Donald H Harrison
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Novel Imagines German-Jewish Relationships at Close of 19th Century
The book cover gives a false impression of the contents of All Things That Deserve to Perish. While there are sexual situations that contribute to the outcome of the story, the major theme of this book...
One-Day U.S. Screening of Documentary on the Warsaw Zookeepers Who Hid Jews
An unusual, although not unprecedented, rollout for the documentary Of Animals and Men will occur on Tuesday, June 22, in theaters around the nation when the film telling “the true story behind The Zookeeper’s Wife” will be given...
More Than a Raceway: Novel Presents a Jewish Side of Watkins Glen
The Finger Lakes region of upstate New York is known for Watkins Glen International, a race car venue that permits ordinary citizens to take three laps around the track in their personal cars for...
A Survivor’s Trek Through Europe and the U.S.
In this memoir, nonagenarian Michael G. Kesler tells how as a teenager, he escaped both forced service in the Soviet Army and the Nazi invasion of his Polish home town by hopping trains with...
Jewish Family’s Anguish after Converting as Catholics during Nazi Era
Erika Hecht’s mother had herself and Erika converted from Judaism to Catholicism to protect them from discovery by the Nazis or their Hungarian allies, the Arrow Cross. Erika was enrolled in Catholic school, where...
Children’s Literature: Bible Stories Retold
The stories from Genesis and Exodus are familiar to anyone who has read the Bible or attended Sunday school, but in making the stories more interesting for children, author Shalev, not unlike the midrash writers of old, has invented some...
Children’s Literature: The Candy Man Mystery
SAN DIEGO – Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, author of The Candy Man Mystery, is primarily known as a Jewish educator having served as a dean at the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion and as...
A Jewish Odyssey from Ethiopia to Israel and Back
From Africa to Zion: The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel’s First Ethiopian-born Journalist; a memoir by Danny Adeno Abebe; Yedioth Ahronoth, Chemed Books; © 2021, translated from Hebrew; ISBN 9789652-012869; 404 pages.
This is a...
Children’s Literature: ‘The Rabbi and the Painter’
The Rabbi and the Painter; story by Shoshana Weiss; illustrations by Jennifer Kirkham; Kalaniot Books, 2021; ISBN 9780998-852782; 28 pages plus historical notes.
This children’s book imagines a fictional friendship between the Mannerist painter Tintoretto and...
Sherlock Holmes and an anti-Semitic forgery
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer; Minotaur Books, 2019; ISBN 9781250-228956; 235 pages, $25.99.
Star Trek script screenwriter Nicholas Meyer has appropriated the characters of Sherlock Holmes and sidekick Dr. John Watson from the...