__________________ The Jewish Citizen              by Donald H. Harrison

SDJA student activist unrelenting in campaign to alleviate Darfur suffering

SAN DIEGO—Jennifer Popp, a senior at San Diego Jewish Academy, says among the reasons she is looking forward to attending college is that in the field of social activism, "there are a lot more opportunities for college students than there are for high school students."

Described by her friend and classmate Dana Newfield as a "Renaissance woman," Popp, 17, hasn't exactly been sitting on her hands during her career at San Diego Jewish Academy. 

 
Jeni Popp, left, and Dana Newfield interviewed each other for their journalism class at San Diego Jewish Academy at the beginning of the semester.  Subsequently, Jeni was interviewed by her teacher, San Diego Jewish World editor Don Harrison, for this article.

Besides being a top student, and having served as editor of the school's literary magazine as well as the school's yearbook, Popp has been active in efforts to raise public consciousness about conditions in the Darfur region of the Sudan and to aid refugees who have come to San Diego from that war-torn area.

Popp, known as 'Jeni' to her friends, has:

●participated in a national one-day fast for Darfur.

●with her mother, demonstrated with an estimated 5,000 other persons who held each other's hands across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in a human chain of concern for Darfur victims.

●written letters to members of Congress and other officials.

●helped to arrange on-campus appearances by one of the "lost boys" of the Sudan, Alephonsion Deng, who wrote They Poured Fire Us on the Sky, a story of his escape as a seven-year-old youth from southern Sudan and a five-year odyssey to a refugee camp in Kenya. 

●with her Darfur school club co-president, Michael "Mikey" Shoemaker, has become a mentor to a Sudanese refugee family in which a single mother and her 14-year-old ward take care of four children between the ages of 3 and 12.

● Walked for Darfur in a Balboa Park event that raised money for the International Medical Corps.

Popp described her rising interest in social activism during an interview on Tuesday before SDJA's journalism class. 

When she was a ninth grader three years ago, Popp watched the 2004 movie Paper Clips, which related how students in rural Whitwell, Tennessee, constructed a memorial to victims of the Holocaust by collecting and assembling more than six million paper clips.

Her Judaic Studies teacher, Jill Weinstein Quigley, told the class that another genocide was currently occurring in Darfur but that few people outside of the region were aware of it, Popp recalled.

In response, she and other students began researching on the website, www.savedarfur.org, and started a student letter writing campaign. 

She said that many of the students who enrolled in a Darfur-interest club on campus at first "were really interested but after the second week people realized that this was not the most action-packed club:  You are not out there walking every day, or going out there and picking oranges." The realization that the first few months would consist mainly of learning "dropped our membership."

Today the club has about 20 members, Popp said, and "we're not expecting very many because it is hard to get kids active today in situations that are not affecting them" directly.

However others might have felt, Popp said that for her the issue had resonance both because of the Holocaust and because of her belief that "we are all connected."

"Everyone says 'never again, we never are going to let what happened (in the Holocaust) happen again anywhere else,' but it happens pretty consistently.  There has been Rwanda, there has been Serbia, and now, you know, Darfur and Uganda at the same time," she said.   Popp said she was proud that the Jewish community was concerned about the fate of the people of Darfur, and, in particular, credited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington with opening people's eyes to genocides.

"We are all connected," Popp continued. "Even if I am not connected to anyone in Africa by ties, they are still people, and I cannot personally just go about my everyday business and say, like, 'so what, people are dying in Africa; it doesn't affect me.'  I just don't think that way."

The special relationship she has built with the Sudanese refugee family over the years has been satisfying because "we have been able to see results."  The efforts do not achieve the main goal to "overcome the genocide,"  but, "we have helped them adjust to their new lives.  It has been really cool."

Popp said that she and Shoemaker typically visit the family on Saturday afternoons at their home in the North Park area of San Diego.  They had fled from the Sudan to Chad, and then on to Egypt, where the father was killed, and finally were accepted as refugees in the United States, where their lives have taken on an American flavor.

"They play basketball at the YMCA...so we go watch them play basketball and Mikey plays basketball with Sevet (14) and I play with the little kids (ages 3, 4, 10), and then we usually go back to the house.... I have become really attached to the 3- and 4-year-olds.... Their mom is working and learning English, so I am sort of there to baby sit.  They are really cute, and then we tutor the two oldest (12 and 14) , whatever they  need help in."

As is the case with many immigrant families, the children are learning English more quickly than the parent. 

The relationship has other complexities, Popp said.  "We don't really consider the family that we are working with refugees.  After two years, it has gotten to the point where we consider them more friends—like me and Mikey and Sevet, we talk on the phone.  He goes to high school.  He's a normal kid. He is in ninth grade."  Sometimes, however, when Popp and Shoemaker  want to visit, the mother refuses them permission.  "You try not to impose on anybody's pride," Popp said.  "..It was hard adjusting to that because we really wanted to see the kids, but we also have to understand that we have to give her space."

Popp also is active in production of a website, International Outreach, intended to encourage other high school students to become informed about current events.

This year, while taking journalism, economics, and advanced placement courses in English language, statistics and physics, Popp is applying for early admission to Yale University, where, she said, she "hopes to major in neuroscience in college, with tentative ambitions of attending medical school." 

In a sketch of Popp for her journalism class, Newfield quoted her friend as explaining: "I think the brain is so fascinating. Even though people have been studying it for hundred of years there is still so much we haven't figured out. It's amazing to me how complex and powerful it is."

Before Popp leaves high school, she is hoping to orchestrate at least one big event—a music festival—for the relief of Darfur.

"There are a couple of bands out there made up of refugees who actually come from Darfur and we would like to have them and local bands perform," she said.  " "Music is a great way to get people to show up."




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Sour and sweet at ‘Davka’ exhibit

By Joel A. Moskowitz, M.D. 

SAN DIEGO —“In spite of”  (Davka in Hebrew) the story of
the Shoah having been much repeated, disbelieved by some, forgotten by many,  presentations on this  subject  continue to draw a crowd.    Interested, mostly vintage, primarily Jewish adults – with a sprinkling of African-Americans  attended a recent event at the Rancho San Diego Public Library.   Heather Maio, known by many for her enthusiastic activities in behalf of the San Diego Jewish Book Fair, has taken the Davka exhibit ‘on the road’. 

San Diego County Libraries have hosted this two part experience.  The evening of October 2 was Rancho San Diego Public Library’s turn.  As is a Jewish tradition for every successful event there must be food – attendees were offered bagels, six varieties of cream cheese, knishes, two varieties of cake and some very well presented, interesting information and superb entertainment. 

 Maio’s explained that her formal educaton  was devoted to understanding the Holocaust and bringing it to the public.  Although some in her family weren’t too keen on this specialization, her love and attachment for her grandparents motivated her. San Diego , she reported, has one of the largest and most active Holocaust survivor associations.  These New Lifers don’t exist to bemoan their fate.  “Never Again” is, they believe, predicated on educating the public.  The Davka exhibit alerts visitors to the genocidal crimes in Darfur, and elsewhere as well. 

The Sour:    Among many survivors, there appears to be a predilection not to speak of the Nazi atrocities.   Rose Schindler (the primary speaker at Rancho San Diego Library) didn’t tell her children till they were teen age.   Of her two other sisters (the only ones in her family to survive) one adamantly refuses to mention it at all.  Schindler (no relative to Spielberg’s Schindler) was very eloquent in describing her death camp experience.  She even saw Dr. Mengele.  Fortunately, he never saw her! 

Only 14, when her father’s small tailor factory in town of 2,000 in what was then Czechoslovakia was imperiously confiscated.  Her father was permitted to retain only one sewing machine – so he could make clothes for his family.  In a sense, he was better off than a grocer.  The grocer’s store was simply taken. Being without a skill, only a tradesman, the grocer had little worth to the Nazis. 

Upon arrival in the concentration camp, she was clued (by Jews who met the boxcars) to say that she was 18.  This assured that she wouldn’t, being young, be killed outright.  Schindler, thus far, not decided to publish her story.  Others, she said, have written untruths or exaggerations.  Her sincerity and veracity is, however, evident in the calm, rational manner of her presentation.  She harbors no conscious lingering hate for her oppressors but she detests the sound of the German language, and won’t buy German products. 

Like many who have survived, she maintains an affiliation in the Jewish community, not particularly in a religious way, but as an identity.  Her triumph over adversity (“in spite of”), she smiles, is that she and her husband (also a Holocaust survivor) live happily with their children and nine grandchildren in San Diego .

The Sweet  followed in the performance of Alexandre Gourevitch,   He embodies the epitome of passionate audience- pleasing entertainment.  A klezmer-clarinetist, his sounds bridge musical expression and emotional communication.   It is as though he talks through his instrument.    Smiling as he plays, he walks into the audience and the plaintive and vibrant tones penetrate all who listen.  A graduate of Gnesin’s Moscow Music Academy , he is a third generation klezmerest.  His CD ($15) includes works for The Moscow Ensemble of Jewish Instrumental Music.”   Alexandre comes to Estados Unidos via Tijuana and now San Diego. 

Listening to and watching Alexandre and his accompanists on violin and keyboard is perhaps the finest 60 minutes anyone could ask for.   I dare anyone to remain still when the optimistic strains fill the room.   Highly recommended.

Freedom at Issue                                                         Bruce Kesler

Columbia and Ahmadinejad: guidelines needed for future

ENCINITAS, California—My friend Scott Johnson at Powerline draws our attention to an article describing Columbia’s shameful pandering to Nazi Germany.

The article ends by saying:

But Columbia is unique in one important respect. Its administration alone seems to have learned so little from the mistakes of the 1930s that it is prepared to welcome the leader of yet another antisemitic, terrorist regime.

I agree that both regimes and leaders are thoroughly despicable and dangerous, and should be loudly and widely so labeled and abjured. I don’t agree, however, that the two cases are quite parallel.

In the 1930’s, Columbia failed to break its ties to Nazi Germany, and its leadership even praised it and its representatives. That is not so today, although some faculty and students are supportive of Iran’s and others policies or opposition to the United States and the West.

Columbia has long provided a forum to various world leaders while visiting the annual opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly. This may or may not be a valuable opportunity to hear them, if official lines obtainable elsewhere is considered valuable. But, it is a valuable opportunity for faculty, students and others to critique and directly question their views.

President Bollinger went beyond that in his stinging and correct rebuke introduction of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s views. The invitation, I believe, should not have been made or should have been rescinded, to speak to the limits of acceptable national policy by Iran. Free speech does not require providing a platform.

That not being done, I believe that Bollinger was rude to an invited guest, and unnecessarily turned consideration from Ahmadinejad’s views to consideration of the courtesy of a host – an important item in most of the world. Bollinger could have just as prominently spoken and published his rebuke, and should have earlier.

While on the subject, I don’t believe that conservatives should compound the error by demanding a tit-for-tat by inviting polarizing figures to the campus if those figures are just there to polarize, and boost book sales, rather than discuss views. Calm, civil discussion does more to educate, persuade and open minds. Conservatives owe that to themselves and their prospective audience.

Faculty, students and others outside the campus have the right to criticize speakers, as they do faculty or administration decisions, but aside from the speaker or faculty member violating accepted norms of scholarship – as too many do -- their right to speak should not be lightly withdrawn, especially if that is one-sided.

Also, while on the subject, I do not believe that any guest speaker on campus should be paid. It has become a major, very lucrative industry. That is an abuse of students’, parents’ and taxpayers’ already stretched budgets. It is unnecessary, if the speaker really wants to reach faculty and students.

 

                      


U.S. recruitment of Arabs to anti-Iran coalition must not be at Israel's expense

By Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Syria has assumed the third leg of the Axis of Evil. So egregious is Syrian flouting of American interests and international norms that not only was the U.S. silent after Israel's air strike, but not a single country in Europe or the Middle East (except Iran) joined Syria, North Korea and Russia in protesting. (Turkey's mild and short-lived protest had to do only with the discovery of Israeli aircraft drop tanks in Turkish territory.)

So why was Syria invited by Secretary Rice to the presumed upcoming conference on Palestine?

Saudi Arabia worries tremendously about Iranian-sponsored Shiite fundamentalist jihad. But it also supports al Qaeda and the export of anti-American, anti-Semitic Wahhabi ideology not only in the Middle East, but also in America, where Saudi-financed clerics promote a narrow view of Islam in the majority of American mosques and schools.

So why is Saudi Arabia to receive billions of dollars more in American arms and why was Saudi Arabia invited to the conference on Palestine?

The Palestinian Authority has split in a civil war between the corrupt, secular Fatah - which ran the Second Intifada with its bus and café bombings, and started the rocket war against the Israeli town of Sderot - and the religious terrorist Hamas, which continues the rocket war and has begun to attack Fatah assets in the West Bank. Neither faction meets even the minimal conditions set by President Bush in his 24 June speech on the conditions under which the United States would support provisional Palestinian statehood.

So why is the U.S. arming and training Fatah, and supporting a conference with the goal of creating the parameters for a Palestinian state?

On the other hand, there is - Americans and Israelis agree - "no daylight" between their views of the danger posed by Iranian nuclear activity and the Iranian export of terrorism and missile technology. The United States was better than sanguine about Israel's raid on Syria. In addition, the U.S. and Israel cooperate on counter-terrorism technology and tactics and maintain very close working relations in the region.

So why is Israel expected to find yet another way to entice the Palestinians into giving up their expressed belief that the State of Israel is a mistake that needs correcting - by negotiation if possible, by force if necessary?

We believe the Administration is actually looking for a unified regional position opposing Iran - a goal we strongly support - but America cannot buy regional unity with the currency of Israeli security. Neither can Israel.

Bryen is special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security