Meurav Yerusahalmi, Jerusalem's  youth music group, performs  at Lawrence Family JCC

By Donald H. Harrison

LA JOLLA, Calif.—There was not just one, there were innumerable stories at the Yom Ha'atzma'ut festival today at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center. With many dozens of booths, and singing, dancing, and more food to eat than one could imagine, the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people celebrating Israel 58th birthday  interacted in an incalculable number of ways with a variety of  experiences drawn from both Israel and the Diaspora.

So, as I roamed around with my camera, what I saw was not necessarily what other festival goers saw and  registered or vice versa. One of the things I learned was that just like on St. Patrick's Day, when everyone wants to be Irish, it seems on Israeli Independence Day, every one wants to be Israeli.  I saw llamas, indigenous to the Andean region of South America, giving rides to children, including my grandson, Shor, and I saw people lining up for many different kinds of kosher food, including Mongolian barbecue. South America, Mongolia—Israeli, at least for the day!


Shor Masori, 5, in foreground tries out as llama as do two sisters Rachel and Sarah Doron in background.  At a
food concession operated by Schmoozer's Catering, meanwhile, Mongolian barbecue proved quite popular.

Tomorrow, my grandson and his father, Shahar Masori, will be flying to Israel for a visit to the paternal side of Shor's family, and, although this will be Shor's third visit to that country, I wondered  if he considered the sights and sounds of the festival to be a preview of the trip. 

Surely, the popular songs performed at the festival by Meurav Yerushalmi, Jerusalem's official youth performance troupe were authentic—and that was good because the upbeat Israeli teenagers, who are chosen only after strenuous citywide competitions, helped transmit the joy of Israeli life that does not always make it through the filters of the American news media.  

The youngsters give concerts in Israel and throughout the Jewish world during their high school years, before entering the Israeli Army.  Gabi Peretz, their manager, said a number of former troupe members have gone onto fame as Israeli vocalists—among them, Yossi Azulay whose song Ema (Mother) is well known, and Rafi Dahan, who wowed the Eurovision festival with his upbeat "Happy Birthday" song combining Hebrew and English words into new rhythms. 

I hope that Shor glimpsed the fun and energy of the Israeli dances that members of the audience did in the area in front of the stage before and after the troupe's performances.  And how could he not also enjoy becoming part of the biblical story of Noah and the Ark, which for us, grandfather and grandson, has provided numerous bonding experiences?  Or, how could a 5-year-old not be impressed by seeing his father show off his prowess as a climber?  Golly, Israel has to be a fun place! 


Audience members engage in an Israeli dance; Shor Masori provides a face fro the lion on Noah's Ark, and his father, Shahar, demonstrates his prowess at climbing towers during Yom Ha'atzma'ut celebration at the Lawrence Family JCC.

In the booths, there were interesting displays from the Diaspora.  A group concerned for the welfare of Ethiopian Jews—both in Ethiopia and in Israel—sold their beautiful artwork, and, hey, Shor, I found among the beautiful embroidery which can be used as challah covers or wall hangings, another  representation of Noah's Ark!   

I also found Rabbi Lisa Goldstein and Carolyn Lertzman of Hillel of San Diego handing out pens, which obviously are things that anyone can use, college students or otherwise.  I asked the rabbi how she was feeling about the hearing planned in La Jolla this coming Tuesday night by the San Diego City Council on Hillel's plans to rent or lease city land for a new Hillel house.  She said she was hopeful that UCSD students will be granted an off-campus venue to call their own.

At the booth of Chabad of La Costa, one of many congregations that distributed literature and pitched for potential members, I found Yo Yo, the Kosher Clown, demonstrating how to put on tefillin.  "Have you put on tefillin today?" he asked me.  "Umm, no-ooo," I replied, truthfully.  Quick as you can say Baruch Atah... he was winding the phylacteries around my arm and having me repeat the blessing.  Then Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort, an old friend, came by and had me read the Shm'a and V'havata prayers.  "One mitzvah leads to another," I was assured.


Middie Giesberg and grandson Joshua Lappen, both of Los Angeles, display some of the embroidery of Ethiopian Jews.  She holds a Shabbat design, while he holds one depicting Noah's Ark.  In middle, Carolyn Lertzman and Rabbi Lisa Goldstein offer pens to visitors to their booth,  and at right, Yo Yo, the kosher clown, puts on his tefillin.

Onward I went, and sure enough, I learned about another mitzvah!  This one was a project recently undertaken by the San Diego Jewish Academy.  Jan Landau, SDJA director for family and special programs, told me how inspired students and faculty had been by  Paperclips, the movie about  a school in the rural south set about collecting 6 million paperclips in an effort to understand the dimensions of the Holocaust.  

She said SDJA decided it will have its own memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, but instead of being to the 6 million Jews, it will be to the 1.5 million children among them who were killed in the Shoah.  Inspired also by Pavel Friedman's Butterfly poem written in the Terezin ghetto—in which he told of never seeing another butterfly—Landau said San Diego Jewish Academy has set out to collect 1.5 million ceramic butterflies, measuring no more than 3 inches by 3 inches, which will be mounted all over the school's campus in the Carmel Valley section of San Diego.  

Landau said the students were sending appeals for butterflies to institutions all over the world.  Her own daughter, who teaches school in Atlanta, had children in her class make 80 of them, and seniors at Seacrest Village Retirement Communities also are pitching in.   At the SDJA booth, in the first public appearance for the project, children were busy at work painting butterflies made from molds.

 
Butterflies are painted by twins 7-year-old twins Emily and Julie Marks, at left, and by Elana Gold, 9, and Rachel Kornberg, 5. San Diego Jewish Academy wants 1.5 million butterflies for a project memorializing Jewish children killed by Nazis.

Close to the SDJA booth, I found another kind of learning going on at the booth operated by the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.  They had a game, akin to television's "Jeopardy" going on, in which contestants could pick a category, ring a bell, and try to answer questions about the American Congress or about global affairs of special concern to the Jewish community.

Okay, quick, without checking Google, what's the name of a Republican U.S. senator from Florida?  How about from Louisiana?  If you couldn't think of them—or doubt that you could think of them before an opponents rang their bells—don't feel bad.  I completely blanked on both these questions.  For the record, they are respectively Mel Martinez and David Vitter.  

Another educational booth was that of the San Diego Jewish Times, where I found publisher Michael Schwarz and advertising salesman Kalman Green with his son, Meir, distributing the newspaper in which my column regularly appears. Okay, call it a plug, but I was happy to see my colleagues there.  One of my columns from this website appears in every issue of  The San Diego Jewish Times.  As I write a column daily, that means there are at least 13 others that you will be able to find here by checking www.jewishsightseeing.com daily.   

 
At AIPAC booth, Jessica Tabak plays the role of Alex Trebek in the television game show "Jeopardy."  With bells
in their hands, Sol Kempinski, left, and Trent Sheppard, right, try to answer a question on  current events.  At the
booth of the San Diego Jewish Times, publisher Mike Schwarz, advertising representative  Kalman Green and son
Meir Green happily greeted the public, took advertising orders, sold subscriptions and gathered news tips.

For a time, Shor and I got separated—Shor walking around with his mom, Sandi, and dad—while my wife, Nancy, and I did "meet and greets" with numerous acquaintances who either were touring the festival as we were, or who were working the booths.  

Had Shor been with me, I would have told him that whereas Israel is known as the "Land of Mik and Honey," the Israeli Independence Day Festival was surely just as yummy.   Over at the booth operated by the Anti-Defamation League, they were handing out little packets filled with blue and white M&Ms.  At the Young Judaea booth, which had its own automatic bubble maker, they were dispensing paper glasses filled with cold lemonade.  And you could get crepes or waffles at Crepe-O-La. 

No wonder my little grandson is excited—maybe even a little hyper—about flying off to Israel tomorrow!

Tamara Steinberg, assistant director of the Anti Defamation League, offers blue and white M&Ms; Liad Josef and Yaron
Lief of Young Judaea hold ice cold lemonade perfect for a warm day, and Stacey Datnow and son Jordan Dem, 5, get ready
to feast on a large waffle from Crepe-O'La's kosher crepes and waffles booth.  {Photos by Donald H. Harrison}