supposed to do.” They generally disapproved, she wrote, of any decision she made that was different from theirs.
It wasn’t all cruel and unhappy. Garten has warm memories of her paternal grandparents, Bessie and Morris Rosenberg, who spoke only Yiddish when they arrived in America from Russia and Poland.
Bessie was “always cooking, and like all good cooks, she was happiest when she was feeding people,” Garten writes.
“Her steaming pots were filled with traditional Jewish dishes that were probably overcooked and under seasoned, but simple and delicious.”
After Ina and her family left Brooklyn for Connecticut, her grandparents would visit them every other Sunday, bringing a haul of Jewish foods with them.
“There was a deli around the corner from where they lived,” she told me, “and they would bring everything from chopped liver to rye bread, cookies and hot dogs. I think they thought we didn’t have food in Connecticut.”
Meeting Jeffrey
Bessie Rosenberg died when Ina was still young and other than her description of her grandmother, whom Garten
says she resembles, there are no warm family — or food-related memories in this memoir — until Jeffrey Garten enters the scene.
The couple met as teenagers — she was in high school, he was a freshman at Dartmouth College. They married when she was 20, and he was 22. In their first apartment, Garten told me, the first thing she did was buy furniture and rugs.
“I wanted to create an environment that felt warm and cozy because I was hungry for it,” she said.
Garten taught herself to cook by working her way through Craig Claiborne’s “New York Times Cookbook.”
As a newlywed, she took flying lessons, worked in a women’s clothing store, finished college, traveled through France with Jeffrey on $5 a day and then moved to Washington, D.C. There she worked for the White House by day and returned home in the evening to recreate some of the memorable dishes they had eaten during their travels in Europe.
As her boredom with her government job grew, Garten searched for her next gig — one in which she could be her own boss. “I’m a terrible employee,” she writes, “because I hate being told what to do — that’s what my life was like growing up!”
Finding Her Calling
Through a combination of searching and serendipity, Garten came across a small ad in The New York Times for a “Catering, Gourmet Foods, and Cheese Shoppe” in the Hamptons. She loved its name — Barefoot Contessa — made an offer to purchase it, which was accepted, and began the next trajectory of her life.
Her autobiography details ways that this change was unsettling for Garten, who reveals in the book that she asked her husband for a trial separation early
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Ina Garten continued
in her time at Barefoot Contessa. But it was also a pivotal point for her career, yielding success at her first Barefoot Contessa store in Westhampton, then in a move to another down the street, then moving farther east to open another food store in East Hampton.
Despite her growing renown, Garten was plagued with self-doubt, and she came to realize that the critical voice in her head was, she wrote, “actually my parents’ voice, not mine.”
She went on, “It’s really hard to separate yourself from that voice, but I started telling myself, That’s what my mother would have said. Everything you’ve done has come out better than you could have imagined, so listen to your own voice.”
The First Cookbook In 1996, at age 48, Garten stepped away from the retail food business. She pivoted
to do what her customers and friends had been begging her to do: write a cookbook.
“I wanted to make easy recipes that anyone could prepare and know their guests would be delighted,” she wrote.
The book she produced — “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,” published in 1999 — was unlike others on the market. It had only 75 recipes and lots of full-page photographs. It was the first of 13 cookbooks and, over the course of more than 25 years of writing them, more than 13 million copies have been sold.
“The food we enjoy most connects to our deepest memories of when we felt happy, comfortable, nurtured,” Garten writes.
At the time of my interview with Garten I was deflated when she declined to discuss her childhood and her food memories, but she made it clear in her memoir that she had spent her life skirting around those topics.
She was terrified to write a memoir because she knew that if she committed to doing so, “I would have to be open, honest and vulnerable,” she writes.
“I had spent so much time avoiding the painful periods in my past, especially my childhood, that I wondered if I’d be able to open those doors. And what would be behind them?”
Towards the end of the book, she asks herself if her life unfolded the way it did because she wanted to overcome her parents’ harsh criticism — or despite it.
“I’ll never know,” she wrote, “but one thing I know for sure is that everything changed when I met Jeffrey. This is when my life began.” A
Kevin Faulconer for County Board of Supervisors District 3
SOURCE:
SOURCE: Official records of the Regional Continuum of Care Council
Let’s Stand Out, Not Fit In
by Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort
More than a year has passed since the tragic events of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, 5784, Oct. 7, 2023. During the course of this year, many of us came to understand that, as Jews, the world views us as different. We see this by the irrational double standard by which Israel is judged. We see this by the homicidal hatred exhibited by the Mullahs in Iran, whose hatred for Israel is due to Israel being the Jewish state. We see this as the once-hallowed UN makes a mockery of itself by passing one resolution more ludicrous than the last, excoriating Israel for protecting itself from modern-day barbarians.
The ‘differentness’ of the Jewish people, and therefore Israel, also manifested itself in the once-respectable confines of America’s ‘finest’ institutions of higher learning. The shining lights of academia debased themselves with their virulent, hypocritical, America-hating, antisemitic vitriol. It’s astonishing how educated people can make the most
This is a spiritual war at its core.
It is a spiritual war with physical manifestations. It was not a coincidence that the attack came on Simchat Torah.
found common cause as they seek to delegitimize the Middle East’s one liberal democracy. Their hysteria would be comical if it wasn’t so potentially deadly to our people.
And in service of what?! The most regressive, backward and hateful of ideologies. Their sympathies lie with those who burn babies alive in front of their parents and who rape anyone that moves. The Hamas and Hezbollah adherents are straight out of the dark ages, and it is there that they must be returned posthaste.
ridiculous arguments that are absent a whit of intellectual honesty and/or logic and common sense. The antisemitic bug has burrowed deeply into American society and taken hold. Associations as diverse as librarians and lawyers have
Why the hatred against Israel? These professional haters hate Israel because it is Jewish. This tells us that this is a spiritual war at its core. It is a spiritual war with physical manifestations. It was not a coincidence that the attack came on Simchat Torah. The enemies understand that simcha/joy is the key to our special and unbreakable connection with G-d. They attacked on what is supposed to be the happiest day on the Jewish calendar.
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Let’s Stand Out
They did so on purpose. And so, we must fight back using our ‘secret weapon’— our capacity to serve G-d with joy, always. Most of us are not candidates to join the IDF, but that does not mean we don’t have a significant part to play in this war. We must be the spiritual warriors that Israel relies upon. It is our duty as Jews to stand out, be different, embrace our unique role and thereby change the world for the better. In America, many pursue the American dream: a nice house in a nice neighborhood, with two (at least) nice cars in the driveway, surrounded by nice neighbors. When we were young, we certainly yearned to be like everyone else around us. But now, we have come to understand that we are destined to be different. We have something special to accomplish and we cannot do so while competing with the Joneses.
The Torah tells us to behave differently, to pursue our own set of values and to adhere to our own standards of ethics. For instance, the mitzvah to eat kosher explicitly differentiates us, even when engaging in the most mundane of activities — eating. We are commanded to be a nation of priests, a holy nation. Holiness entails differentiation. Acting differently. Speaking differently. Thinking differently. Should we try to conceal our Jewishness, our differentness? Well, if Oct. 7 has taught us anything, it is that the world will not allow us to forget that we are forever unique. How can we not embrace this role?
In my experience, the nations respect a Jew who respects themself. We must proclaim our Jewishness loudly and proudly! Mezuzos on the front door and throughout the house, and business
is the order of the day. Regular Torah study is essential. Generously donating to charity is an absolute necessity. Love of our fellow is a must. A strong Jewish education for our youth will ensure that they don’t get confused or intimidated by the nonsense they will eventually encounter.
We can and must interact with the nations of the world, for it is our duty to expose them to ethical monotheism and to teach them the Seven Universal Commandments. We have something precious to offer humanity. Let us resolve not to deprive the world of the gifts we have. Our gifts, which we lovingly share, will transform the darkness into light and ignorance into knowledge of the Creator.
It is our job to get busy and start lighting up our surroundings! A
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Hebrew University: A Century of Progress
Celebrating 100 years of academic achievement and global contributions
On the 1st of April 1925, in a ceremony attended by dignitaries from across the region and the world, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem officially opened its academic doors.
After seven years of construction—from the setting of the cornerstones in 1918 to the start of classes in 1925— the University’s official opening marked the start of a new era, setting the stage for the institution to become an internationally-renowned incubator of discovery and innovation.
The accomplishments reached within its many halls and campuses over the past century have been instrumental in charting the forward progress of the State of Israel, a nation blessed with tremendous success even in the face of ongoing challenges and threats to its very existence.
Alongside the founding of the University itself, committees around the world were created to support its development. As such, American Friends of the Hebrew University will also celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025, marking one hundred years of partnership.
To mark the onset of this historic year, we took the opportunity to speak to top executives at both institutions.
Both say that the Hebrew University is far more than just an academic institution. It has become a pillar of Israeli society, instrumental in the founding and growth of the State of Israel.
Yishai points out that the initial concept for the Hebrew University dates back to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 and that its founding “can be seen as the first major project of modern Zionism.”
Joshua adds that it would be shortsighted to view the success of the University as solely an Israeli, or even Jewish, enterprise. “The vision of the Hebrew University really is about creating a better world for all people. Whether it’s through developing better medicines, a healthier and more sustainable environment or any of the countless areas with which the University is involved, it is no exaggeration to say that the daily pursuit is about creating a better future for all people to be able to live and thrive together.”
Yishai Fraenkel is the Vice President and Director General of Hebrew University, responsible for advancing a vision that he anticipates will firmly establish the University as one of the top centers of higher learning in the world.
As CEO of American Friends of the Hebrew University, Joshua Rednik oversees an ambitious and continuously expanding development effort manifested by what he describes as the “inextricable bond” between the American community and the University.
That pursuit to better society is what has helped forge relationships between the University and the international community, driving philanthropic investment in its forward development. “My experience has been that people view support of the Hebrew University as a fundamental way to achieve two meaningful ends: fulfill their commitments to Zionist ideals and improve the world around us,” Joshua says.
Yishai adds, “Our motivating vision is to see Israel as a light unto the nations in areas of science and forwardthinking. This manifests itself in essential research in areas including climate science and sustainability but no less so in educating the community on how minority populations can live together or how to advance social justice and greater inclusion.”
As the University prepares to mark this 100th anniversary, Israel finds itself amidst a deeply tragic and
increasingly costly war. “Sadly, this is far from the first time where we as a university community have been forced to respond to the pressures of war. The cornerstone of Hebrew University was laid while World War I was still raging and we have been here for every moment of tension,” Yishai says. “But our mission then and today has been to remain resilient and utilize all the means at our disposal to grow and support a diverse and inclusive Hebrew University community, one that reflects the democratic and multicultural values of Israeli society.”
Since the beginning of the war over 7,500 Hebrew University students have been called to military-reserve duty and all-too-many people from within the HU community have fallen or were injured in battle.
That sense of dedication is something which both Yishai and Joshua say is the ultimate mark of achievement, and what they believe will carry the University forward over the next century.
“While the miracle of the modern State of Israel might have happened even without Hebrew University, we take incredible pride in the fact that we supported it and were at the heart of making Israel the economic powerhouse and international success that it is today,” says Yishai. “The halls of Hebrew University have truly expanded the boundaries of human knowledge and science. As we now look towards this second century, it’s about doing all we have been doing and much more, with the specific goal of becoming one of the top twenty universities in the world.”
For Joshua, the next century is about harnessing what he believes firmly is the University’s greatest resource—its people. “Without the right people teaching, researching, and leading an institution, nothing else matters. Everywhere you turn in Israel, you will see leaders and achievers who trace their paths directly back to the University. I am very confident that if we continue to focus on our people and maximizing their potential, in 100 years’ time, humanity will look back at this moment and be able to state with certainty that the Hebrew University was instrumental in creating a better world.”
Bea Gold’s Stories Are Golden
by Susan Edelstein
Most of us would be quite content to rest on our laurels in the twilight of our lives, especially if our lives have been so full and productive, engaged and creative as Bea Gold’s, but not her. Bea Gold, a 97-year-old resident of Encinitas, has added author to her long list of accomplishments. Bea is a painter, a woodcut artist, an avid gardener, a life-long community activist and now a published memoirist.
Bea Gold was born and grew up in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s, the only child of young Jewish immigrants. Her first book, “Tell Me A Story — Stories From A Childhood In Old New York,” consists of 36 one-page stories, each with an accompanying painting. Her stories are told in the voice and through the perspective of a child. As Bea says, “Each story is complete, some funny, some sad, some universal
It truly is a history of an era inviting some to reminisce and others to enter a bygone world.
and gives a picture of a way of life that no longer exists.” My personal favorites are “Grandpa,” which sweetly recounts Bea’s love for her grandfather, and “Getting Teddy,” in which a lonely only child (the only, only child Bea knew) gets her first puppy. Bea’s story/painting combinations have been exhibited at the Silver Lake Art Collective in Los Angeles, where she lived for 37 years.
Bea’s more recent memoir, “Shopping with Mama,” evokes the pre-supermarket era when small shops specialized in one product, and shopping was a daily excursion and entailed going
from one shop to the next until you had gathered all of the ingredients necessary for that day’s meals. As Bea tagged along, her mother went from the bakery to the dairy to the butcher to the produce market, and finally, to the confectioner. Each story in this memoir is about a specialized shop and is accompanied by Bea’s mother’s recipes for that shop’s product. Each story is also illustrated by Bea’s woodcuts. This book is black and white but bursts into colorful life through Bea’s vivid sensory descriptions. It truly is a history of an era inviting some to reminisce and others to enter a bygone world. This book is “a literary and culinary time capsule,” says Bea, “a celebration of family, culture and the timeless joy of sharing meals that transcend generations.”
SDJJ wanted to learn more about Bea from Bea herself and asked a few questions of her.
SDJJ: Your parents, separately, as young adults, were part of the Great Migration of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe that ended in 1924. By then, more than two million Jews had arrived in New York. How did your parents meet?
Bea Gold: My parents were a part of the young socialist movement that was very active in the United States in the early 1920s. They met at one of the group’s social events and were members until the group dissolved. They remained active members of the Socialist Party, but as they experienced the social movement into the middle class the party no longer appealed to them. They joined the Democratic Party as soon as they received their American citizenship papers and remained members for life.
SDJJ: Your family survived the desperate working conditions during the Great Depression and WWII. To what do you attribute their survival skills?
BG: My parents were young when they were married and looked for work to build a prosperous future. My father worked as a window cleaner’s helper until he saved enough from his meager wages to buy his own window cleaning route in Manhattan. They were so proud that my father was now a “businessman.”
During the Depression, although they were poor and work was scarce, businesses always needed their windows to be clean, and my father had enough work to keep food on our table. My mother was always home caring for me until the war came. My parents joined the war effort, and my father got a job
in the shipyard. My mother worked in a tent factory, and I was home alone after school for the first time.
SDJJ: You write that the 1930s were years of ‘new American antisemitism.’ How did that manifest? Do you think it compares to today’s antisemitism?
BG: I was too young and protected to be aware of antisemitism when I was a child. My mother and father both experienced state-sponsored antisemitism in Europe, pogroms while they were there, and the Holocaust, fortunately, after they left for the United States. We were in the US, which was considered to be the safest place in the world for Jews to live, even though antisemitism was always there and felt in various ways.
Today, extreme antisemitism is seen in disagreement over the Israel response to the Oct. 7 Jewish slaughter. There is always the fear among Jews that this sentiment will explode into overt antisemitism and no Jew will be safe.
I came face to face with overt antisemitism when I was staying in Las Vegas to complete my six-week requirement to be a resident before applying for a divorce. My parents took me to find a safe place for my six-week isolation. We found a motel that had a little building behind it with a bedroom and kitchen. It was perfect for a six-week stay, with my daughter and schoolwork to keep me busy. I became friendly with the motel owners and their daughter. The family treated me well and included me and my daughter in family activities.
One day, I was in their house, and my daughter Jana was playing on the floor when the woman owner came in and angrily said that some New York Jews had just rented a room. I said, “What is a New York Jew?” The father responded by saying a New York Jew was someone who hollers at their children and eats raw onions. I said, “You know, I’m a New York Jew.” My daughter and I were no longer invited into their house, but I still had two weeks before I cleared residency, so I couldn’t leave. And every time the father passed me. he said, “If I knew you were coming, I would have baked a kike.” Kike, of course, is a derogatory label for a Jewish person. and it frightened me. It was a scary two weeks, and I learned what antisemitism meant.
SDJJ: Can you tell us about your art education and background?
BG: When I was in fifth grade, my teacher told me that my artwork had promise. She helped me build a portfolio and apply to the High School of Music and Art. I was accepted into New York’s public high school which concentrated on both music and art.
I loved that school and it started me on a lifelong experience as an artist.
There, I had a teacher who admonished the students that you could not call yourself an artist unless you were always working on something. I always continues on next page >>
Facing page: Gold working on a woodcut, Bea Gold. PHOTOS BY GALINA MARCUS.
At left: Gold’s first published book, enlarged oil painting.
have something I’m working on, and so I call myself an artist. When I was 15, a boyfriend introduced me to his sister. She was beautiful, and she was an artist! She introduced me to the Art Students League, and when she walked me up the elegant marble staircase where there was student artwork displayed on the walls, we came to one of the works, which was an abstract painting. I pointed and laughed and said, “What is that thing?” Joanna stopped and looked at me and said, “Never laugh at something you don’t understand.” I was so ashamed, but I learned. I never laugh at artwork I don’t understand; I just say, “That’s interesting.” I spent the next four years at the League under several competitive scholarships, which I received because my parents didn’t have the money to pay for my schooling. I am a painter and a woodcut artist, and my art is my passion. It is what identifies me as a person.
SDJJ: Food plays an enormous role in every culture. Do you feel you have honored your mother in “Shopping With Mama?”
BG: I hope I demonstrated in my book “Shopping With Mama” the enormous respect and admiration I had for my mother, especially in the kitchen. My mother never let me touch her beautiful baked and boiled creations. They were pieces of art that only the artist could handle. As a youngster, I watched in awe as she put things together that turned out to be beautiful and delicious.
When she created a dish, it was made mostly of the main ingredients, there were few extra ingredients and few spices — nothing written — created only from memory. I would have a prime seat at the kitchen table where I could watch and ask questions and receive tidbits picked out of her creations. Sometimes, it was a bit of egg yolk, sometimes a sliver of the meat she was cooking, and sometimes a bit of fruit from a compote. When my mother’s food was ready and brought to the table, it was beautiful to see. Roasted meats were shiny and
had a gorgeous color, boiled meats had a heavenly smell and chopped meat made for interesting combinations, like the hard-boiled egg hiding in the hamburger. I never knew what was coming next, and I loved it.
My job, as I saw it, was to learn and write things down to help me remember. I was a lucky learner. Sometimes, now, when I find a new Jewish cookbook, I exclaim, surprised, “Here’s one of Mama’s recipes; how did she find it?!”
The heritage of Jewish cooking has the new cook dependent on the written recipe, while old-time cooks learned in the kitchen.
SDJJ: After retiring from a vigorous professional life as founder and executive director of Child Youth and Family Services (later Pathways), you turned your attention to writing. Can you tell us about your writing group formed by the Los Angeles Unified School District?
BG: When I retired from my role as director of a very active nonprofit organization, I looked for activities that were creative and would fill my newfound excess time. My husband Jack and I were members of the local senior group, the Griffith Park Adult Community Center. He had retired a couple of years earlier and had established himself as a member of the senior writing group, a busy alternative to working. I joined the writing group to spend time with Jack.
Once there, I found that the new adventure in my life was going to be writing. I found that I loved writing! Our instructions were simply to tell a story about something important to you. We met once a week with our teacher, and those of us who had written a story read it to the group and received helpful criticism. Each week, I read my stories
to the group, and they encouraged me and praised my work. Then, I put all my stories together and created a book, “Tell Me a Story,” which is a compilation of 36 stories that I read to the group. I painted an illustration for each of the stories and included them in the book. I found that I am a writer.
SDJJ: What brought you to Encinitas from LA?
BG: I lived in and loved Los Angeles from 1950 to 2014. A lifetime. I lived in our Silverlake house for 37 years. When Jack and I bought the house, it was on a nice city lot on a hill. Above us on the hill was a vacant lot, which we also bought. That lot on the hill became my garden, where I spent many hours gardening every day.
Jack died in 2003, and I continued to live in the house until 2012 when I suddenly realized the house was too large for me as I was getting older. We owned a condo in Encinitas, and my daughter, Cory, who was a real estate person at the time, helped me put my house on the market. I wanted to approve of the person or family who would live in my beloved house, and finally, in 2014, we met the right buyer; I would be so happy for his family to live in my house. He offered, I accepted, and so off to Encinitas!
SDJJ: I have my favorites in “Tell Me a Story — Stories from a Childhood in Old New York.” What is yours?
BG: I love “Naming.” I love that whiny kid and her patient, loving mother, who was a great storyteller. I think “The Pogrom” was my favorite to write. It was hard to write, but I feel the peoples’ fear. I love “The Blue Mirror.” I feel so sorry for that little girl. I’m afraid I can’t go on because I realize I love a lot of the stories. I love some of the illustrations, too. My favorite is for “Tell Me a Story,” but I also love “The War At Home,” “The Old Aunts,” and “Music and Art.”
Carry on, Bea Gold, and thank you. A
Only in Israel Story: A Stranger in Uniform
by Galia Miller Sprung
We were at my daughters’ moshav in the Jordan Rift Valley during the Rosh Hashana chag (holiday). Shortly before lunch, my older daughter, Sarit, received a phone call from her brother- in-law, Moshe, who was on his way to the moshav with his son for lunch.
“I picked up a reservist soldier at the Ariel junction,” he said. “He was on the way to his base near you, but now got a message that he doesn’t have to be there until tomorrow.” Holiday. No public transportation. No way for this reservist to return to his family for the chag. Lucky for him that Moshe was on the road as there’s not much traffic in the
Shomron over Rosh Hashana. Naturally, my daughter said, “No problem. One more for lunch.”
Dani (not his real name) followed Moshe into Sarit’s house, stood for a moment by the door, taking in the organized holiday chaos around him— a soldier sizing up new terrain. Last-minute preparations for the 18 guests, now 19, had the family engaged in tasks: grilling, adding spices to dishes and organizing the kitchen. Not all 19 were authentic guests, really. Family members aren’t guests, but my daughters, both of whom live on the moshav, always host soldiers doing short stints of guard duty on the moshav for Shabbat meals and
holidays. To be fair, several families vie for the privilege of seating these soldiers around Shabbat and holiday tables. Today, four soldiers, young women, two of whom were in an officer’s course and their officers, would be joining the family as they had the evening before for Rosh Hashana dinner.
Sarit immediately wrote on the moshav WhatsApp lists: “Anyone going to the Tel Aviv area today? We need a ride for a soldier.” Within minutes, a family texted that they would be happy to take Dani in the late afternoon when they planned to visit family in the Tel Aviv area, an hour’s drive.
Only in Israel
Like all good IDF soldiers, Dani knew what to do. He put his weapon and duffle bag to the side, picked up a knife and prepared for action: “Can I use this fruit to make a pitcher of sangria for everyone?” he asked, eyeing some apples and plums in a bowl. He took his place at the island in the middle of the kitchen and got to work. He chopped and cut and asked for more ingredients. With sangria completed and flavors blending, he washed butter lettuce and prepared a luscious green salad.
A quick game of Jewish geography revealed that Dani and my daughters had two mutual acquaintances, and he was headed to the same army base where one of my granddaughters serves.
Dani walked into my daughter’s house a total stranger but left a few hours later with produce from the Jordan Rift Valley to take to his wife and children. “It was the best way to spend wasted hours!” he said before leaving. Epilogue to this story: The moshav member who took our reservist to the center offered to bring him back the next day, Friday, when she returned from Tel Aviv. Dani thanked her but said he had to be at the base early so he’d manage on his own. He didn’t. She found him trying to hitch a ride at a junction in the Shomron, picked him up and took him all the way to his base!
I was introduced to this custom of picking up soldiers during my first hour in the country exactly 54 years ago.
I landed at Ben Gurion Airport (then Lod) at 2:00 a.m. on Oct. 6. A friend’s cousin, a stranger to me, picked me up and took me to her house for the night (I never saw her again). But as we were leaving the airport, she pulled over and stopped by a soldier carrying a rifle of some sort. I didn’t yet know how to differentiate between an M-16 and a Kalashnikov. I thought he was guarding the airport perimeter. “Can
Dani walked into my daughter’s house a total stranger but left a few hours later with produce from the Jordan Rift Valley to take to his wife and children.
you move your things so he can get in?” my friend’s cousin asked me. What is she doing?! She’s inviting an armed person, a stranger, into her car! All the prohibitions in one place: A strange man with a gun in the middle of the night. Who does that?
Well, apparently, everyone! And in those days, they didn’t only pick up soldiers. Hitching was the way to get around then. I hitched rides until the mid-eighties. Even when my husband and I bought a car in 1972, we couldn’t afford to use it all the time. A tank of gas burned up our entire monthly allowance (we were living semi-kibbutz/ communal style then). But when I did drive, I always picked up soldiers and sometimes civilians. In fact, I used to go out of my way when leaving Jerusalem in the 1970s to look for soldiers; there were only one or two buses a day that went on Road #90, down from Jerusalem, through Jericho to the Jordan Rift Vally, continuing to the north of the country. On my way home, I’d often stop in Jericho where “my” soldiers and I would eat hummus and pita and maybe buy some pomelo fruit. Who paid? I don’t remember. No one had much money. Then we continued north along #90 with the purple hills of Jordan to the east of us. I dropped them off at their bases, or if they were continuing farther north, I let them off before I turned left towards my moshav.
It’s what we did.
My daughters continued the tradition when they started driving. Now, three of my grandchildren drive, but they do not pick up soldiers. Or anyone, I hope. Times have definitely changed. Fortunately, the change includes more public transportation, which is free for soldiers, but there’s not enough in outlying areas.
Over the last several years, the security situation has made getting into a car with a stranger too risky. Soldiers are no longer allowed to hitch rides. That doesn’t mean that they don’t, and civilians are out there and happy to pick them up, kitbag and rifle and all, when they do. My husband and I picked up a soldier recently in the Shomron on a Friday afternoon. He was going to a moshav a few miles past my daughters’ moshav, and we offered to take him home, but he had already texted his family to come to us.
So, on that Rosh Hashana day, when a stranger in uniform walked into my daughter’s house, no one thought it odd. For me, it was a sign that the best traditions, the best in us, thrive. When Dani left Sarit’s house, phone numbers were exchanged, but I don’t think anyone knew his last name. A
Galia Miller Sprung moved to Israel from Palm Springs, California in 1970 to become a pioneer farmer and was a founding member of a moshav in the Jordan Rift Valley. Today she is a retired high school teacher, a writer and editor. She lives with her husband in Tzufim.
San Diego Junior Theatre — The Little Jewel in Balboa Park
by Susan Edelstein
Balboa Park was created for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, and its buildings were considered temporary at the time. But, like San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts and Paris’s Eiffel Tower, also built as temporary structures for expositions, Balboa Park was reconstructed to become a permanent part of the city of San Diego. Its Spanish Colonial Revival architecture is ornate and extravagant, a rich mix of Mexican, Spanish and Persian influences. Its castle-like atmosphere is evocative of princesses, fairies, knights and dragons, a perfect place to explore your imagination. The perfect spot for youth theater.
Nestled in the middle of Balboa Park is the Casa Del Prado Theatre, the venue for the productions of the San Diego Junior Theatre. SDJT began in 1948 as a workshop of the Old Globe Theatre,
SDJT is the oldest youth theater program in the US.
holding its productions in various locales around the park before settling in 1953 at the Casa Del Prado. SDJT is the oldest youth theater program in the US. Its mission is to provide high-quality theater education and productions for all the children of San Diego County, inclusive of all cultures, ages and abilities. SDJT has classes, camps and weekend workshops in a variety of disciplines,
such as acting, voice, dance, improv, Shakespeare and stage combat.
San Diego Junior Theatre has begun its 77th season, and Artistic Director Joey Price is excited about the season’s lineup titled “Dare to Leap! A Season of Adventure and Discovery.” This season began with “The Addams Family,” which I have loved as the ultimate family since I was a kid. More well-loved productions include “James and the Giant Peach” and “Disney’s The Lion King, Jr.”— truly a season of wonder and whimsy. Check out the full schedule at boxoffice@juniortheatre.com.
By participating in youth theater, children gain confidence, learn leadership and practice teamwork. By virtue of these learned skills, SDJT is helping to build the citizens of tomorrow. Their motto is “Theatre skills are skills for life!”
Local Arts
BY EILEEN SONDAK
LAMB’S PLAYERS THEATRE
lambsplayers.org
The Lamb’s Players is showing off one of Oscar Wilde’s most brilliant masterpieces, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” The endearing comedy features delightful hijinks and some of the cleverest dialogue in the English language. Fortunately, the production boasts a talented cast and a gorgeous set to do it justice. The show will be playing in Coronado through Nov. 10
“Respectfully Christmas” returns to Lamb’s on Nov. 26, where it will keep audiences thoroughly entertained through Dec. 29
NORTH COAST REPERTORY THEATRE
northcoastrep.org
North Coast Repertory Theatre’s production of “Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help,” an engaging comedy with fresh and amusing characters and a warm heart, continues its San Diego premiere through Nov. 24 Set in the 1970s, it revolves around a quirky family dealing with the rapidly-changing realities of their time.
THE OLD GLOBE THEATRE
theoldglobe.org
The Old Globe’s Shiley Stage will welcome the return of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”, a kid-friendly show that has been a staple for the Globe for 27 years. The iconic musical delight will be on stage from Nov. 6 through Dec. 31, and audiences of all ages will find it irresistible.
BROADWAY
SAN DIEGO
broadwaysd.com
Broadway San Diego is featuring the return of “Hadestown,” a popular hit musical. The show will take over the Civic Theatre Nov. 8-10. A one-night stand of “Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert,” is headed to the Balboa Theatre on Nov. 21, courtesy of Broadway San Diego.
THE OLD GLOBE: Arden Elise Johnson as Cindy-Lou Who and Andrew Polec as The Grinch in Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!,” 2023. PHOTO BY JIM COX.
LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY
theconrad.org
La Jolla Music Society continues its season on Nov. 8 with pianist Helene Grimaud, followed on the 10th by Trio Bohemo. “Encanto: The SingAlong Film Concert” is set for Nov. 17, as part of the Kids Series, and Alex Tarantino Quartet rounds out the month on Nov. 21
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE
lajollaplayhouse.org
La Jolla Playhouse is featuring “A Christmas Carol, By Charles Dickens, Again.” This unique version of the holiday classic is not aimed at the small-fry set. The amusing and emotion-packed new play, penned by Anna Ouyang Moench, is a love letter to artists and dreamers who make sacrifices for their work. It will captivate audiences Nov. 19 through Dec. 15 at the Potiker Theatre.
CYGNET THEATRE
cygnettheatre.com
Cygnet Theatre’s wildly successful production of “The Rocky Horror Show” closes on Nov. 2, but the troupe is gearing up for one of its favorite annual traditions, Sean Murray’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol.” The show — which features a score by Billy Thompson and all the familiar characters — will take up residency at the Old Town Theatre Nov. 29 through Dec. 24
SAN DIEGO
JUNIOR THEATRE
juniortheatre.com
San Diego Junior Theatre launched its 77th season with “The Addams Family,” a spooky and laugh-filled romp. Joey Price directed this production, which will be performed at the Casa del Prado through Nov. 10
CYGNET THEATRE: “A Christmas Carol.”
Playwright Anna Ouyang Moench.
Autumnal Tahini Crusted Cauliflower Steaks
by Micah Siva | noshwithmicah.com
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and chances are you will have folks with varying diets joining you at your holiday table. Hosting is stressful enough, and by the time your turkey is roasting and your pumpkin pie is cooling, you will want something quick and easy that suits most diets. I love turning cauliflower into a hearty main dish that is as delicious as it is satisfying. Rich, nutty tahini is complemented with herbs that you’ll often find in your fall menus like sage, thyme and marjoram. I like to serve mine throughout the year with a grain bowl full of bright ingredients like peppery arugula salad, lentils and pickled vegetables.
SERVES 4-6
INGREDIENTS:
• 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 large heads of cauliflower
• ⅓ cup tahini
• ¼ cup water
• 1 tsp. dried sage
PREPARATION:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Drizzle a baking sheet with olive oil.
• ½ tsp. thyme
• ½ tsp. garlic powder
• ½ tsp. onion powder
• ¼ tsp. dried marjoram
• ¼ tsp. kosher salt
3. Cut the cauliflower into 1 ½ inch “steaks,” reserving the florets. You should get two to three “steaks” from each cauliflower.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the tahini, water, sage, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, marjoram and salt.
5. Use a pastry brush to brush a layer of the tahini mixture on both sides of the cauliflower steaks, and place on the baking sheet. Add the remaining florets to the tray.
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until tender and golden.
7. Serve!
ASK MARNIE
by Marnie Macauley marniemacauley@gmail.com
Thanks for Being
My beloved San Diegans:
There comes a time in every Boomer’s life to replace, and I’m not talking about landlines. I’m talking hip, knees, teeth and the ability to remember your zip code. But more, I’m talking about those things, those times, and the people that are irreplaceable, and so become memories, but more, stitches in the crazy quilt we continue that keeps our life, our legacy, eternal.
It’s 2015. My son just returned from the Dollar (now $1.25) Store.
“Hey, ma, look at this!” holding up a square green box. “They’re called ‘Jujubes’— from your day. I almost broke an implant on one of those! Did you teach Uncle Josh how to eat them?”
“Yeah. The cool part was to soften them then glue your teeth together,” I say, then wistfully I flash back to Loews, in Queens, New York, as I shlepped my innocent little brother into “The House on Haunted Hill” and “The Blob,” where his lifelong addiction to science fiction and Jujubes was born.
My “Ju”-Joy leads to a flood of Jewstalgia for the places, the people, all the times of my life that have gone. There was Mom and Dad, my little brother, even meshugge uncles and aunts (one sent her spit to the Mayo clinic because her pish was mauve; at least she didn’t send her pish). No distance, no Zoom, not Net, no “ME” impeded then. We were all “US.”
Brain fog clears. I see it. My ears long ago failed me. Yet, my Jewstalgia hears it perfectly.
Often, we seemed to be the only two in on the joke; we’d look at each other, holding it in, and we didn’t dare look at each other again.
DAD (on phone): Marnie, you have a little brother! (“Yay!” I thought. Now I could play teacher, and he would be my student.)
I didn’t factor in a mind of his own. This squiggly adorable thing soon declared his independence with no fear of a six year-older sister. At two, in a diaper with gorgeous blonde curls, he caught a huge fish. He slept with that fish, taller than him — the whole summer. If I suggested playing school, he put the fish in my bed. (He had yet to discover horse’s heads). And so started his fascination with animals. We had them all! He thought it was a riot when his huge snake, fangs bared, waved from behind a radio while our mom was ironing. I think our relatives in Tel Aviv heard her. My brother hid under the sofa, made a face at her, and she cracked up.
He could always get her to do that. Not me.
Once, she sat me down and told me it was my job to take care of him because, she explained, “Someday, it will be just the two of you.” (Her one attempt at optimism.) But I never forgot.
If we were good, I could walk him to the candy store. Not Godiva. Not aisle 73 at Walmart. The 1950s neighborhood store was Switzers. Small and messy, it was a micro-universe that smelled of sugar, sour balls and sawdust. Little Lulu twirling on metal shelves, and egg creams, the real stuff. Ah...to once again swivel on the round, red stools — with the Band-Aids covering the rips — in front of the fountain. And the sweets! Rows of button candy stuck to paper I never quite liberated and wax lips. If Mr. Switzer was in a good mood, he might just give my brother and me a tall salty pretzel from the long glass jar. My brother wheedled two for a penny. And the “B-O... N-O... M-O... Turkish Taaaaaaafy!” Those rectangles could stretch like Spandex. My brother proved it by softening it and then twisting a bar around his entire torso. After five tries, Mr. Shotsky, the neighborhood cleaner, “disappeared for a rest cure” at his daughter’s condo in Florida. (You didn’t know our mother.)
Speaking of our mother, my brother had one huge complaint about her that drove him insane; she couldn’t or wouldn’t buy normal cookies. Cookies were my brother’s idea of nirvana. Every week, she would come back with an off-brand from Bulgaria with graham crackerish layers filled with dried currants. Then she found mini shredded
wheat squares topped with hard almonds. And every week, the same conversation. “Ma,” he’d say, working on his patience, “Have you ever heard of Oreos? Or authentic Fig Newtons? Not the ones with a large fig in a wafer?”
“Ma?” My son says, bringing me back to the Jujubes, “So, you softened them first?” Picking up the green Jujube box thoughtfully, I said, “Yes. Soften. Remember the word and use it, always.” He stood there thinking.
While on the subject of Jujubes, I related to my son that when my brother was six, our mother grabbed six boxes and melted them to get his head out of an iron fence so evil it could slice terrorists. “What?!” asks my son, incredulous, trying to imagine his uncle, a renowned veterinarian, pulling this stunt.
“He saw some neighbors in their pool. He put his head in their fence. After our mother’s hysterical, desperate (and useless) Jujube attempt, she tried Windex. Maybe she could slide him out. He was shiny. I pulled on his feet but just his pants came free. Hours later, emergency personnel used the jaws of life to free his head (and destroy Dr. Gerstenhaber’s fence). Once free, some local reporters asked my mother to put his head back in, for a better shot. Words streamed out of her in Yinglish that would put Lenny Bruce in rehab.
At age 11, I hated camp. I was a campophobe. I didn’t swim or play ball. I didn’t have the nerve to cry to our parents, “Come get me!” Ah, but my little brother, when it was his time, developed a quirky contagious disease on day one. He not only got out of camp, but Dad was the first human to win a lawsuit against a camp.
“How did the kid manage it? In ONE DAY!” I thought with a hint of admiration. My pride grew.
In our Jewish Center’s annual production of “Fiddler,” the shul’s president of 40 years, Seymour, demanded to play Tevye — every year. The rest of the cast was 75, even the daughters. Who could walk, never mind dance? Dad, who was in charge of scenic design, had an idea — a dance contest. He grabbed my highly acrobatic 19-year-old brother and guilted him into doing the kazatsky. (Google). He jumped, he twisted, he got lower than limbo stick kicking. The rest laid down. The shul gave him a statue. He used it as a doorstop.
While still intending to follow his life’s passion, veterinary medicine, my brother enjoyed several avocations — he became an expert sleuth, hunting down obscure specialty stores in Manhattan. You name it, he could find it. He then he did stand-up. (David Brenner helped.) How can you not admire such courageous chutzpah? “Let them laugh!” I prayed. They did. Such pride.
“Uncle Josh?” asks my son. “Yeah. I told you this.” He’s always known his uncle had a great sense of humor, something my brother and I shared, which wasn’t always... appropriate. Often, we seemed to be the only two in on the joke; we’d look at each other, holding it in, and we didn’t dare look at each other again.
In the years since, he became an extraordinary vet. And then, as Ma predicted, we were just the two of us, acting as a unit even through the torture of bearing our parents’ deaths young.
Through our later years, our sensibilities and distance in this new world meant time missed but not forgotten. Never forgotten.
The doctors say my little brother is likely dying. I can’t save him. I can only pray. I can only rejoice that he carries within him a world, one born from love, humor, tragedies and hope.
But, I will tell of his times and anecdotes, ensuring his remarkable place generation by generation, weaving his life into the eternal tapestry.
For my brother, Dr. Joshua Alex Winston... “Joshuwoowee.” A
Marnie Macauley, MS, Columbia University – Creator of Strategic Relationship Thinking (an innovative way to solve problems), writer, editor, author, lecturer, clinician, and administrator – is a straightshooter, with a distinctive voice and take on the world in her columns, features and books. She has been nominated for both an Emmy and a Writers Guild award.
No walks or feedings required, just keeping my dogs company while I am out running errands. Very flexible days and hours. The pay is $25-$30/hr cash. Please contact me with any questions, at 805-904-3944. Thank you very much.
619-668-4334 philip.bresnick@morganstanley.com
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