Aug. 6, 1943
From the editorial “Dangerous New Law”
Fathers and mothers, who favor their children with tender solicitude, and who lavish upon them various benefactions, cannot but be interested in the recently approved law in California that releases school children part-time for religious instruction in their respective institutions. This instruction is a beautiful thing, theoretically, since it suggests a higher religious influence in the life of a child and a much nobler adult.
No one who looks upon the last two world wars in the last quarter of a century with revulsion, and sees the lack of ethical restraint as a basic cause, can object to more religious training. But the goal does not justify the method.
Today, religious and racial conflicts have reached a dangerous high. The school, elementary or secondary, is the place to escape rather than promote religious differences. Yet, by having part-time release from school for religious instruction, people are bound to be sect-conscious and to feel religious differences. This conditioning of the mind and emotions hardly makes for that unity and solidarity that one flag, one nation, and one citizenship imply. The founders of this country, foreseeing the perils of such a law as we now have in this state, insisted on the separation of church and state as fundamental to a lasting democracy.
What can be done to remedy this new law is not altogether clear; but if enough signatures are not collected for a Referendum, then great care must be taken with respect to the administration of the law.
Aug. 13, 1993
From “Head of ‘House of David’ dig has ties to local families”
When archaeologist Avraham Biran discovered the phrase “King of David” and references to the “House of David” on a stone at a dig in northern Israel last week, several prominent San Francisco families had a personal reason to cheer the historic find.
For more than 30 years the Haas, Koshland, Goldman and Swig families, among others, have quietly contributed to Biran’s excavations at Tel Dan, near Kiryat Shmona.
“I’m so thrilled for Avram,” said Richard Swig, chair of the Fairmont Hotels, on hearing the news. “He’s been working there for so long.”
Biran’s find is significant for being the first reference to David’s kingdom discovered outside the Bible; as a result, it provides a rare piece of concrete, physical evidence…. Further analysis made it clear that this was international news — recognition that his friends in San Francisco were delighted to see. “He deserves this and a lot more,” said Rhoda Goldman, whose father, Walter Haas, was an early supporter of Biran, who now directs the school of biblical archaeology at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem.
Biran met Haas and Daniel Koshland, both members of local pioneering Jewish families, when he came to San Francisco in 1955 as the first Israeli consul to the western United States.
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