Feb. 18, 2022 Issue

BAY AREA

3 After fire, San Jose Chabad receives support from Azerbaijan

3 Jewish nonprofit: More hot pink billboards calling out Jew-hate to decorate Bay Area

4 Women’s conference removes Billoo as speaker for anti-Zionist remarks

5 Holocaust-denying flyers dropped on Danville walking trail

13 Lawyers seek mental health treatment for client Farca in lieu of jail time

14 Meet the campus rabbi who’s ‘queering religion’ at Jesuit Catholic University of San Francisco

16 South Bay-based Intel to acquire Israeli chipmaker for a towering $5.4 billion

17 Farmer with Jewish roots throws his hat in the ring for North Bay Assembly seat

Inside J.

COVER STORY

6 | Digitizing J.’s archives was a mission to save Bay Area’s rich Jewish history

6 | How we covered the big stories over the years, purple prose and all

8 | Long before Soviet Jewry rallies, ‘let my people go’ was ‘don’t let them in’

8 | Freckle salve, dancing pumps and Santa ads tell turn-of-the-century stories

10 | Forward-looking Beth Sholom looks back at 100 years of progress

11 | Before 1972, LGBTQ Jews weren’t covered or mentioned

12 | A search for my own name in the digital archives kicks up the Jewish dust

CULTURE

18 Artistic mother and daughter pass pandemic days creating mini-murals

19 Tabletop role-playing game enters a lucid ‘sea of dreams’

20 Filmmaker’s childhood bullying memory retold in doc, gets Oscar nod

20 S.F. jeweler takes healing path in return to family business

21 Pandemic-driven poetry surge reaches for solace and understanding OPINION 24

28 How these Bay Area women built their dream kosher kitchens

32

Opening

jweekly.com

PUBLISHER Steve Gellman EDITOR Sue Fishkoff

EDITORIAL

MANAGING EDITOR Sue Barnett

NEWS EDITOR Gabe Stutman

CULTURE EDITOR Andrew Esensten

STAFF WRITERS Emma Goss, Maya Mirsky

ONLINE EDITOR David A.M. Wilensky

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Lea Loeb

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Andy Altman-Ohr, Dan Pine, Alix Wall

COLUMNISTS Michael Fox, Howard Freedman, Karen Galatz, Janet Silver Ghent, Dawn Kepler, Faith Kramer, Esther Kustanowitz, Dr. Jerry Saliman

ADVERTISING & CIRCULATION

ACCOUNT EXECS Nancy Beth Cohen, Meryl Sokoler

OFFICE & CIRCULATION MANAGER Zachary Libow

ART & PRODUCTION

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR Antonio R. Marquez

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Michelle Palmer, Steve Romero

BUSINESS

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Allison Green

DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE Carrie Rice

ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Linda Uong

TECHNOLOGY

IT SUPPORT Felipe Barrueto

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENTS Mark W. Bernstein, Carol Weitz

VICE PRESIDENT Jerry Yanowitz

VICE PRESIDENT/SECRETARY Harmon Shragge

TREASURER Patricia Rosenberg

MEMBERS Fraidy Aber, Rabbi Dan Ain, Liz Berman, David Cornfield, Alexandra Corvin, Liz Einbinder, Alia Wechsler Gorkin, Nadine Joseph, Steve Katz, Quentin Kopp, Sara Gaviser Leslie, Susan Libitzky, Andy Rittenberg, Donna Rosenthal, Jane Springwater, Joelle Steefel

BOARD ADVISOR Steven Dinkelspiel

J.® The Jewish News of Northern California (ISSN 1547-0733) is published every other week on Friday except in December, by San Francisco Jewish Community Publications, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, 225 Bush St., Suite 480, San Francisco, CA 941044281. (415) 263-7200. J. The Jewish News of Northern California is available online at: www.jweekly.com. Our email address is info@jweekly.com. Yearly subscription cost is $46.50. Periodicals Postage Paid at San Francisco, CA and at additional mailing offices.

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Tikkun: For the Cosmos, the Community, and Ourselves is the twelfth iteration of The Dorothy Saxe Invitational, The CJM’s longest-running exhibition commitment.

Lead Sponsorship of The Dorothy Saxe Invitational is generously provided by an endowed gift from George Saxe, z”l, in honor of Dorothy R. Saxe. Generous support is also provided by Grants for the Arts.

’21

Bay Area

After fire, San Jose Chabad receives support from Azerbaijan

RYAN TOROK | CORRESPONDENT

Approximately two months after the Chabad House–Almaden Valley was destroyed by a fire, the synagogue community is receiving support from an unlikely source: the Azerbaijani government.

“I am glad that our consulate was able to contribute funds to the reconstruction,” Consul General of Azerbaijan Nasimi Aghayev, based in Los Angeles, said in an interview. “It is in line with Azerbaijan’s longstanding policy of supporting interfaith harmony and understanding, as a majority-Muslim country that demonstrates with its own example the possibility of Muslim-Jewish peace.”

Aghayev first announced the donation in a Twitter post on Jan. 27.

“I was saddened to learn that a fire had destroyed #Chabad House synagogue in San Jose, CA,” he wrote. “I look forward to a grand reopening soon.”

Aghayev told J. he learned about the fire after seeing

photos of the destroyed synagogue on social media. He reached out to friends in the Bay Area and asked to be connected with the Chabad House director, Rabbi Mendel Weinfeld.

In a phone interview, Weinfeld expressed his gratitude for the donation. “It’s a very powerful message that regardless of faith or affiliation, we are, after all, human beings created in the image of God, and this gift from Azerbaijan is an incredible expression of this core belief,” Weinfeld said.

Weinfeld moved to the San Jose community from New York in 2020 with his wife to establish the Chabad house and was devastated by the total loss of the synagogue in the fire. Weinfeld declined to share how much the Azerbaijani government provided to his community. He spoke to J. after meeting with Aghayev at the Azerbaijani consulate in Los Angeles earlier this month.

Aghayev, too, declined to share the amount given.

Chabad has launched a $1.7 million capital campaign to acquire and remodel a new commercial property, rather than repair the damaged site. As of press time, they had raised more than $640,000, according to a page dedicated to the campaign.

Silicon Valley billionaire Chris Larsen and wife Lyna Lam are key donors, according to Weinfeld, as are the Gordon Charitable Fund, which donated $118,000, and the Greenberg Family Fund, which gave $50,000.

Chabad House–Almaden Valley had been operating at the two-story property on Branham Lane in south San Jose for only four months when the fire broke out this past December. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but authorities have ruled out it being either a hate crime or racially motivated. Security footage showed a man at the entrance of the synagogue on the morning of the fire.

Azerbaijan, a Soviet republic for most of the 20th century, is home to a small community of Jews, most of whom live in the country’s capital city of Baku. There are multiple synagogues, as well as a Jewish school.

There are relatively longstanding diplomatic ties between Azerbaijan and Israel; Israel opened an embassy there in 1992. While much of the world has celebrated the achievement of the recently brokered Abraham Accords, leading to relations between Israel and several Muslim countries, few are aware of several decades of economic and strategic relations between Israel and Azerbaijan, Aghayev said.

On March 6, Israel and Azerbaijan are celebrating 30 years of diplomatic ties at an event in Los Angeles. Slated to appear are both Aghayev and Hillel Newman, the consul general of Israel in Los Angeles, among other officials and community leaders. n

Jewish nonprofit: More hot pink billboards calling out Jew-hate to decorate Bay Area

GABE STUTMAN | J. STAFF

The New Jersey–based nonprofit JewBelong, which seeks to engage disconnected Jews and to welcome Jews by choice while ringing the alarm on antisemitism, has purchased ad space for four new eye-grabbing billboards in the Bay Area.

Mockups of the hot pink digital billboards, which were scheduled to go live this week, call out antisemitism using stark, in-your-face language (that’s more than a little bit barbed).

“We’re just 75 years since the gas

chambers. So no, a billboard calling out Jew hate isn’t an overreaction,” one mockup says. “Does your church need armed guards?

’Cause our synagogue does,” says another.

JewBelong said the ad campaign would run through mid-March; it follows a similar effort last summer that saw 35 digital billboards placed in downtown San Francisco. The organization said the new ads will be placed in San Francisco at the Bay Bridge approach on Second Street, at 10th and Harrison streets and Brannan and Sixth

street, and in Palo Alto along U.S. 101 near University Avenue. Three of the signs will include the statement referencing the Holocaust, and the fourth will feature the “armed guards” line.

One of the most heavily trafficked bridges in the state, the Bay Bridge sees an average of about 106,000 toll-paying vehicles (one way) each day, according to the Bay Area’s regional transportation authority.

Marketing professionals Archie Gottesman and Stacy Stuart — who previously

worked together on branding for the New York–based storage company Manhattan Mini Storage — started JewBelong in 2017. They use 21st-century marketing techniques and social media to nudge “disengaged Jews” (whom they call “DJs”) and others “who aren’t Jewish but are part of a Jewish community” to feel more connected to Judaism.

Using colorful advertisements and very approachable, often cheeky language, JewBelong tries to lower the barrier to entry into

continued on page 4

Rabbi Mendel Weinfeld (above) surveys the damage at the Chabad House in south San Jose in December 2021 (Photo/Emma Goss); and group shot shows (from left) Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, Rabbi Mendel Weinfeld, L.A.-based Consul General of Azerbaijan Nasimi Aghayev, and David Taban, a philanthropist on the Chabad building committee, at the Azerbaijani consulate in Los Angeles.

Women’s conference removes Billoo as speaker for anti-Zionist remarks

EMMA GOSS | J. STAFF

Zahra Billoo, a Muslim civil rights a orney and activist in the Bay Area who came under fire recently for controversial remarks a acking mainstream Jewish organizations, has been removed as a keynote speaker from San Mateo County’s RISE 2022 women's leadership conference.

Billoo, the executive director of the local branch of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, was one of three keynote speakers scheduled for a two-day virtual conference organized by the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women in March.

She was meant to join Sallie Krawcheck, the CEO and co-founder of Ellevest; and Haleema Bharoocha, a Muslim social impact consultant. According to conference organizer and county employee Tanya Beat, Billoo was dropped due to remarks she made on Nov. 27, 2021, in a speech at an annual conference of American Muslims for Palestine in Chicago.

In that speech, Billoo urged her audience to oppose both right-wing forces and so-called “polite Zionists,” including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations, Hillel and “Zionist synagogues.”

“They are not your friends,” she said.

“Ms. Billoo is no longer scheduled as the keynote speaker,” Beat wrote in a Feb. 7 email to J. “The San Mateo County

Women’s Leadership Conference seeks to provide an inclusive space for women and girls from all backgrounds to connect freely and engage in open dialogue. Ms. Billoo’s remarks from November 2021 do not align with those goals or the core values of the Commission on the Status of Women or the County of San Mateo.”

Responding to a Twi er message from J., Billoo sharply criticized the women’s leadership conference decision.

“In a progressive region like ours, it is completely unacceptable that San Mateo County is censoring the supporters of Palestinian human rights and capitulating to bigoted pressure to exclude Muslim women from a discussion about gendered Islamophobia,” she wrote. “Doing so unfortunately serves as a real-life example of exactly what our keynote panel was intended to address.”

Bharoocha will also no longer be speaking at the conference, having “removed herself as a speaker,” Beat told J.

Now, Krawcheck and Lan Phan, the founder and CEO of Community of SEVEN, an executive leadership development program, are scheduled to appear.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Billoo’s name was removed from a speakers list for an April 26 event at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. That event, “Social Justice Activism in

We work closely with accountants, appraisers, psychologists and economists to ensure a comprehensive approach.

PERSONAL ATTENTION THOUGHTFUL LITIGATION FINAL RESOLUTION

OUR GOAL IS TO PRESERVE OUR CLIENT’S DIGNITY AND HUMANITY.

the United States: Jewish and Muslim Perspectives,” is hosted jointly by GTU’s “Madrasa-Midrasha” Muslim-Jewish interfaith program, and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco.

GTU did not respond to a request for comment as to why Billoo’s name was no longer listed as a speaker.

It is not the first time Billoo has been removed from a women’s leadership role. She was dropped from the board of directors of the Women’s March in 2019 over past tweets she wrote that criticized Israel, including one that equated the Israel Defense Forces with ISIS.

On Jan. 30 Billoo gave a speech in an online panel discussion on civil liberties, co-sponsored by the Santa Clara County Superior Court. Organizers drew criticism from some Bay Area residents for their decision to include her on the panel. ■

In-your-face billboards are back in Bay Area

continued from page 3

Jewish life and make less knowledgeable Jews feel at ease. “Sometimes, Judaism can be more complicated than your last girlfriend,” the nonprofit quips on its website.

Some of the ads downplay the importance of Jewish law, portrayed as stodgy (“actually, a lot of us eat cheeseburgers”), or push against stereotypes about who should

though tax filings show one of its major benefactors is the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. The philanthropy, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, donated $55,000 or about 18 percent of JewBelong’s revenue in 2019.

Similar billboards have popped up in major cities around the country, including in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C.,

feel welcome in synagogues (“Blonde since birth. Jewish since marriage.”) Others defend Israel from a acks: “Today is international stop talking crap about Israel day,” one ad says, wri en above a group of people enjoying drinks at an Israeli cafe.

Citing a rise in antisemitism in recent years, the organization has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the billboards as part of its #EndJewHate campaign.

JewBelong does not list its donors,

Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and New York, where they were positioned over Times Square. More are planned for Toronto and Wilmington, Delaware, the organization said.

“Antisemitism has become tolerated and normalized in far too many circles across North America,” Go esman said in a statement. “The type of hate leveled against Jews followed by the deafening silence from supposedly good people should be abhorrent to anyone who stands for justice.” ■

Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco chapter of CAIR, stirred controversy with comments criticizing “Zionist synagogues” in November. (Flickr-Lorie Shaull CC BY 2.0)

Because we limit our practice, we are especially prepared to handle complex matters.

Mockups show billboards calling out antisemitism from the nonprofit JewBelong; they will be on display in the Bay Area through mid-March.

Holocaust-denying flyers dropped on Danville walking trail

GABE STUTMAN | J. STAFF

“Outrageous.”

“Cowardly.” “Scary.”

Reactions poured in from Danville residents online after they were alerted to antisemitic flyers left on a walking trail in the East Bay town on Feb. 2. It was the second such incident in the Bay Area in under two weeks.

The first was on Jan. 23 when flyers claiming the Covid19 pandemic is a Jewish hoax were left scattered around San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. A Jewish father and daughter, out picking up litter in their neighborhood, were some of the first to encounter the conspiratorial leaflets and called them “disturbing” and unsettling.

The Danville flyers related lies denying the Holocaust alongside a photograph of the train tracks leading to Auschwitz.

J. has chosen not to reprint images of the flyers to limit their reproduction and circulation.

Among the egregious falsehoods claimed in the flyers is the notion that it is “statistically impossible” for 6 million Jews to have been murdered in the Holocaust; the notion that Zyklon B — the deadly poison used in Nazi gas chambers — was a “delousing agent” used to combat typhus; and a wild mischaracterization of Nazi concentration camps not as grim prisons but hospitable sites with “amenities such as movie theatres, soccer fields and ice cream parlors.”

Danville residents shared disgust, fear, anger and confusion in response to the flyers, which were discovered and shared by Nextdoor user Kendra Fardella.

“Do sane people really believe these lies?” wrote Dianne, a Danville resident, one of more than 150 commenters on the original post. “I visited Dachau in 1953 when my father was stationed in Munich after the war. It was tragic. It was real.”

“This makes me want to cry,” wrote Denise. “My beautiful great aunt on my late husband’s side had the tattoo, and couldn’t talk about her time, and losing her family.”

Danville Police Department spokesperson Nicola Shihab told J. that police were made aware of the flyers and had sent a maintenance crew to the area, but when they arrived they were gone.

Fardella said she and her husband encountered the leaflets on Iron Horse Trail in Danville. She found them around 10 p.m. while going for an evening walk.

“They were doing it in the dark of night,” she said. “We were just taking them down and throwing them out.”

Danville police said the location was under the jurisdiction of the East Bay Regional Parks District.

Danville, a town of about 45,000, last year was declared the safest city in California on the website SafeWise.

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement about the incident, saying the leaflets appeared to be connected to a white supremacist group.

“One of the most extensively documented historical events ever, the Holocaust resulted in the mass murder of approximately six million Jews, including 1.5 million children and millions of other innocents,” wrote ADL regional director Seth Brysk in the statement. “Fringe groups regularly engage in outrageous behavior that has no grounding in reality to fuel the flame of hatred and gain publicity. We encourage the public to report such incidents to ADL, local law enforcement and social media platforms where they may occur.”

The Creative Spirit of San Francisco

The Creative Spirit of San Francisco from the Jewish Home Art from Residents of the Jewish Home & Rehab Center

Title: Azure Dreams

Title: Afternoon Swim

Artist: Astrid Stange

Artist: Jaye Berenson

Sponsored by:

www.ldgfund.org

Lt. Giorgio Chevez of the parks district told J. he would be looking into the matter.

Though the Danville and Pacific Heights flyers shared different anti-Jewish conspiracies, both advertised the same website: Goyim TV, a video-sharing site associated with the internet-based antisemitic group the Goyim Defense League.

The GDL, whose name is a parody of the Anti-Defamation League, is a web-based network with followers in California, Florida and states throughout the country.

The public face of the GDL is a Petaluma man named Jon Minadeo Jr., a virulent antisemite and Holocaust denier who sells T-shirts saying “Holocaust: Denied” and “huluhoax.”

Antisemitic flyers advertising Goyim TV have been dropped in at least six states recently, garnering a wave of media coverage, including by CNN and other national outlets. n

“Do sane people really believe these lies?”

Nextdoor commenter

Digitizing J.’s archives was a mission to save Bay Area’s rich Jewish history

SUE FISHKOFF | J. STAFF

It was September 2011 and my first day in the office. I’d just been hired as J.’s editor and was getting the grand tour. I met the staff, admired my new desk, then stepped into the lunchroom and stopped in my tracks.

There, atop a bunch of file cabinets, were dozens of large, black leather-bound volumes. Some were neatly lined up, others were stacked carelessly on top of each other. There were years printed on the spines: 1902, 1903, 1904, all the way to 2010. Some of the oldest covers had hardened and become detached from the inside pages.

These were the bound copies of our newspaper, every print issue going back to 1900. Slowly, carefully, I picked up the volume from 1903 and opened it. Bits of yellowed newsprint crumbled in my hand.

This was our history, the lived history of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community as recorded in the pages of its community newspaper. And those pages were literally crumbling away.

That day, I vowed I would make it my business to see that precious material digitized and put online. Our digital archives would be preserved in perpetuity, for anyone to access, for free. It astonished me that this hadn’t been done, but it would be done now.

Little did I know the project would take a decade to complete.

The clock was ticking as I sought funding. It turned out that we had the only known print collection of our publication, and it wasn’t even complete. We were missing the first

THROUGH TIME

How we covered the big stories over the years, purple prose and all

ANDREW ESENSTEN | J. STAFF

From the 1906 earthquake to the launch of the United Nations to the emergence of trans rabbis, J. has covered the big stories affecting our local Jewish community. Here are some highlights from our newly digitized archives.

five years, 1895 to 1899. And we were missing most of World War II, except, inexplicably, 1943.

Then, eight years ago, disaster struck. We moved our office from the seventh to the fourth floor of our building, and somehow the movers “misplaced” an entire decade of our bound volumes. All of the 1930s — gone.

At least I knew that several libraries had our newspapers on microfilm. But they were hard to access — some, like the collection at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, were only open to accredited researchers. And, as anyone who has tried using microfilm readers in a library knows, watching page after page zip sideways across the screen can set one to hurling.

As I continued my search for donors, I heard of more and more newspapers digitizing their archives. That pushed me to work harder. It’s so important to preserve this kind of historical material. Why could those others get it done when I couldn’t? When the email came from the tiny Jewish News of Virginia Beach announcing that all its past issues were now online, I gnashed my teeth.

Now, who should we hire for the job? I talked to editors and publishers at other Jewish papers and mulled it over. Then, Ken Bamberger, founding director of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley, recommended an old friend, Jeremy Hockenstein, who had a

AUGUST 12, 1898

Death of Adolph Sutro, second Jewish mayor of San Francisco

Sutro was a German Jewish engineer and philanthropist who made a fortune from the Sutro Tunnel, a drainage system he built for the Comstock Lode silver mines in Nevada. He was elected San Francisco’s second Jewish mayor in 1895. (The first was Washington Montgomery Bartlett, who also served as governor of California.) Following Sutro’s death in 1898, a tribute in this publication read: “The city loses a splendid individuality of whose good heart and kindly benevolence we could tell many a fine tale, whilst the Sutro family loses its chief, who brought the well-renowned German name into the light of American repute.”

MAY 4, 1906

1906 San Francisco earthquake and aftermath

The first issue following the devastating April 18, 1906 earthquake and fire included a large section in which local Jews notified family and friends where they had temporarily relocated after their homes were destroyed. The issue’s editorial struck an optimistic tone: “Ere long the city by the Golden Gate from the ferry to the hilltops will be a veritable beehive of industry. Let us forget our misfortunes and remember that after all God has been good to us.” A striking photo of the shell of Congregation Emanu-El would run on the cover of the Sept. 21, 1906 issue.

JUNE 4, 1937 Golden Gate Bridge opens; Nazi flags flown in celebration

After the Golden Gate Bridge opened in May 1937, this newspaper profiled the structure’s Jewish chief engineer, Joseph Strauss. The paper also reported on Nazi swastika flags being flown in downtown San Francisco, along with other foreign flags, in celebration of the opening. A fiery editorial was penned in response: “The Golden Gate Bridge now belongs to the world. It was officially given for human utility and enjoyment, regardless of race, color or creed. That a Jew could deliver such a benefaction to humanity, must be incredible to the blood-thinking Aryan, as incredible to him as the fact that the Christian Savior was a Jew by birth.”

APRIL 27, 1945

United Nations launches in San Francisco

The United Nations Conference on International Organization was held in San Francisco in the spring of 1945, with representatives from 50 nations in attendance. Several articles in the Emanu-El newspaper captured the sense of excitement and hope among local Jews surrounding the conference, which culminated with the signing of the U.N. Charter. “The Conference seeks to arrange the basis for a just and sane world order, rooted in a durable peace, an order in which we shall never again see such human tragedies as have been visited upon the Jews

and other minorities,” one commentator wrote.

Cover of the March 27, 1942 paper (on left) shows Moses shoulderto-shoulder with FDR, a display of American Jewish patriotism in the early days of the U.S. in World War II; Above, the newspaper’s bound print volumes have had a long journey to digitization. (Photo/Andrew Esensten)

NAVIGATING THE ARCHIVES SEARCH

nonprofit in New York that did just this kind of work. I called Jeremy, and we clicked. Turns out he founded Digital Divide Data in 2001 as a way to li disadvantaged youth in Laos, Kenya and Cambodia out of poverty by training and hiring them to scan and digitize print publications. He has the same kind of Jewishly inspired, mission-driven purpose that we have at J. And with millions of pages of historical newspapers digitized under his belt, he was clearly the guy for the job. By now it was 2018 and time to double down on finding donors for the project, which Jeremy estimated would cost $150,000. Some years earlier, I’d interviewed philanthropist Douglas Goldman for a profile in J., and I knew he was interested in libraries and genealogy. So with the help of Steven Dinkelspiel, former publisher of San Francisco Magazine and a board adviser at J., in late 2019 we sent off a grant proposal to the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund.

Success! The fund gave us $50,000, more than enough to get the ball rolling. But other priorities intervened, and it was almost two years before we were able to turn our a ention to this project again. Once again, serendipity smiled; in the three years since we had asked the Goldmans for their grant, the technology used to scan and digitize newspapers had dramatically improved, and prices had dropped. By late 2021, Jeremy told me our entire project would now cost $75,000.

I just knew we could find that last $25,000. I turned to J.’s board, and co-president Carol Weitz came to the rescue. She met with Fred Levin, of The Shenson Foundation, who agreed to give us the money needed to complete the project.

Fred’s interest was somewhat different than that of the historians and scholars I spoke to, all of whom recognized the importance of our material and were eager to see it digitized. Fred agreed, but he had another, more personal reason. He was tired, he told me, of the historical focus on

San Francisco’s German Reform Jews, “who did fabulous things,” he said. “But you know, there were a lot of us others, who came from the Pale, and we did fabulous things as well.”

Fred’s great-grandfather, Aaron Shenson, immigrated to San Francisco from Vilnius in 1880. He opened a kosher butcher shop, was the second president of Hebrew Free Loan, and was the founding president of Kneseth Israel on Su er Street. “And he was just one person,” Fred told me. “There had to be many more. Where’s their history?”

Opening up the pages of our newspaper to the public, he said, would surely uncover their stories.

Late last year, Digital Divide Data handed over our scanned material to two hosting sites: the National Library of Israel, which presents each print issue online in PDF form, and UC Riverside’s California Digital Newspaper Collection, where the material is now searchable by date and keyword at jweekly.com/archives.

As our lead donor, Douglas Goldman was one of the first to test it out. “It is most impressive, as it is rapid and accurate,” he wrote to me. Noting that his family has a long history in San Francisco, he wrote, “Having been my own family’s genealogist since age 11, I have been using available historical records for the purpose of doing family research my entire life. To be able to sit at home and discover actual information on one’s own family and the larger Jewish and general community is a precious and invaluable tool.”

And now, here we are. The great unveiling. Everything you wanted to know about Bay Area Jewish history, and some you might prefer not to know. But it’s all part of who we were, and who we are.

We will use the archives in our reporting, linking to past articles. We know students in local Jewish schools will use it to write reports and learn about our history. We know that scholars, historians and filmmakers will use it to research projects. Locals will use it to find their family history — weddings, births, funerals. And people all over the world will use it to explore this fascinating, creative, energetic Jewish community, one with an ethos and a flavor all its own. Go ahead. Dig in. ■

JUNE 13, 1947

Mixed feelings about the establishment of Israel

Prior to the adoption of the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine, local Jews were conflicted about the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The president of the San Francisco branch of the American Council for Judaism helped draft a memo to the U.N. opposing the state on the grounds that it would be “harmful to the Jews in Palestine and to Jews elsewhere throughout the world” who might be accused by their countrymen of having dual loyalty. Yet the birth of the state in May 1948 was celebrated by hundreds at a rally held at the Veterans Building. “All hailed the new state as the realization of years of hope and e ort,” our report stated.

MARCH 5, 1948 Golda Meir speaks at Emanu-El

Future Israeli Prime Minister

Golda Meir visited San Francisco on a national fundraising tour for the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in pre-state Israel.

“The force of her personality, the simple dignity with which she asked American Jewry to stand by the Yishuv, the future her words evoked, won for her the respect, the admiration and the support of the San Francisco Jews who thronged to Temple Emanu-El to hear her,” reporter Rita Semel wrote about Meir, who was then 49 and still known as Goldie Myerson. Meir would return to San Francisco many times, including in 1956 and 1960. (And local legend Rita Semel just celebrated her 100th birthday!)

DECEMBER 1, 1978 Assassination of Harvey Milk

The Jewish community mourned San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk after their Nov. 27, 1978 assassinations. Milk had recently embraced his Jewish identity and attended Yom Kippur services at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. “We’ve lost a key figure in our liaison to the City Administration,” said Rabbi Allen Bennett in his eulogy of Milk. Moscone was remembered as a dedicated public servant who advocated for Soviet Jews. Upon Moscone’s death, Dianne Feinstein became acting mayor and the third Jewish mayor of San Francisco.

FEBRUARY 6, 1987 San Francisco welcomes Natan Sharansky

Some 2,000 people turned out to see Natan Sharansky, a leader of the Soviet refuseniks, speak outside of the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco. He also addressed a packed crowd at Congregation Emanu-El during a whirlwind tour of the city. In his speeches, he criticized the Soviet regime — “the world is being blinded by Gorbachev’s gestures of glasnost,” he said — and acknowledged the support he received from local Jews who agitated for his release from prison. “I think I can say that San Francisco was the one place where I had the most ‘criminal contacts,’” he said.

4 5

You can search the archives by typing keywords in the search box 1 on the home page and clicking the magnifying glass symbol.

Search for an exact phrase by placing quotation marks around your search terms. Use Boolean operators AND (include all of the words), OR (with at least one of the words) and NOT (without the words) for more accurate search results.

After clicking the magnifying glass symbol, you can refine your results in several ways. Use the dropdown menu at the top right of your list 2 to sort by title, category, oldest first or newest first.

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OCTOBER 13 & 27, 1989

1989 World Series and earthquake

The 1989 World Series was a very memorable one for local Jewish baseball fans. Deemed the “Bay Bridge Series,” it was the first and only championship showdown between the two Bay Area MLB teams. The owners of the San Francisco Giants (Bob Lurie) and the Oakland A’s (Walter Haas Jr.) both happened to belong to the same shul. (“You wouldn’t believe the calls I’m getting for tickets,” Rabbi Robert Kirschner of Congregation Emanu-El told the Jewish Bulletin’s Winston Pickett.)

Minutes before Game 3 was to start, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. The series was postponed for 10 days, with the A’s ultimately winning the title.

JUNE 9, 2017 Gender diversity in the rabbinate

J.’s Laura Paull interviewed local members of the first generation of nonbinary and trans rabbis and congregational leaders for a J. cover story. The group included Rabbi Dev Noily, the senior rabbi at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont and possibly the first rabbi to use “they/them” pronouns.

“There’s still a lot of pushback in the Jewish world around trans people in general,” Noily said. “Communities have had more time to process what it means to have women clergy, and even gay clergy, than they have had for trans clergy.” ■

1 2 3 JWEEKLY.COM | J. THE JEWISH NEWS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA | 2.18.2022 7

Long before Soviet Jewry rallies, ‘let my people go’ was ‘don’t let them in’

MAYA MIRSKY | J. STAFF

“I confess it is a vexatious question …” So wrote the founding editor of the Emanu-El newspaper, Jacob Voorsanger, on the topic of immigration. Immigration as a subject has always been front of mind for American Jews, themselves immigrants to a country with a scant history of embracing them, and so it was in 1898, when those words were wri en.

At that time, the Emanu-El newspaper was only 3 years old and the country was experiencing the beginning of a great wave of Jewish migration from the Russian Pale of Se lement that would reshape American Jewry.

But Voorsanger, himself an immigrant from Amsterdam, was not too keen on it.

“We have shielded and protected the Russian brother and

he has created problems for us that we find difficult to solve,” he wrote.

Voorsanger devoted his lengthy “Our Weekly Chat” space to making a delicate case in support of immigration policy that would close the doors to Russian Jews. As the rabbi of the large and prosperous Temple Emanu-El, Voorsanger was connected to the primarily German Jewish cosmopolitan elite of the city, who looked down on the poorly educated, more observant, Yiddish-speaking Jews from farther East.

Not that Voorsanger expressed that directly. Instead, he couched his argument in logic. He thought that if the country wasn’t strict about restricting immigration, then cities would get too crowded; he saw overpopulation as the root of much evil and vice. Overpopulation was, in fact, the very thing that had caused problems in Russian territories to begin with, he argued, along with a sprinkling of antisemitism.

“You know the sad, unhappy story of the Russian Jew,” Voorsanger wrote. “His misfortunes, his trials and tribulations are an o -told tale. In his case religious persecution appears as a primary motive for his being driven forth from his native land; but in his case also over-population lies at the basis of all this unholy proceeding against him.”

But the real question came down to principle. Sadly, he decided, if you opposed le ing people into U.S. cities, you couldn’t

make an exception for Jews. That would be un-American.

“Shall we ask immunity for any class of immigrants from a general provision that aims at restricting all? We could not do so without first meeting the charge that, in such case, we hold the interests of our country secondary only to the well-being of a number of immigrants to whom we are united with the sympathetic bonds of religion,” he wrote.

As far as Russian Jews themselves, Voorsanger did his best to praise them as having “grit and courage,” assimilating well and in general being not terrible, writing “he represents the Jewish name not unworthily in the most remote corners to which the white race has ventured.”

And he supported immigration if somehow Russian Jews could be kept out of the cities, as he felt that it was the uneven density of people on the planet that caused the problem.

“The United States with seventy millions of people can easily become the home of four hundred millions and yet not be over-crowded,” he opined (the current U.S. population is more than 332 million).

And yet, Russian Jews wanted to crowd into the same spaces as their family and friends, preferring to se le where they knew people who spoke their language and practiced Judaism as they did, instead of going out and tilling the bountiful soil of America.

“His gregarious instincts have caused congestion in the cities of the Atlantic border and further inland, not to speak of Europe,” lamented Voorsanger.

It’s a stark contrast with how this newspaper greeted a second wave of Russian Jews, one that started in the late 1960s in response to economic hardship, domestic antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric from the Soviet government.

“Plight of Jews in Russia Worsens” this publication’s headline read in 1967 — and that was only the beginning.

It is estimated that more than 1.25 million Jews le the Soviet Union, most of them for Israel and the United States. About 40,000 came to the Bay Area. But this time, unlike

Freckle salve, dancing pumps and Santa ads tell turn-of-the-century stories

What does a newspaper bring to a community? In the case of the Jews in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century, they opened the local paper to read news from abroad, peruse society columns to see who was visiting from Chicago, and perhaps tackle issues such as “the influence of Americanism upon the Jew.” But, like everyone else, they also turned to the paper to buy stu .

The early ads in the Emanu-El draw a portrait of a vibrant world of assimilated, well-o Jews in a time full of new technologies and opportunities. And the paper’s advertisers were there to meet them — feeding them with oysters from Normann’s, clothing them in form-fitting underwear from Pfisters and o ering lunch at the Poodle Dog restaurant on Eddy Street (which famously — and secretly — had a brothel upstairs).

Readers’ looks were maintained by Kurtz’s Freckle Salve from Edward A. Baer, druggist (”Ladies, Just the Thing!”), while the hair on their faces, after being gently removed by electricity, was “positively guaranteed never to return or no charge.”

For leisure they could take an excursion by ferry to “beautiful Alameda County” or go camping at “reduced rates” in the Santa Cruz Mountains, or perhaps just learn to play the piano.

Some of the advertisers targeting the well-o San Francisco Jewish community were themselves Jewish, part of a thriving class of merchants who helped build the West.

“Open an account with us for 1896—economy—pure food—the best,” advertised gourmet grocery chain Goldberg, Bowen & Lebenbaum (also known as Goldberg, Bowen & Co.). With three stores in San Francisco and one in Oakland, the business went bold

with its advertising in the 1903 paper, claiming “The number of our customers increases yearly—there must be a good reason.”

The earthquake and fire of 1906 took its toll on the prosperous local chain, reducing the Sutter Street location to rubble. but the company rebuilt in 1909 and the “new” Goldberg Bowen Building still stands in downtown San Francisco, a few blocks from J.’s o ice.

Going to a party? The Emanu-El reader of the late 1800s and early 1900s might have shopped for an outfit at Ransoho ’s, the “Home of Style and Quality.” The store on Geary advertised “French and American modes” including “dinner gowns, tailored suits, wraps, waists, skirts and neckwear.” Or they could have bought a wellturned pair of shoes at Rosenthal’s, where you could find “dancing pumps and satin slippers in many dainty designs and colors.”

Many of the early ads had nothing to do with Jewish companies, or Judaism, at all.

A 1904 ad titled “All Day for $1” beckoned San Franciscans to take a “delightful excursion” across the bay with a scenic trip to

John Rothmann was president of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews when he led this protest outside the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco in 1986.

Voorsanger’s advocacy for limited immigration, modern Bay Area Jews fought for the immigrants’ right to come. Local Jewish leaders created the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews, protested outside the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco, gathered signatures and held vigils.

“Determined to mobilize Bay Area public opinion on behalf of the six million persecuted Jews in Russia, the Northern California Commi ee for Soviet Jewry has planned an all-day demonstration for Sunday, Oct. 22. The day precedes the festival of Simchas Torah, an occasion when Russian Jews have dared to express their bond to Jewish tradition,” this paper wrote in 1967.

Things further ramped up in 1968, when a rally for Soviet Jewry held in Stern Grove drew more than 3,000.

“Speakers expressed hopes that the Jewish community of the Soviet Union might be free to worship as it pleases, to educate children in the religion of their fathers, and to express their Jewishness in the tradition of their faith,” the paper reported.

Vigils, rallies and protests continued through the decades. In 1975, mayoral candidate George Moscone joined activists at a protest in Union Square in San Francisco. But sometimes the anger of local protesters went too far: A 1973 le er to the editor titled “Deplores Vandalism at Soviet Consulate” took a finger-wagging tone.

“Whoever threw those bags of paint did a great disservice to Soviet Jews and to the Jewish community. Undoubtedly they think of themselves as being clever and brave, but by their actions, they put in jeopardy legislation which is presently before our Congress,” the le er said.

Earl Raab, who directed the Jewish Community Relations Council from 1951 to 1987, used his regular column in this paper to keep the situation of Soviet Jews in the minds of readers for nearly two decades.

In 1973 he took aim at Jewish people who had a ended a “posh affair” at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco, writing, “It’s common knowledge that there are Jews in Soviet prison camps today, mainly for the reason that they are practicing Jews. It is common knowledge that there is a special campaign of terror directed against Soviet Jews. For example, during the very week of the Soviet Consulate affair in San Francisco, 63 Jews were arrested in the Soviet Union.”

And in 1989, he was still urging that the plight of Soviet Jews be taken seriously. “A political refugee is defined as one who has a well-founded fear of political oppression, and any Soviet Jew who does not have such a fear is adrenalin-deficient,” he said wryly.

This era came to a definite close in 1999, when the very same activists who protested outside the Soviet Consulate were invited inside what had become the Russian Consulate.

“Only a decade ago, most Jews would have laughed at the thought they might ever be invited into the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco,” the paper wrote in its weekly editorial. “The large, brick fortress on Green and Baker streets was tantamount to the Kremlin. The consulate was the evil empire. Inside of it were the communists who imprisoned Jews. Outside the building, Jews demanded, ‘Let my people go.’”

Whether its opinion pieces were for or against the immigration of Russian Jews, and whether the paper reported rallies to increase immigration limits or meetings to lower them, at every point in time this publication has covered the “vexatious” question of what it means to be Jewish in America, or what it means to become American while remaining Jewish. Would immigrants threaten the prosperity of San Francisco’s assimilated Jewry? Would abandoning the Jews of the Soviet Union threaten the identity of Jews as a global people?

There were never easy answers, but there have always been good-faith efforts to tackle the story of Jewish immigrants in America. Or, as it was put in 1921 by a member of the Council of Jewish Women and quoted in this paper, heartfelt but somewhat bombastic:

NAVIGATING THE ARCHIVES BROWSE

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“As Jewish women we belong to that race which pointed the way of righteousness to all the peoples of the earth. As American women we belong to that nation which pointed the way of right ideals to all the nations of the earth. Conscious of this great heritage but ever mindful that a heritage is only precious as we add to it, let us vitalize our work for the immigrant so that in the far-off day when America’s mission shall have been wrought, we Jewish women of the twentieth century shall have had our telling share in helping realize the fondest dream of the American fathers.” ■

Alameda, Haywards [sic], Oakland, Berkeley and “the great University of California.” The ticket included “a substantial lunch at Hotel Metropole.”

in which she could feel at home. If necessary, will furnish her own room; also has piano,” read one want ad in 1900. People looking for room and board at the home of a “nice Jewish family” advertised often in the paper, as did Jews with rooms to rent.

Still, it was an assimilated group. Not only was there an 1895 ad for Christmas tree ornaments, but in 1905 there was a quarter-page ad from the San Francisco department store the Emporium (also Jewish-owned) for the “Best of Everything for Christmas Gifts” that featured a vibrantly drawn Santa Claus. The advertisement was on the same page as the paper’s directory of city synagogues and other Jewish organizations.

consider inflation would put the cost today at

In other ads, there were pitches for stoves, lace curtains and the newly invented gas water heaters (“We Make Water Hot”). For the more a luent, in 1905, a Packard automobile was o ered for sale in the paper, “complete in every detail, with glass front, canopy top—$2,750,” a rather staggering price if you consider inflation would put the cost today at $88,000.

There were also notices you’d only see in a Jewish paper.

“A young lady would like to stay with a refined private Jewish family,

While the Emanu-El newspaper, through its articles and opinion pieces, had as its stated goal representing “liberal Jewish thought” on the West Coast, just as much can be learned about the Jews of San Francisco through the advertisements in its pages. In their range from practical to extravagant, the ads portrayed a world in which the city was booming, the war years were yet to come and the streets did seem to be paved with gold.

Maya

Russian Jews who came to the U.S. at the turn of the century were not uniformly welcomed by the Jewish community. (Photo/International Ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs 1885-1985)

—

Mirsky, J. Sta

Forward-looking Beth Sholom looks back at 100 years of progress

DAN PINE | CORRESPONDENT

Judy Stein looked around her Hebrew school class at Congregation Beth Sholom in 1957 and felt jealous. “I was the only girl in the class,” she recalled. “All the boys were ge ing bar mitzvahed, and I thought, why not me?”

Rabbi Saul White, already known for his innovative thinking, wholeheartedly agreed and pressed ahead — defying norms in the Conservative movement at the time.

In June 1957, as reported by the Jewish Bulletin, this publication’s predecessor, Stein became the very first bat mitzvah at the San Francisco synagogue.

“Looking back, I feel it was a milestone,” said Stein, now 77. “It changed Beth Sholom in terms of recognizing women.”

That kind of innovation, sometimes led by its rabbis and just as o en by its congregants, has always typified Beth Sholom. White, who led the congregation for nearly 50 years, was the first rabbi hired by the shul, which had been founded 13 years before he came aboard in 1934.

Do the math: That makes 2021 the year Beth Sholom officially turned 100, and a yearlong celebration has already begun, with events marking the anniversary happening in the coming months.

“Everybody’s excited,” said Sandy Edwards, 73, a board member who grew up at CBS and is co-chairing the centennial commi ee. “We want to use this time to look at our history and see what we can learn about propelling us forward.”

“People live their lives at Beth Sholom,” added Ruth Katz, 52, the other co-chair. “It’s a foundation for people, an important place. It deserves to endure, and it will.”

A centennial gala is set for May 14, hopefully in person. Between now and then, CBS is hosting multigenerational reunions of affinity groups, such as Young Adults of Beth Sholom and the Chicken Soupers (volunteers who come together to feed the hungry). An ambitious oral history project, featuring interviews with CBS congregants, will preserve their stories for all time.

A series of lectures and panel discussions has already

started. The early history of the congregation, which was founded in October 1921 by a group of Russian Jewish immigrants, is one of the upcoming topics. Another will focus on the strikingly modern architecture of Beth Sholom’s campus on 14th Avenue at Clement Street in the Richmond District, rebuilt in 2008.

Lectures held in December and January examined the legacy of two towering CBS rabbis, White and Rabbi Alan Lew, both of whom for years represented the congregation and Bay Area Jewry in general.

Among his achievements, White established Brandeis-Hillel Day School (now the Brandeis School of San Francisco) and marched down Market Street in the name of civil rights, and later in protest of the Vietnam War. He also wrote a column in this publication for years.

“Rabbi White made us an outward-facing congregation,” said Edwards, who grew up at CBS. “He wasn’t just building it internally; he was out there in the community fighting to be more accepting of refugees from the Holocaust. He was commi ed to the creation of the State of Israel when many were not. He was also very involved in the civil rights movement. He really represented the Jewish community in San Francisco.”

Lew, who served as CBS rabbi for 14 years starting in 1991, brought a new vision of spirituality to the shul, thanks to his Zen Buddhist practice. He co-founded the Jewish meditation center, Makor Or, with Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Makor Or is now a program of the Taube Center for Jewish Life at the JCC of San Francisco. Lew died unexpectedly in 2009, when he was 65.

Current Rabbi Dan Ain values the legacy le by his predecessors. During his days as a rabbinical student, Ain was heavily influenced by Lew’s bestselling 2003 book, “This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared,” which offered a new perspective on the Days of Awe.

“I’ve dug pre y deeply into Rabbis Lew and White since I arrived here,” said Ain, whose tenure began in 2018. “When I first got to CBS, everybody would tell me about Rabbi Lew, but I would go out of my way to ask about Rabbi White because I always felt a certain kinship with him. A rabbi willing to stand alone to do what he felt was right, the rabbi who pulled [Bay Area] clergy together to fight racial discrimination.”

Katz, who joined Beth Sholom in 2014, noted that the synagogue has benefited from other great rabbinic leadership as well.

“Our temple has a history of hiring rabbis outside the traditional mold of Conservative Judaism,” she said. “We also had Micah Hyman [2007-14], who brought a real sense of engagement and warmth, and a focus back on youth and kids. Aubrey Glazer [2014-18] brought in a Kabbalistic element, a lot of new music, and was deeply intellectual. Rabbi Ain brings a very different

sensibility to CBS. Our Shabbat services feel different now, not just through prayer but dialogue, bringing Torah into today’s world.”

A congregation is more than its rabbis, of course. Today there are 335 member families, and Katz, who was “lured there by friends,” said what drew her in was “the sense of warmth and community. Something cool was going on there, a real sense of belonging. I grew up in New York, and went to Jewish camps my whole life. I recognized an energy [at CBS] that felt very familiar.”

That energy takes many forms. In addition to the Chicken Soupers and Young Adult offerings, Kehillah Connect offers affinity groups for expectant and new parents, women and seniors. The shul has a thriving preschool, speaker series and lifelong learning and Torah study. In terms of diversity, CBS was believed to be the first Conservative shul in the country to have a gay president, Kenny Altman in 2002, which came four years a er CBS had established a gay havurah. Among current endeavors, CBS is teaming up with Be’chol Lashon to explore opportunities for Jews of color.

That’s what organizers mean when they describe this centennial celebration as forward-looking, as much as it is a reflection on a storied past. ■

Torah study group led by Rabbi Alan Lew (facing Torah, center) in 1994. Lew served for 14 years, starting in 1991. (Photo/File-Phil Head)

Archival photos show crowded services at Congregation Beth Sholom (top, undated); and dedication of the sanctuary in 1965, above. (Photos/Courtesy Beth Sholom)

Before 1972, LGBTQ Jews weren’t covered — or mentioned

DAVID A.M. WILENSKY | J. STAFF

Newspapers are the first dra of history, as the saying goes. But important issues o en get le out of these early dra s. In the case of this newspaper, the mere existence of LGBTQ Jews was pre y well ignored until 1972.

That first mention, a column by Earl Raab, leader of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council for decades and a regular columnist in this paper, includes the line — a lament, perhaps? — “There are more homosexuals in San Francisco than there are Jews.” Raab does not approve of gay Jews, but insists that he does not wish them ill. He wonders: “At what point do we cross the line — from supporting individual rights — to bestowing society’s official approval to homosexuality as an alternate life style?”

In this newspaper, then called the Jewish Bulletin, and in the wider Bay Area Jewish community, that line grew fuzzier throughout the ’70s.

In March of 1973, we reported on “a group of Jewish homosexuals” who held a protest in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. They were there, as members of FIRM (Faggots International Revolutionary Movement), to object to Israeli law, which at the time punished homosexuality with prison. The demonstration followed a meeting at the consulate in which Peter Goodman, an openly gay Jewish man, had a empted to begin the process of immigrating to Israel. The official he met with informed him that homosexuality was illegal in Israel and Goodman was therefore not eligible to make aliyah.

In May 1973, not long a er the 1972 founding of Beth Chayim Chadashim in Los Angeles, the world’s first gay synagogue, the editors of the Bulletin “asked Rabbi Solomon Freehof of Pi sburgh, an authority on Jewish law, to express his views on the subject.” He did so in a piece with the subtle headline, “Homosexuals And The Jewish Religion.”

“There is no question that Scripture considers homosexuality to be a grave sin,” wrote Freehof, who was 80. “The rabbi who organized this congregation said, in justifying himself, that being Reform, we are not bound by the Halacha of the Bible. It well may be that we do not consider ourselves bound by all the ritual and ceremonial laws of Scripture, but we certainly revere the ethical a itudes and judgements of the Bible.”

Despite the esteemed rabbi’s persuasive arguments, San Francisco got its own gay synagogue when Congregation Sha’ar Zahav launched in 1977. One might think that its founding would have been perfect fodder for coverage from this publication. But no. At first, Sha’ar Zahav appears only in small ads near the classifieds to announce its Shabbat services. The ad appeared weekly beginning in July 1977. But by September, the services were listed in the paper’s official column of service times for area synagogues.

However, for any substantive treatment of gay Jews,

Sha’ar Zahav still had to buy ad space. In May 1978, the congregation resorted to a wordy advertisement that began: “The Torah portion for this week related to anyone engaging in certain sexual acts for which one would be ‘stoned to death.’ One of the results of this injunction is that there is a congregation of homosexual Jews in San Francisco with membership in the hundreds. We at Sha’ar Zahav want to be active members in the Jewish community. We only seek the opportunity to worship the G-d of our ancestors in a Jewish place.”

In June 1978, the Jewish Bulletin finally had the courage to give Sha’ar Zahav some a ention — but not enough to note that it was a gay synagogue. Instead, the brief article merely states that the congregation of some 200 members would be holding a service to celebrate its first anniversary.

In 1979, we reported that Rabbi Allen Benne would a end a convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis to address the CCAR’s “Commi ee on Homosexuality.” At the time, Benne , the first openly gay rabbi in the U.S., had recently become the rabbi of Sha’ar Zahav —

Anyone can browse the archives and read articles online. If you want to download a single page or a complete issue, you must register for a free account. At the top right of the Home page 1 click the Register button.

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In the early ’90s, we covered the growing acceptance of gay Jews within the Reform movement. In 1990, the CCAR passed a resolution that called upon its members “to treat with respect and to integrate fully all Jews into the life of the community regardless of sexual orientation.” The resolution also supported gay and lesbian rabbis. But for some Bay Area Reform rabbis, it didn’t go far enough.

In a May 1991 article, we wrote of Benne and two other S.F. rabbis, Yoel Kahn and Eric Weiss, who co-authored a le er calling for greater acceptance of gay and lesbian rabbis. Sadly, 21 of the 29 rabbis from around the country who signed the le er “felt unable to use their names.” They welcomed the CCAR resolution, but lamented that it demanded “that we separate our personal lives from our rabbinic careers. It is time to be accepted for who really are: commi ed Jews and rabbis who are also lesbians and gay men.”

In 1993, the Bulletin covered the year’s theme for the High Holiday season at the progressive, independent Kehilla Community Synagogue in Berkeley, “interweaving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender realities in the Jewish community.” It was the first appearance of the word “transgender” in this publication.

By the 21st century — and in the last decade in particular — J.’s coverage of LGBTQ Jews reflects a Jewish world that Raab and Freehof could scarcely have imagined in the ’70s.

A perfect illustration is our coverage of Sha’ar Zahav’s 40th anniversary in 2017: “The shul that has been known since its 1977 founding as San Francisco’s gay synagogue is now reaching out to a broader community and de-emphasizing its identity as an LGBT-specific congregation.” (We now live in a world where a gay synagogue struggles with its identity because widespread acceptance means many LGBTQ Jews do not feel the need to seek out a specifically LGBTQ congregation.)

though in this article, oddly, the Bulletin still couldn’t quite mention that Sha’ar Zhav is a gay synagogue.

Ten years later, the disposition of the Bulletin was changing. In May 1989, we devoted half a page to the upcoming marriage of Jay Schnyder and Allan Grill: “Like an increasing number of gay and lesbian couples who live a lifestyle that persists despite its non-recognition by law or religion, they have opted to affirm their commitment to one another in an open and public way. They wanted more than a simple ceremony, though — they wanted a wedding. And they wanted it to be Jewish.”

The article marked a shi in our coverage of gay Jews — from a problem to be grappled with to a segment of the community whose Jewish identity was worthy of coverage and respect.

“Sha’ar Zahav — while retaining its ‘queer values’ core — is focusing on how to serve a congregation that is increasingly of mixed gender, including residents of the Castro who are not gay,” we wrote.

Could Raab and Freehof have imagined our 2015 coverage of a transgender naming and coming-out ceremony for a student at a Jewish day school? Or our 2019 article about the beginning of all-gender cabins at Camp Tawonga? Or the mere fact that our reporters no longer blink when an interviewee tells us they use they/them pronouns?

Our early coverage — or lack thereof — of LGBTQ Jews le a lot to be desired. But the evolution of that coverage over the years is just one example of how the history of Bay Area Jews and the issues that ma er to them are reflected in the pages of this paper — all now available for your perusal at jweekly.com/archives. ■

Bob Stein holds the banner for recently formed Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in June 1979 during the “San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.”

Rabbi Allen Bennett is pictured next to Stein. (Photo/Joe Altman-California Historical Society)

NAVIGATING THE ARCHIVES ARTICLES

A search for my own name in the digital archives kicks up the Jewish dust

SUE BARNETT | J. STAFF

Remember the olden days when we all used to Google ourselves and be amazed that we were on the internet? Well, I recently did the same with J.’s digital archives, and I was amazed to find myself there, too. My 15-year-old self.

I’m a born-and-raised San Franciscan with what I believe was an undistinguished history of Jewish involvement, starting in childhood and peaking somewhere around confirmation.

Your honors, let the record show that one “Sue Barne ” (that’s me) has in fact shown a lifelong pa ern of engagement with the Jewish community, albeit spo y and fickle. May it please the court, I hereby present this abbreviated and annotated version of “This Is Your Life (and There’s No Denying It).”

My big debut in the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin on Dec. 5, 1975, announces the installation of officers for my B’nai B’rith Girls chapter. I had been elected as “historian” of San Francisco No. 1, which carried the prestige of being the first BBG chapter in the country. In reality, it was (if memory serves) also one of the Bay Area’s worst. Maybe the No. 1 worst.

What made it so? We had no popular girls. And without popular girls, we had no AZA boys hanging around us, either. Our numbers were small, several of us were on the dorky side, and we lost most competitions (B’nai B’rith Youth Organization was a very competitive arena, regularly pi ing chapters against each other in spirit contests and the like). This is how I recall it. But I was an overthinking, overly selfaware teen, not one of those super-confident Jewish girls that seemed to come fully formed out of the suburbs.

In July 1977 I am being installed, once again, as chapter historian. Was it the only post available? Was I returning by popular demand? The article doesn’t say. In January 1978, I step up and become vice president, my last hurrah in BBG before graduating high school. Sadly, it also means the end of after-meeting trips to Zim’s for

fries and hot fudge sundaes in parfait glasses.

There’s a pause in the archives for 10 years while I’m off ge ing a college education and working my first job. The exception is one blip in November 1982 when my name comes up in the “About Folks” column announcing I’ve been named editor of my college paper — 100% my mom sent that one in.

I reappear more substantially in the archives circa 1987, now entrenched as the Jewish Bulletin’s copy editor and sometimes reporter. I can’t say I’m thrilled that my early writing — I’ll be generous and call it “uneven” — is now preserved for all the world to see. I might need to scrub the archives when I finally decide to get famous.

My first reported story begins thusly: “The greatest obstacle to Mideast peace lies within Israel’s own borders, according to Labor Knesset member Abba Eban, who was the featured speaker at the Israel Bonds Prime Minister’s Club dinner in San Francisco Sunday.”

Are you asleep yet? I think I am.

I interviewed the esteemed diplomat in his hotel suite before the speech, and my distinct memory of that night was how I was too nervous to scoot my tape recorder closer to Mr. Eban, and later when I listened to the playback, his voice was tinny and inaudible. Of course, my own voice asking questions came booming through.

I haven’t thought about that small fiasco in a long time. See what fun memories crop up when you dig into your history? You should try it.

As I scroll through my articles, I’m heartened to see some growth. From a December 1990 interview at Square One Restaurant in San Francisco with romance novelist Judith Krantz, promoting her new book: “Wrapped in an oversized fur coat, her lightly frosted blonde hair swept up, and wearing a thick

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gold bangle bracelet inscribed with ‘Scruples,’ the diminutive, 96-pound writer clearly was enjoying this tour.”

And not that I’ve forgo en being in Israel during the first Gulf War in 1991, racing to the hotel’s “sealed room” as Scud rockets crashed down on Tel Aviv, but it’s still nice to have access to those stories again. Same with a series of articles in 1993 a er a journalists’ trip to Tunisia where I sat in an interview with Yasir Arafat.

Things get pre y quiet, archive-wise, a er 1994, which is when I leave the Jewish Bulletin for greener (ahem) pastures. I do go on to have two children, as evidenced by their birth announcements in 1995 and 1999. But otherwise I have no clue what I was doing during the nearly 20-year gap that followed, since there’s no Jewish public record of my activities.

And then, in 2011, my name pops up in the staff box once again. Over time it starts crawling up the masthead, until it gets all the way to managing editor and the present day.

Reviewing my life in this bubble, it looks like I’ve come full circle, starting in 1975 when, as San Francisco No. 1’s historian, I was responsible for writing and editing a newsle er about our chapter’s social events, fundraising and other important Jewish news.

This continuity could be purely coincidental. But maybe the connecting dots show that my path was predestined all along. And if that’s true, I guess I’m where I was meant to be. ■

In Rosh Hanikra, northern Israel, on the synagogue confirmation trip in 1975.

Sue Barnett (far left), in a fashionable-for-the-time dress, with roommates at the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization convention in 1977.

Lawyers seek mental health treatment for client Farca in lieu of more jail time

GABE STUTMAN | J. STAFF

With sentencing for their client on the horizon, lawyers for convicted felon Ross Farca are a empting a last-minute effort to divert the 26-year-old from prison into court-supervised mental health counseling.

With a judge’s approval, Farca — found guilty on Dec. 1 of violating the civil rights of Jews, building an illegal AR-15-style assault rifle and threatening a police officer — could soon be released through California’s mental health diversion program.

Farca’s arrest in Concord in June 2019 alarmed members of the Bay Area Jewish community a er learning he had posted online about a mass shooting targeting Jews. “I would get a body count of like 30 kikes and then like 5 police officers because I would also decide to fight to the death,” he wrote.

Though Farca has spent the be er part of two years behind bars for violating the terms of his bail and remains incarcerated, sentencing has been postponed to give his lawyers time to argue for the alternative. The district a orney’s office is arguing he should serve the maximum of nine years in state prison.

The diversion program gives California judges broad latitude to grant people charged with certain crimes a chance to undergo psychological treatment. It requires the court to find that the individual’s mental illness “played a significant role” in the commission of the crime, and a mental health expert to render an opinion on whether the person would respond to psychological care. People charged with murder, voluntary manslaughter and rape are not eligible for mental health diversion, according to the 2018 law’s text.

Diversion programs can be inpatient or outpatient, though Farca’s lawyers have petitioned for an outpatient program.

“The judge gets to structure it,” said David Silldorf, a Jewish criminal defense a orney in San Diego who has practiced criminal law for 15 years.

He said he has seen successful implementation of the program in which the individual gets treatment and medication, undergoes a course of therapy and passes a “ba ery of tests” to determine he no longer poses a danger to himself or others.

“O en we do worse by pu ing people in prison,” he said.

“What no judge wants,” Silldorf added, “is to put somebody who has a propensity for violence into mental health diversion, and then for them to commit a serious violent crime.”

A judge will establish “benchmarks,” he

said, requiring the person to return to court for regular check-ins and to produce medical records to prove he is following the required course of treatment. The judge can revoke the arrangement if the person falls out of compliance.

In some instances prosecutors and defense lawyers agree on mental health diversion programs, Silldorf said. In this case, the district a orney’s office is strongly against it.

Farca could be sentenced to state prison for a maximum of 9 years and 8 months.”

The lead prosecutor in the case is Amber White, who has described Farca as “a serious danger to members of the Jewish faith.” Discretion ultimately rests with the judge.

Though Farca was deemed competent to stand trial, his lawyers have argued throughout the legal proceedings that his mental illness — including diagnoses of autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder — influenced his behavior.

Farca has at times behaved erratically in court, calling out and speaking out of turn, drawing reprimands from the judge. Court filings described him struggling to bathe regularly in jail and ge ing into fights. A psychologist testified at trial that he is verbally intelligent but severely limited in social skills.

“Based upon his criminality and threat to community safety, the Contra Costa District A orney’s Office strongly opposes Farca’s petition for release into any outpatient program,” read a statement emailed by Bobbi Mauler, executive assistant to District A orney Diana Becton. “Having been convicted of unlawful possession of assault weapons, criminal threats, and a hate crime,

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Farca did not grasp the significance of his words, his lawyers have argued, when in June of 2019 he posted on the website Steam, just weeks a er the Chabad of Poway a ack, about a mass shooting: “What do you think of me doing what John Earnest tried to do, but with a Nazi uniform, an unregistered and illegally converted ‘machine gun’ and actually livestreaming it with Nazi music?”

“I currently own an AR15,” he wrote in the post, describing how to convert it into an “M16.”

Farca has shown a keen interest in weap-

ammunition and used rifle targets in his home.

As a convicted felon he is barred from possessing a firearm, and Farca remains subject to terms of probation from a separate federal conviction last year.

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Farca is incarcerated at the Martinez

“What no judge wants is to put somebody who has a propensity for violence into mental health diversion, and then for them to commit a serious violent crime.”

Criminal defense attorney David Silldorf

Ross Farca (left) was convicted on Dec. 1 of violating the civil rights of Jews and building an assault weapon. (Photo/Gabe Stutman)

Meet the campus rabbi who’s ‘queering religion’

LEA LOEB | J. STAFF

Since becoming University of San Francisco’s rabbi-in-residence in 2019, Rabbi Camille Angel has been busy, whether she’s creating inclusive on-campus spaces, helping to empower students through her classes, officiating Jewish lifecycle events or leading Passover seders.

When Angel’s hiring was announced, it made headlines. A Jesuit Catholic university appointing a rabbi-in-residence was unprecedented, especially when that rabbi is a lesbian and longtime LGBTQ activist. She says credit for her presence on campus is largely due to the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.

“I was trained and I’m a rabbi to serve Jews, and I do — I led a shiva two nights ago, so I’m definitely still serving Jews,” Angel told J. “But there’s something remarkable for me and totally unexpected about my rabbinate being primarily among non-Jews at this point and that my teaching is primarily with non-Jews.”

She said there is only one Jewish student in her “Queering Religion” class of 40. The other students represent a mix of religious affiliations, but they gravitate to Angel’s classes and programs because of the inclusive queer community she has cultivated on campus.

“I actually didn’t know much about Judaism and what a rabbi was or what they did,” said Jade Peñafort, a senior sociology major from Redwood City. “But honestly, I love it.

I've learned from her that in Judaism, some of the core values are just working with other people and for other people and as a community. It’s not just about yourself.”

Angel said it’s important for her to be a visibly Jewish and queer presence on campus. She regularly wears an embroidered kippah and displays a rainbow pride flag in her office. She emphasizes how much real representation and inclusion ma er, especially when many students have never interacted with Judaism or Jewish thought or even met a rabbi.

“Students will o en ask me, ‘What should I call you? Professor? Doctor? Rabbi?’” Angel said. “I tell them to call me

rabbi, because everyone needs a rabbi, and if you didn’t have one before, now you do.”

Angel, who had been lecturing at USF for several years before joining the seven-person University Ministry staff places a lot of emphasis on being a positive, identity-affirming spiritual adviser regardless of students’ backgrounds or belief systems. Angel finds that many of her students’ relationships with religion o en are complicated by negative experiences due to their sexual orientations or gender identities. But they are also curious and seeking for themselves to figure out whether they want to explore spirituality.

“When I was teaching my first [theology] class, I encountered so many people who’d been really damaged and hurt by religion, or who had chosen not to be associated with religion, because they could see that it hurt people they loved,” said Angel. According to USF, a majority of undergraduate students are unaffiliated with a religion, while others identify as Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, atheist or Protestant. Fewer than half are Catholic.

According to a 2020 study by the Trevor Project, LGBTQ young adults whose parents held negative religious beliefs about homosexuality were at higher risk of a emped suicide.

“There’s something remarkable for me and totally unexpected about my rabbinate being primarily among non-Jews.”

Rabbi Camille Angel

Catholic University of San Francisco

In her “Queering Religion” class, Angel teaches from a Jewish perspective how to navigate religious contexts, especially those religions that have o en a empted to negate queer people. Many students credit Angel and this class with helping them re-evaluate and reconnect with their respective spiritual traditions.

This was the case for Luis Anaya, a senior sociology major, for whom growing up Mexican American and Catholic went hand in hand, but being queer and Catholic, not so much.

“I had a lot of reservations around religion because growing up and being queer, I inately had a different experience and different perspective on Catholic teachings,” said Anaya, who was born in Mexico City but grew up in Stockton.

When he took Angel’s class, he said, he also was taking strides in exploring and navigating his queer identity, so the intersection of queer narratives and spirituality was particularly meaninful for him. He also said exposure to Jewish thought helped to repair his strained relationship with Catholicism.

“Rabbi Angel talks a lot about pluralism, how different identities can coexist at the same time, and the idea of not reading the text literally, but rather interpreting it to get a be er perspective of what these people were trying to write about and the messages that they were trying to convey,” Anaya said. “To question things and almost approach them

with a grain of salt.”

Peñafort had a similar experience. Raised Catholic, she stopped going to church in her teens. She says she struggled with Catholicism for several reasons, but especially when her older sister came out as queer. She says the tools she learned in Angel’s class helped her figure out how to deal with her conflicting beliefs around religion. Peñafort says Angel’s class also helped her feel comfortable exploring her own sexuality and identity as a Fillipina woman and sister.

“Even though I felt like I didn’t fit into Catholicism and their values, I was still able to take li le pieces and apply it to myself or just reframe it in a way that applies to me and my life and my identity,” said Peñafort.

With Angel as a facilitator, Anaya and several other students started a peer-led LGBTQ group on campus called “Qmmunity,” which Anaya describes as a sort of extension of Angel’s class and the Jewish values she teaches.

On Thursdays, the group hosts a lunch program called “Breaking Bread and the Binary,” in which students come together to share a meal, their thoughts and reflections on current events.

The first session this semester was held Jan. 27 on Holocaust Remembrance Day and shortly a er the Jan. 15 Colleyville, Texas, hostage crisis. Angel expressed how significant the gathering felt and how it reminded her of the

importance of creating inclusive spaces not just for Jewish students but for all marginalized people.

“Being in this group out and proud, here and queer, on the lawn in front of the church, it’s the biggest satisfaction that Hitler and the Nazis and fascism and fundamentalism don’t rule our lives,” Angel said the next day, reflecting on the session. “We’re here, together, and we won’t be frightened back into our respective closets.”

Next month, Angel will host the inaugural Alvin H. Baum Jr. Memorial Lecture, named in honor of the San Francisco philanthropist who died last year and was known as a community pillar in the Jewish, civil rights and gay communities. In April, she’s leading a social justice-centered interfaith Passover seder focused on themes of climate justice, interfaith solidarity, peace, health and freedom. She also has plans to expand community outreach to address the issue of food insecurity among college students, something that affects LGBTQ people at twice the rate of others, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

All throughout, her core focus is on the intersection of religion and queerness.

“I think it's so refreshing to hear a different perspective,” Peñafort said, “and even if it's based on a religious point of view, it doesn’t necessarily feel like it is. It just feels like she's a very wise woman, and a mentor and a friend.” ■

Share your Beth Sholom story

The Congregation Beth Sholom community has been built person-by-person over the past ten decades, and each person has a story to tell. As we mark our 100th year, we want to collect and share as many stories as we can.

Whatever your connection — membership over the years, a wedding, B’nai Mitzvah, conversion, baby-naming, holiday celebration, a special relationship with a Rabbi or member — please give the gift of your story to the next generation of Beth Sholom-ites. It’s easy! Go to bethsholomsfcentennial.org/story-form.

Please also join us for upcoming Centennial events:

Birthing the Bowl: Building Beth Sholom’s campus Sunday, April 3, 4-6 pm

Hybrid event: presentation on Zoom; in-person tour. Register for this free event at bethsholomsfcentennial.org

A Century of Belonging Gala Celebration: May 14, 2022. Save the date; ticket information coming soon!

Questions? Email centennial@bethsholomsf.org

Go to bethsholomsfcentennial.org for more information

S. Bay-based Intel to acquire Israeli chipmaking company for a towering $5.4 billion

MAYA MIRSKY | J. STAFF

Intel, which manufactures and sells semiconductor chips that power computers across the world, is betting big on Israel. The Santa Clara–based company announced plans to acquire Israeli firm Tower Semiconductor for the whopping sum of $5.4 billion.

Tower, headquartered in the northern Israeli city of Migdal HaEmek, makes chips used in cars, medical devices, aerospace and defense equipment and other industries at factories in Israel, the U.S. and Japan. The move will help Intel secure its position as global demand for chips stays high amid ongoing supply chain woes.

The deal will unlock “new opportunities for existing and future customers in an era of unprecedented demand for semiconductors,” Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a press release.

There’s been a global shortage of chips since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Intel is trying to position itself to meet that need, without relying on production in China. In March 2021, Intel announced plans to build chip factories in Arizona, and in January of this year it said it plans to invest at least $20 billion in new chip-making capacity in Ohio.

Buying Tower will give Intel a head start. According to a press release from Tower, the company has two factories in Israel (both in Migdal HaEmek), two in the U.S. (in Southern California and Texas), three in Japan and some facilities in Italy as well.

While Tower is a force in Israeli tech manufacturing, the CEO of the company is from the U.S. Russell Ellwanger, who is Mormon, took the helm at Tower in 2005. According to Israeli outlet Globes, at the time Ellwanger was bullish on Tower even as the firm was losing money. “I saw that the financial position was not positive, that was known, but the people are fantastic, as is the strength in R&D. I believe that if we do things right, Tower can be successful, and so I took the job,” he said.

That’s been borne out: Intel paid a

60 percent premium for Tower’s shares, which closed at $33.13 before the news of the acquisition broke. Since then they’ve jumped more than 40 percent.

According to Israeli tech news site Calcalist, the success of Tower is a testament to investments made decades ago in the company by Israel Corporation, a joint government and private venture. While the kind of work that Tower does isn’t “glamorous,” Calcalist said, it’s the kind of basic hardware know-how the company has that

makes it valuable to Intel.

For those who are worried about the effect of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on investment in Israel, the Intel move comes as good news.

“Despite the best efforts of the BDS campaign to tarnish Israel, Intel’s acquisition of Tower demonstrates the strength and innovation of Israeli businesses,” said Julie Hammerman, CEO of JLens, a Bay Area-based organization that pushes for Israel and Jewish values to be represented in investing. “JLens advocates with U.S. companies to build partnerships with Israeli companies, and to ignore the falsehoods perpetuated by BDS activists.”

Intel has had a presence in Israel since 1974, according to its website, and currently has both R&D and manufacturing facilities across the country employing 12,800 people. n

Margaret Henschel, an employee at the Intel Corp.’s wafer fabrication facility in Chandler, Arizona, moves through its cleanroom in her industrial “bunny suit.” (Photo/Carol M. Highsmith Archive-Library of Congress)

Farmer with Jewish roots throws his hat in the ring for North Bay Assembly seat

LIZ HARRIS | CORRESPONDENT

If there’s a positive lesson Steve Schwartz learned from his father’s experiences during the Holocaust, it’s that “one person can make a difference,” he says.

A Sonoma County farmer, former kibbutz resident and longtime advocate for community food and farming initiatives, Schwartz recently threw his name into the ring for the North Bay California Assembly seat being vacated by Marc Levine. The primary is on June 7.

Schwartz, 56, says in an interview that his father, known as Miki, was sent to Buchenwald at age 13 and that he helped save lives by stealing German emblems and insignia to alter uniforms so Jews could escape. Wearing one of those garments himself — and speaking German — he was able to make a break for it at age 14. He later made it to Israel and served in the military before immigrating to the United States at 24.

Acknowledging that there “are different narratives,” both horrific and heroic, to the Holocaust experience, Schwartz believes “there are some positive stories. You have to stand up, speak truth to power and save lives.”

To that end, the Sebastopol resident has done his best to serve the greater good — from joining the Peace Corps where he served in Thailand, to being a graduate fellow at the Environmental Protection Agency, to working in government.

While in Sacramento, he was a board member at Congregation B’nai Israel, one of three area synagogues firebombed in 1999.

“That woke me up,” Schwartz says, adding that it strengthened his commitment to the importance of working across faith communities to combat hate.

Schwartz le the state capital and its 50- to 60-hour work weeks about 20 years ago. “I wanted to have a family and kids and do some farming and be part of a community,” he says. He found 3 acres at the end of a quiet road in rural Sebastopol, where he and his wife raised their daughters and established a farm.

“At some point I started connecting the dots,” says Schwartz, whose grandfather had a small farm in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe before perishing in a death camp.

Schwartz named his farm New Carpati. “My father taught us about food’s importance — and how he sometimes didn’t have food. That story has empowered me to be an innovative leader in food — and helping

immigrants get access to it.”

As described in a J. feature in 2013, Schwartz grows organic mushrooms, berries and apples. Jacob sheep and alpaca keep the grass down, while ducks provide eggs.

A member of Reform Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, Schwartz has opened his property to host Tu B’Shevat tree plantings and Sukkot gatherings, as well as other public events.

Besides working the land, Schwartz has spent more than 20 years working in the nonprofit world.

He founded California FarmLink in the late ’90s to help farmers get access to land and capital, leading the organization for 13 years.

Nowadays he is the executive director of the Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative, which he founded 10 years ago. The goal of the nonprofit, Schwartz says, is to “build local sustainable food systems” that benefit growers, consumers and the environment. The agency now works with more than 400 faith-based organizations and organic farms in the Greater Bay Area.

It holds conferences and workshops for clergy, lay leaders and community leaders on topics such as community-supported agriculture and food justice. Also, it started a program that offers cash incentives to low-income seniors to purchase produce at farmers markets, and it has awarded grants to congregations for innovative projects.

Schwartz places a high importance on providing food to those in need — whether they be small farmers looking for land or needy individuals in search of food.

Mindful of his father’s story, Schwartz has helped develop grant and loan programs for small-scale entrepreneurs, and served as a consultant to organizations that advance economic development, sustainable agriculture and land conservation.

Education is another priority. He served on the board of Sebastopol’s two-school Gravenstein Union School District, following a similar path as his mother, who was a schoolteacher who taught at a synagogue preschool.

Schwartz’s priorities include expanding mental health services for students and developing affordable housing for teachers and public safety professionals.

A Democrat who served as chief of staff for two Assembly members, Schwartz will be facing (as of now) three opponents in the June 7 primary: Damon Connolly, a Marin

County supervisor, Ida Times-Green, the Sausalito–Marin City School District board president, and Sara Aminzadeh, a member of the California Coastal Commission. The top two vote-ge ers will square off on Nov. 8 for the district seat held since 2012 by Levine, who is forgoing a run at a sixth and final two-year term so he can run for state insurance commissioner.

According to the Marin Independent Journal, Schwartz is the first non-Marinite to enter the race. And while District 12 includes

all of Marin County, nearly 45 percent of the district’s voters reside in southern Sonoma County, leading Schwartz to believe that “there’s definitely a pathway to victory.”

Still, he knows that fundraising will be key. “I have a real challenge to raise money to get my name out,” he says.

He adds that he’s “looking forward to knocking on doors” and reaching out, “in Spanish,” to the Latinx community.

“I know I can do a great job,” he says. “I want to serve and give back.” ■

Assembly candidate Steve Schwartz on his farm with a Jacob’s ram. (Photo/Liz Harris)

Culture

Artistic mother and daughter pass pandemic days creating mini-murals

ART | LEZAK SHALLAT | CORRESPONDENT

At the start of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, Amy and Brenda Kassiola were looking for activities to keep themselves occupied at home in San Francisco.

Amy, an artist and educator known to teen and adult students at JCCs and synagogues around the Bay Area, grabbed some markers and the biggest sheet of paper she had on hand and started to draw. Her daughter Brenda added color to the drawing.

“I remember thinking, this will keep us happy for a couple of weeks and then we’ll move on,” Amy, 74, told J. in an interview. Two years later, the mother-daughter team has completed more than 50 poster-size mini-murals — many highlighting Jewish themes — and shared them with friends as cards and digital images.

The activity has proved to be soothing and sustaining for both women, especially for Brenda, 40, who suffered a traumatic brain injury four years ago in a car accident. As a child, Brenda dabbled in art but wasn’t really drawn to it. But she has thrown herself into the “Lockdown Murals” project, as the series is called. “I like to follow artistic direction from my mom,” she said. “It’s a new kind of collaboration.”

A Brooklyn native with degrees in fine

arts, Amy came to San Francisco 25 years ago when her husband, John, took a position at San Francisco State University. She has worked for decades to promote Jewish culture and bring families together through art. She received a Jewish LearningWorks fellowship, and her multimedia works have been shown at the S.F. Jewish Community Library.

Each 24-by-30-inch piece begins with Amy sketching designs onto gridded paper. Brenda brings the checkerboard background to life with color. She prefers the Mr. Sketch Scented Markers, which are the “brightest

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In 1948, an Israeli army regiment forcibly displaced Arab residents of the village of Tantura following the formal conclusion of the war. In a new documentary, many of the former soldiers admit to participating in a massacre.

Passover plate; Jewish New Year cards; and symbols reflecting Jewish values of hope and gratitude.

One special creation paid tribute to Irene Resnikoff, a friend of Brenda’s and the recipient of the inaugural Diller Prize for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in 2021. It is characterized by traditional symbols including the “crown of a good name” (a Talmudic reference), a loving heart, the Star of David and the Torah.

and longest-lasting.” Each creation takes about a week to complete.

At first, they tried to work to New Age music, but it made them drowsy, Amy said. Once they switched to Motown, they hit their groove.

Collaborating on the murals is “calming and therapeutic, not just for Brenda, but for the two of us,” Amy explained. “It’s not rehab, per se, but a collaborative method that could be adapted within the disability community as art for recovery.”

While Amy’s artistic inspiration is often rooted in Jewish symbolism and tradition, her first mural design was not. “It was the most escapist design I could come up with: a tropical, floral dream of Hawaii,” she said.

But Jewish themes soon emerged: a

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While the works are not murals in the literal sense, the women refer to their work that way because their process replicates the way many murals are brought to life, using an underlying grid to transfer the design and apply color.

Friends who have received get-well cards, birthday greetings and a mazel tov poster have had them framed. One friend converted the artwork into a quilt.

Amy said that several friends have been nudging the duo to share their work with a larger audience. She’s thinking about creating an online gallery but hasn’t done so yet. “We’re not social media people,” she said.

But as the world reopens, Amy and Brenda are starting to consider other outlets and directions for their work.

“We’re not sure of what comes next or the way forward,” Amy added. “For now, we’ve enjoyed ourselves and touched others.” n

Rachel Brosnahan in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ (Photo/ Amazon Studios)

Brenda Kassiola (left) and her mother, Amy, and one of the Jewish-themed murals they have drawn together.

Tabletop role-playing game enters a lucid ‘sea of dreams’

GAMES | MAYA MIRSKY | J. STAFF

Imagine you are investigating a mystery, but rather than only looking for clues in the real world, you can also slip into a mystical world of shared dreams to pursue the answer. It’s a fantastical place of inspiration — oh, and you might have to battle a Jewish demon there, too.

Those are the things that can happen in a new tabletop role-playing game by East Bay native Raphael Falk, one he created while living in Korea. He made Lucid: Sea of Dreams partly as a way to keep in touch with his Jewish roots while so far from home, and this month he raised enough money via a Kickstarter campaign to officially launch it.

own creation and build a story together as they navigate a fictional world, in this case one that straddles dreams and reality and allows for a big dose of whimsy.

“You create a character, or use tools to generate a character, and then you perform the role of that character in a story that you create together with the other players,” he explained.

Dungeons & Dragons is the most famous game in the role-playing genre, and Lucid can actually be played in conjunction with that game (players can use the D&D system when their characters are awake and Lucid when they are asleep). Like D&D, Lucid has a rulebook and uses a 10-sided die to add an element of chance. Falk recommends that one to six people play together along with a facilitator, known as a game master. There is one premade adventure that players can follow as a way to get into the world, and Falk said he will be releasing more.

Falk’s creativity has flourished in the making of the Lucid world. He was inspired by certain demons and tales from Jewish folklore, like the shamir, a worm that could tunnel through stone and helped build the Temple in Jerusalem.

through Kickstarter will go to printing instruction booklets and paying the artist he commissioned to illustrate them.

He admitted that for newbies, role-playing games “can feel a bit like reading a car manual interspersed with poetry,” but he’s happy to be in touch via email for anyone

27th

who needs help. He stressed that, as a teacher, he wanted to make the game easy and enjoyable for those new to role-playing games. It’s all about feelings, and everyone has those.

“I tried to create a game that will allow people to talk about emotions, and think about emotions in a fun way,” he said. n

“I’ve been looking at Jewish folklore, drawing inspiration and doing some reinterpretation,” he said. “Thinking, with these elements, what can I do to make something that’s reflective of the folklore, something that draws its roots from my Jewish side but also is accessible to people from various backgrounds?”

Korea has been home to Falk, 29, for the past seven years. He has lived in the capital of Seoul and now is in the countryside teaching English in a rural school. He also studies Korean and Vietnamese on his own. For much of that time, he’s been the only Jewish person many Koreans have encountered.

“For a lot of the people I work with or meet here, I’m the first and probably last Jew they’ll ever meet,” he said.

In creating Lucid, he’s made a whimsical game that combines folklore, fantasy and mystery.

“The setting is that there’s the waking world where we live and breathe and work and do all those things,” he said. “And then when we sleep, our dreams go and live in the sea of dreams.”

A tabletop role-playing game like Falk’s allows players to inhabit characters of their

“I’m like, oh, that sounds really cool, a little worm that can bite through anything. But what if I made a big worm that bites through people’s dreams and releases all their ideas into the shared unconsciousness?” he said.

He also included Jewish spirits called shadim, here depicted as humanoid with crows’ feet, and demons called mazzikim, although in the dream world they are creatures that are attracted to emotions like bees are to flowers.

“Some of those emotions could seem positive but could still have an element that could be destructive,” he said. “So there’s a lot of emotional themes, psychological themes.”

Falk grew up in Oakland and Berkeley and attended Kehilla Community Synagogue. He started playing games when he was a child. This is the first role-playing game he’s designed under the alias Game Gardener (“I loved the idea of growing games like nurturing a garden”). He never expected to end up in Korea, and said it happened almost by chance when a friend asked if he wanted to join a program to teach English. Without much hesitation, Falk said yes.

“One thing led to another, and I’m here,” he said, though he’s moving back to the Bay Area in the spring to be closer to family.

While he is raising money for the game, Falk said Lucid is playable now at tinyurl. com/lucid-download. Any funds he raises

Raphael Falk created his role-playing game while living in Korea.

Lucid: Sea of Dreams was inspired by demons and tales from Jewish folklore. (Art/Doan Trang)

Filmmaker’s childhood bullying memory retold in documentary, gets Oscar nod

FILM | ANDREW ESENSTEN | J. STAFF

In the mid-1960s, Jay Rosenblatt and several of his fifth-grade classmates at Brooklyn’s P.S. 164 bullied a socially awkward peer named Dick. One day on the playground, they jumped and spat on him for talking in class and preventing an earlier dismissal, or so the rumor went. Their teacher later castigated the offending students, calling them “animals.”

Rosenblatt quickly forgot about the incident, grew up and moved to San Francisco to become a filmmaker. But an uncomfortable memory of that day resurfaced three decades later while he was working on a project about the travails of boyhood. After reconnecting with one of his classmates who remembered that day with Dick, Rosenblatt decided to track down others and make a documentary to try to understand what happened — and to process his own guilt.

That film, “When We Were Bullies,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year and was nominated earlier this month for an Oscar in the documentary short category. It can be seen beginning Feb. 25 as part of the Oscar-nominated short films programs at the Roxie in San Francisco and the Rafael in San Rafael.

“I felt very relieved,” Rosenblatt told J. about the moment he learned of the nomination, his first. “In some ways it felt like a culmination of a career of making shorts for the past 40 years.“ He described his campaign for the Oscars as “DIY,” that

is, sans a budget and based entirely on word of mouth.

“When We Were Bullies” qualified for the Academy Awards by winning the grand jury award in its category at the Florida Film Festival. It is the only nominated short that has not yet been picked up by a distributor. “I’m hoping it sells now so I can make back some of the money I put into it,” Rosenblatt said.

During his career, Rosenblatt has made more than 30 films, most of them short documentaries. (He also works as the program director for the Jewish Film Institute, which puts on the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.) “I would say a large percentage of my films are what I call collage essays,” he said. “I use a lot of archival footage and found footage.” Why shorts? “Since my films aren’t commissioned, I don’t have restrictions on length,” he explained. “They’re organic, and whatever they come out to be, that’s the length that they are.”

In “When We Were Bullies,” which is 36 minutes long,

Rosenblatt interviews his former classmates about their memories of Dick and the incident in question. Several express regret over how they behaved. “It was a different time, a different era,” one man says. “I’d apologize, and I have a lot more compassion for him.”

Rosenblatt also visits the school and meets with his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Blomberg, who was 92 at the time of filming and living in a senior residence in the Bronx. She provides some comic relief, telling Rosenblatt politely that she doesn’t think anyone will want to watch a film about bullying. “It could be possibly very tedious,” she says.

One of the more unique aspects of “When We Were Bullies” is its use of stop-motion animation, executed by Jeremy Rourke, in which Rosenblatt’s classmates are represented by cutouts from their fifth-grade class photo that move around the screen. Throughout the film, Dick’s name is bleeped and his photo is blurred. (Readers should watch the film to learn if Rosenblatt managed to get Dick to participate.)

“One of my goals was to make this very personal story as universal as possible,” Rosenblatt said.

The Oscars ceremony will be held March 27 in Los Angeles, and he said he plans to attend with his wife, Stephanie. n

S.F. jeweler takes healing path in return to family business

JEWELRY | LIZ HARRIS | CORRESPONDENT

Andrew Litwin grew up in an Orthodox home, and after decades of living a secular life, he revisited Judaism and dove into it. The 63-year-old San Rafael resident began studying virtually with a rabbi about 10 years ago and grew especially interested in Jewish teachings and the “infinite meanings” of Hebrew letters, he said.

He also began to rethink his professional life as a physician. “A multitude of things started to leave me thinking about life from a 10,000-foot view … about the nature of matter and energy and God and what religion teaches us,” he said.

As Litwin studied, he “started to draw out some of these concepts and play around with some of the Hebrew letters on the computer.” He focused on the first and last letters of the Torah, bet and lamed, which spell lev, or heart.

That led Litwin toward something else he’d grown up with but not pursued: making jewelry.

Litwin comes from a long line of jewelers, starting with his great-grandfather in the late-1800s. Akim Litwin made jewelry for the Russian czar and nobility, according to his great-grandson. After immigrating to America and settling in Cincinnati, the family established Litwin Jewelers in 1911. Boris Litwin Jewelers, a fourth-generation, family-owned store, still exists in Cincinnati.

Andrew Litwin retains “vivid memories” of watching jewelers work at their benches in the family shop. Though generally familiar with the business, Litwin had no hands-on experience with the craft.

But after his newfound attraction to Judaism and the lamed bet, he attended a jewelry-making class to learn the craft and honed his skills as a designer. He found a

manufacturer in the U.S. to make his prototypes and launched his business, A. Litwin, in 2019. “Then Covid hit,” Litwin said. “The pandemic has slowed things down.” Dayenu Judaica at the JCC of San Francisco took a few of his pieces to sell. But most jewelry shops were not expanding their inventory as the pandemic took hold. So Litwin turned to the internet.

At alitwin.com, his centerpiece collection of silver and gold pendants intertwine the bet and lamed in intricate patterns. Litwin provides a photo of each piece and detailed information about it on the website.

“Each of the enduring styles in my collection are paired with thought-provoking information about the Jewish teachings — in some cases thousands of years old — that inspire my work,” he writes.

Since his business venture is still young, Litwin has limited his collection to five sterling silver pendants and one in gold. He also designs custom wedding bands and hopes to expand his collection. “There are more designs now than could ever be produced,” he said.

Meanwhile, his dive into Judaism continues as he works with a study partner, concentrating on “the nature of prayers.”

Litwin attended Orthodox synagogue growing up in

Ohio — his mother had an Orthodox upbringing and “tried to keep a kosher household,” he said, while his father was “on the other side of the spectrum. But my mother was in charge of the household.”

Once Litwin left home, his Judaism basically fell by the wayside. He spent 10 years in Tulare County, near Sequoia National Park, working with the Indian Health Service. Living in the small town of Three Rivers, “there was very little interaction with any religious affiliation,” he said.

After that, Litwin moved to Columbia, South Carolina, to study preventive medicine at the University of South Carolina. It was only after someone approached him at the gym one day and asked “Are you Jewish?” that Litwin became reacquainted with his religion.

“That began my connection to the Jewish community,” he said.

He began to dip his toes into the local Jewish community and joined the Jewish Learning Network, a Chabad program.

Litwin relocated to the Bay Area, where his sister resides, about seven years ago.

He finds designing jewelry with Jewish meaning to be rewarding in several ways. “As you design, it is meditation. There’s a spiritual aspect to it.”

Hebrew letters “have thousands of years of history behind them,” he said. Sharing that history and wisdom through his jewelry “is an indirect kind of mitzvah. It’s another way of contributing to help people get in touch with their humanity and do good deeds.”

Designing “is fun,” he added. “Life is short. You have to be doing things that are fun.” n

‘Lamed Bet’ heart pendant

Jay Rosenblatt

Fifth-grade class photo used in “When We Were Bullies.”

Pandemic-driven poetry surge reaches for solace and understanding

OFF THE SHELF HOWARD FREEDMAN

It was reported on National Public Radio last year that the Covid19 pandemic had witnessed a dramatic increase in interest in poetry. It may be that troubled times impel us to make meaning of our situations, and we are drawn to the truths and questions we often find crystallized in poems. I know I’ve been turning to poetry more often, including two thematically unified collections that grapple with Jewish text and history.

title, taken from Isaiah 11:6 (“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb”), stand emblematically: The vision may be gorgeous, but it feels illusory against a frequently merciless reality.

Howard

Those who are familiar with the Jewish ritual calendar know that sections of the Book of Isaiah are read successively in the synagogue during the seven weeks following Tisha B’Av as a source of solace, beginning with the words “Comfort, oh comfort My people, Says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). In “How to Soothe,” Kushner wonders at the repeated words and what they communicate about the cyclical nature of suffering and healing:

Tell me, Isaiah, is your repetition confusion, Or just obsession with punishment?

Nachamu, nachamu, comfort oh comfort,

You try later, as if to say, comfort can come More than once too.

Aviya Kushner’s “Wolf Lamb Bomb” is a passionate, sustained conversation with the Book of Isaiah. In truth, the communication is unilateral, but the intimacy with which Kushner addresses the Biblical prophet makes it feel like a dialogue.

Much of the book feels like an effort to process trauma — tragedy that is both collective and personal. Kushner, who has lived both in Jerusalem and the United States, cycles between remembrances of suicide bombings in Israel, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and her family’s experience in the Holocaust, their reverberations always close to the surface.

Turning to Isaiah in this context feels particularly appropriate. The Book of Isaiah records invasion, defeat and exile, but it also promises restoration and healing. Kushner is not fishing for simple answers, but, rather, embraces the Biblical text as an invitation to struggle. Recording her spiritual ambivalence in the poem “Stupor,” she writes:

One day I will finally stop gardening, will tumble

Out of my stupor and say, I am angry, I am raving mad,

You have taken so much from me, and yet I know you last

As my song, my friend, the maker of the sea, creator of the sun,

The human, the hard wind and the garden and the land.

Some of the book’s pain emerges in that difficulty of finding equilibrium in a landscape marred not only by human violence, but by divine “promises unkept, promises shattered.” The very wolf and lamb of the

Kushner draws from a rich background in both literature and religion. An associate professor of writing at Columbia College in Chicago, she is the author of the book “The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible” and writes a regular column on language for the Forward. Her rootedness in the Hebrew Bible is palpable throughout.

Fortunately, the book’s endnotes direct the reader to the sections of Isaiah that inspired each of the poems, perhaps that we might better understand the poems, or perhaps that we might develop our own responses. I sometimes long to be this sort of active reader, one who talks back.

Rachel Kaufman’s deeply felt debut collection “Many to Remember” responds to a different set of texts and traumas. Kaufman is a doctoral student in history at UCLA, where her studies focus on the Crypto-Jews of Mexico and New Mexico. A significant number of Spanish Jews who had converted to Catholicism out of necessity prior to the expulsion edict of 1492 came to the New World with hopes that their clandestine adherence to Jewish practices would go unnoticed. But the Inquisition followed them to Mexico and Latin America, and some of them were discovered, put on trial and executed. Others endured, and, particularly in New Mexico, a delicate line of connection to their Jewish roots continues through the present day.

While responding in verse to her archival research on Crypto-Jews, Kaufman also introduces the experience of her own Ashkenazi forebears, and specifically her

grandfather’s experience of fleeing Germany in the 1930s. As she notes in the preface, “I am seeing two stories at once, overlaid, overlapping, distinct. Through each, the other — desert sun reflecting off scrolls. Empathy, rather than comparison.”

The ensuing poems are strong but challenging, as they rarely tell a story explicitly. Somewhat flummoxed by my difficulties drawing meaning from some of the imagery, I turned to the internet and found a thoughtful essay (tinyurl.com/jhi-kaufman)

Kaufman wrote last year: “Historical Traces in Archival Poetry.” In it, she noted that “historical poems sometimes represent an image of the past without fully entering it, perhaps purposefully acknowledging the gap — the archival silences, worm-eaten words — between present-day poet and the past which she recalls.”

And it began to make particular sense

that the act of memorializing a history that is recorded in fragments (and what can be more elusive than a group maintaining its identity in secrecy?) may be most appropriately done in fragments, echoing not only those “archival silences,” but perhaps the very sort of gestures, hints and symbols that helped the Crypto-Jews of the Southwest retain their connection to past generations. I came to enjoy the poems as impressions imbued with feeling, accepting my inability to grasp them fully. n

“Wolf Lamb Bomb” by Aviya Kushner (Orison Books, 68 pages)

“Many to Remember” by Rachel Kaufman (Dos Madres Press, 100 pages)

The Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2022 Jewish Community Federation Endowment Fund Lecture featuring Nicole Krauss

March 2nd at 5pm

Join us to hear from an award-winning author and a true “writer’s writer.” In conversation with the Taube Center’s writer-in-residence, Maya Arad, Krauss will discuss her book of short stories, To Be a Man, and her other important works. Free

Freedman is the director of the Jewish Community Library, a project of Jewish LearningWorks, in San Francisco. All books mentioned in this column may be borrowed from the library.

Photo by Goni Riskin

TALKS & WORKSHOPS

SUNDAY | February 20

“TENETS OF ORGANIC FARMING: IRRIGATION AND CROP MANAGEMENT”— Second in a two-part workshop on organic farming, fundamentals of garden planning, how to determine best irrigation systems and seasonal crop rotation. Masks required. In person at Urban Adamah, 1151 Sixth St., Berkeley. 1-4 p.m. $25$150, sliding scale. tinyurl.com/ crop-planning

“JEWISH VALUES IN ACTION FOR RELIGION-STATE SEPARATION”—

Paul Golin, executive director of Society for Humanistic Judaism, discusses the work of Jews for a Secular Democracy, an initiative concerned about the growing influence of religious fundamentalism on government policy-making. Part of Kol Hadash’s Bagel Brunch series. 11 a.m. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/ bagel-brunches

TUESDAY | February 22

“REIMAGINING DIVERSITY AND JEWISH BELONGING”— Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi of Reconstructionist Rabbinical College speaks about the lack of diversity in the dominant conception of American Jewish identity, and how that plays out in Genesis. Co-hosted by Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law & Israel Studies at UC Berkeley. 5:30-7 p.m. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/reimagining-diversity

“DYBBUKS, ROBOTS AND GOLEMS: EXPLORING JEWISH SCIENCE

FICTION AND FANTASY”— Valerie

Estelle Frankel discusses the roles that science fiction and fantasy have played for Jews in expressing the emotions and conflicts of different eras.

KIDS & FAMILY

Presented by Jewish Community Library. 7-8 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ frankel-talk

“ART AND ANTISEMITISM”— Lecture on how antisemitism has been fostered through art, with examples including an array of paintings, sculptures, reliefs, gargoyles, political cartoons and posters. Presented by Osher Marin JCC. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. $12.50-$15. tinyurl.com/art-antisemitism

WEDNESDAY | February 23

“HEALTHY AGING: EXPLORING ART”— Sigal Kletter, a docent with the Contemporary Jewish Museum for more than 10 years, discusses sculptures and installations that are displayed in different cities and the social issues they touch. Presented by Jewish Silicon Valley. 12:30-1:40 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/exploring-art

THURSDAY | February 24

“COOKING WITH DOREET JEHASSI”— Beth David Women and Jewish Silicon Valley present a class with the owner of food delivery service Ma’lawah Bar. Menu includes Yemenite-style matzah ball soup, lachuch bread and hilbeh sauce. 7:30-9 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/yemenite-cooking

“HOW TO RESPOND TO ANTISEMITIC RHETORIC IN SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL SITUATIONS”— Jonah Cohen, director for CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, discusses strategies for reacting effectively and tactfully to provocative statements. Presented by Congregation Beth Ami and Sonoma County Israel Committee.

10 a.m. Also 4 p.m. March 6. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/ how-to-respond

TUESDAY | March 1

“RELIGION AND GENDER IN THE MILITARY”— Elisheva Rosman-Stollman of Bar-Ilan U. in talks with Ronit Stahl of UC Berkeley about her work on religion, gender and the military in Israel. Part of Civil Society and Plurality in Israel series presented by Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at Berkeley Law. 12:40-2 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ civil-society-series

MONDAY | March 7

“NOT YOUR GRANDPARENTS’ JUDAISM”— Class led by Rabbi Lavey Derby on exploring personal Jewish spiritual growth in today’s world and examining how Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Rabbi Arthur Green and others have responded to the spiritual challenges of our age. Presented by New Lehrhaus. Also March 14, 21, 28, April 4. 4-5:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/personal-jewish-growth

TUESDAY | March 8

“MAKING SENSE OF LGBTQ+”— Sexuality education expert Elizabeth Schroeder provides insight and education on sexual orientation, gender identity, identifying words and how to be supportive. With opportunity to ask anonymous questions. Part of Daring Discussions series at Osher Marin JCC. 1-2:15 p.m. Early bird $12.50, regular $15. tinyurl.com/ daring-discussions

WEDNESDAY | March 9

“REFLECTION OF LANDSCAPE IN HEBREW POETRY WRITTEN BY WOMEN”— Educator Ilan Vitemberg explores the hidden meanings behind some of the most wellknown poems written by women in the Hebrew language, through both the original verses and musical adaptations. Presented by Jewish Community Library. 7-8 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/reflection-landscape

THURSDAY | March 10

“JEWS AND MUSIC: CANTORAL (RE)VOLUTIONS”— Cantor Roslyn Barak and countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen talk about synagogue repertoires, the evolution of the cantorial soloist, and changes in gender perception and roles in various singing styles. Presented by S.F.-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. Proof of vaccination, masks required. In person at JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. 8-9:30 p.m. $25. tinyurl.com/ pbo-cantoral

MONDAY | February 28

“MINI CHEFS COOKING CLUB”—Kosher cooking class with lessons on Jewish traditions through food. For kids ages 4-10. Mondays

through March 28. At Chabad of Oakland, 3014 Lakeshore Ave. 4:30-5:30 p.m. $15 single class, $70 all sessions. tinyurl.com/chabadmini-chefs

What’s for Shabbat dinner?

Spice up your next Friday night by making Moroccan white bean and tomato soup, fish tacos, za’atar vegetable kebabs or one of the many other scrumptious dishes from J. recipe columnist Faith Kramer’s new cookbook, “52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Kitchen.” This Under One Tent online event will include Kramer talking about her book’s seasonally organized recipes and the foodways and customs of the Jewish diaspora, plus a cooking demo. Online 7-8 p.m. Thursday, March 3. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/52-shabbats-demo

In-person events are subject to changes due to Covid.

SUNDAY | February 20

“A BINTEL BRIEF”—Listen to or participate in a dramatic reading and discussion of selected letters and responses from the 1971 book

“A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters

From the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward.” Volunteers needed for readings. Presented by KlezCalifornia, Yiddish Theatre Ensemble and Jewish Community Library. 1:30-3 p.m. Free, donations encouraged. tinyurl.com/bintel-brief2

TUESDAY | February 22

“INTELLIGENT LIFE BEYOND EARTH”— Avi Loeb, an Israeli American theoretical physicist and chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, discusses his 2021 book “Extraterrestrial,” his theory that our solar system was recently visited by advanced alien technology and the implication of that visit on science, religion, our species and Earth. Presented by Commonwealth Club. 5-6 p.m. $10, registration required; $20 includes book. tinyurl.com/ avi-loeb

SUNDAY | February 27

“AMERICAN SHTETL: THE MAKING OF KIRYAS JOEL”—Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers discuss their book on the origins of a Hasidic village in upstate New York, the community’s religious, social and economic norms, and the roots of Satmar Hasidism. Presented by Jewish Community Library. 2-3 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/american-shtetl

“HOW ARCHITECTURE TELLS”—Architect Robert Steinberg discusses his book, subtitled “9 Realities That Will Change the Way You See,” on how architecture shapes lives, helps communities and influences how we feel. In person at Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, S.F. 2 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/how-architecture-tells

THURSDAY | March 3

“GERMAN JEWS AND THE PERSISTENCE OF JEWISH IDENTITY IN CONVERSION”—Angela Kuttner

Botelho, an alum of GTU’s Center for Jewish Studies, discusses her new book with GTU CJS director Deena Aranoff. Through the story of one family, the book explores the German Jewish conversionary experience, its aftermath and

BENEFITS & SOCIAL EVENTS

MONDAY | February 21

“HAMANTASH BAKE”—Jewish

Women’s Circle presents online hamantaschen baking session. With optional ingredient kits available for pickup from Feb. 18 at Chabad of Oakland. 7:30 p.m. Free, or RSVP to reserve $10 kit. tinyurl. com/hamantash-bake

SUNDAY | February 27

“L’DOR V’DOR”—Hillel of Silicon Valley awards ceremony and fundraiser honors local community members for their dedication to the Jewish community and fighting antisemitism. With speakers KGO radio host John Rothmann and comedian Jeff Applebaum. 5:30-7 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ldor-vdor

retrieving one’s lost Jewish identity. Presented by Graduate Theological Union. 5 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ angela-botelho

“WHY DO JEWISH?”—Zack Bodner, president and CEO of the Palo Alto JCC, discusses his new book, subtitled “A Manifesto for 21st Century Jewish Peoplehood,” on making Jewish identity a meaningful and relevant part of everyday life. With wine and cheese reception. Proof of vaccination, masks required. At JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. 6-8 p.m. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/why-do-jewish3

WEDNESDAY | March 9

“PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS”—Dara Horn talks about her new book, which explores how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living and is subtitled “Reports from a Haunted Present,” in UC Santa Cruz Humanities Institute’s annual Noel Q. King lecture. Proof of vaccination or recent negative test required. Virtual, or in person at Merrill Cultural Center, 641 Merrill Road, Santa Cruz. 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/ king-annual-lecture

FILM & TV

SATURDAY | February 19

“NOT GOING QUIETLY”—Screening of 2021 documentary that follows Ady Barkan, a powerhouse activist with Lou Gehrig’s disease, on a national campaign for health care reform. Followed by discussion. Part of Congregation Beth Am Jewish film series. 3:30-6 p.m. Free, register in advance. tinyurl. com/not-going-quietly

‘Beauty and the Beast’

Join local photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter for gallery talk at the opening of their exhibit exploring the dangers our California wildflowers and natural habitats face from climate change. The conservation photographers said they took on this project because wildflowers can’t speak for themselves. The exhibit will be on display through April 30.

In person 5:30 p.m. Friday, March 4 at JCCSF Katz Snyder Gallery, 3200 California St., S.F. Free. tinyurl.com/beauty-beast-exhibit

IT IS

TIME TO START TRAVELING AGAIN

May 19-31

Munich • Leipzig • Nuremberg • Dresden • Berlin • Hamburg

Scholar: Fred Rosenbaum in partnership with New Lehrhaus

ARGENTINA & URUGUAY

August 30-September 15

Buenos Aires • Moisesville • Iguazu Falls • Montevideo • Colonia

Scholar: Roberto Graetz

MOROCCO

October 21-31

Casablanca • Marrakech • Fes • Rabat • Atlas Mountains • Sahara Desert

Scholar: Aziz Mikdar

Ariel Goldstein has over 20 years experience organizing and leading tours to more than 30 countries. www.tiyuljewishjourneys.com • 510.847.4519 ariel@ tiyuljewishjourneys.com

“If I do not buy for myself, who will buy for me?” — Rabbi Chaim

J.’s digitized archives are a priceless treasure

FRED ROSENBAUM | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Digitizing the entire 127-year run of J., a long-term project requiring skill and dedication, is paramount in preserving the history of our community. No other primary source captures the full range of the forces that have shaped Jewish identity here from the turn of the 19th century.

Fred Rosenbaum is the founding director of the former Lehrhaus Judaica and the author of “Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area” (University of California Press, 2009), among other books about local Jewish history.

The newspaper’s pages reflect the fierce debates that raged over religious observance and liturgy, the mass migration of East European Jews, the Jewish relationship to other minority groups such as the Chinese and Blacks and, above all, the local response to the Holocaust and the creation of Israel. Our triumphs are vividly described, such as boundless civic philanthropy, the outsize role in relief and reconstruction following the earthquake and fire of 1906, the vitality of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews from 1967 to the early 1990s, and the artistic and spiritual creativity that has characterized us to the present day. Our shortcomings can be found, too, with examples of bigotry, apathy and scandal.

The paper has not only reported the news, but has also carried thoughtful, indeed philosophical, opinion pieces from the leading lights of each era. Sweeping visions of Jewish life in the Golden State were put forth by two forceful and eloquent turn-of-the-century rabbis, Jacob Voorsanger of Emanu-El and Jacob Nieto of Sherith Israel. The hundreds of hard-hitting columns of Rabbi Saul White of Beth Sholom, throughout the entirety of World War II, pierced the armor of the assimilationist mentality that had held sway here and paved the way for a proud, vibrant Jewish community. Later, the voices of an increasingly diverse Northern California Jewry graced J. with impassioned pleas for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, racial justice and income equality, making tikkun olam a centerpiece of the Jewish experience.

But how to access this vast trove of over 6,500 issues? I may be the only person who has read all the back issues, dating from 1895, as I researched four books on local Jewish history. It was one of the most fruitful yet tedious tasks as a historian I’ve ever undertaken; priceless gems are surrounded by reams of bland and banal articles and announcements. One editor in the tumultuous 1940s bragged that before he went on summer vacation, he wrote three months of editorials in advance.

But a digitized J., accessible online, is much more than a great timesaver for the researcher. It facilitates verifying information and quotes at any stage before publication, and it ensures that all the paper’s relevant material on a person or a subject is presented. Perhaps most important, the process of searching the archive naturally leads to related topics of inquiry, which can then be easily pursued either there or through another online source.

The ethos of Bay Area Jewry is unique in the world. Digitizing the pages of this publication opens a window into how and why that is so. n

PICTURE THIS: That’s one big berry! Guinness World Records announced on Feb. 12 that the world’s heaviest strawberry has been grown by Israeli farmer Ariel Chahi, on his family farm in Kadima-Zoran. The supersize Illan variety strawberry weighed in at 10.19 oz. (Photo/Guinness World Records)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Kudos for digital archives

I’d like to thank you so very much for your time and efforts to put 127 years of J. The Jewish News of Northern California online (“Digitizing J.’s archives was a mission to save Jewish history,” online, Feb. 14). Thanks, also, to the wonderful donors who helped make this gargantuan effort possible. It’s absolutely astounding — and I’ve only just delved into a couple of articles from a March 1910 issue!

Again, thank you!

MARY SPALDING | YOUNTVILLE

Going into the ‘Maus’ hole

The reason for the banning of the graphic novel “Maus” (“The great ‘Maus’ giveaway is on as comic shops, professors and churches counter Tennessee school board’s ban,” online Feb. 2) is more than parents trying to protect their children from murder and nudity. It is about Holocaust denial.

There are many right-wing groups who

dominate school boards. Their agenda of Holocaust denial is one that has spread throughout the country and the world.

The connection of Holocaust denial and the ban of “Maus” was not made on Nina Kim’s portion of a recent “Forum” on KQED-FM, which covered book bans in general and the “Maus” ban in particular. Here, most synagogues teach the Holocaust to sixth-graders, and in Israel they teach it earlier than that. With children exposed to all kinds of hate, violence and pornography online, the idea that parents want to protect their children as the reason for banning the book is laughable.

DOROTHEA DORENZ | BERKELEY

Camp Arazim time for healing

Finally, finally — and far later than it should have happened — United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) and United Synagogue Youth (USY) are responding in a meaningful way to the sexual abuse that took place at Camp Arazim,

A synagogue choir is not to be applauded … or is it? A look back in honor of Beth Sholom at 100

STEPHEN SAXON | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

I sang bass in Congregation Beth Sholom’s professional eight-voice High Holidays choir in the 1980s, sometime after Cantor Israel Reich retired. Rabbi Alexander Graubart was leading services at the San Francisco synagogue, Kenneth Koransky was the cantor and Scott Singer was leading the choir.

Cantor Koranksy was a wonderful tenor with a career behind him that included grand opera on the European performance circuit. When he wanted to, he could really bring the house down!

During the Musaf service of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we sang Samuel Naumbourg’s setting of S’u She’arim, Psalm 24: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates that the Sovereign of glory may enter!” Ken brought a power to that piece that I had never heard before, and have never heard since. It was a truly amazing rendition. Then, when it was done, something happened that I’d never experienced before.

The congregation actually broke out into applause. We all stood there on the bimah looking at each other in surprise. We were all experienced performers, but receiving an ovation like that in the middle of such a service was new to us all.

After the service, Rabbi Graubart and Cantor Koransky had a somewhat long and intense meeting. I don’t think I’m sharing too much by mentioning that voices were raised. We in the choir had no idea what was going on, or what the

USY and synagogue youth activities (“Former Bay Area Jewish leader accused of molesting boys in ’60s and ’70s,” Oct. 25, 2013). These acts have traumatized many — particularly those who suffered abuse. The need for justice, meaningful policy and lifting up this issue is paramount.

(Editor’s note: Camp Arazim was an overnight summer camp affiliated with the Conservative movement that closed down in 2000.) It is with awareness and sensitivity to the fact that every mention of these heinous past acts causes pain that we ask for your help moving forward.

As USCJ/USY work to respond to past acts of abuse, they have hired an independent investigator, Sarah Worley of Sarah E. Worley Conflict Resolution. She and her Boston-based firm are determined to follow up with anyone who reports past abuse. She is committed to confidentiality and needs to hear experiences of those who were abused or knew of abuse as a means of addressing the past and making

fallout might be. We had simply done all that we were capable of doing to bring life and beauty to the music and the moment. It was out of our hands how it would be received.

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Graubart dispensed with his normal commentary for Musaf. Instead, he spoke eloquently about what had happened the day before. He explained that the art of the cantorate, and the delicate balancing act of every cantor, is to bring all of his or her skill to bear while leading the congregation in prayer. It is not a performance, he explained; it is leadership.

Similarly, it is the responsibility of the congregation to receive the work of any cantor or synagogue choir in the way it is offered.

In those times when the cantor and the choir are presenting portions of the liturgy outside of a sing-along context, it is not something to be applauded. It is something with which the congregation should endeavor to join and to experience as if they were singing it themselves, even if they aren’t. That is the liturgical purpose of an “amen” at the end of a prayer or blessing. It essentially means “I agree.”

By applauding, he explained, the congregation is separating itself from the prayer. It is the applause that makes it a performance, not the singing. Just as members of the choir would not applaud their own singing, the congregation should not feel the need to applaud the choir’s singing, or that of the cantor, because we are all there worshipping as one.

Rabbi Graubart offered that commentary right before we were to sing the very same setting of S’u She’arim. Instead of applauding, he suggested, let’s all try to sit with it and let it settle in. Let it be all of our experience. Let it not be an offering from the cantor and choir for the congregation’s enjoyment, but an offering from the whole congregation together for the greater glorification of God.

lasting changes for the future. We strongly encourage all who have information or experiences to share to please contact Ms. Worley at (617) 419-1900 or sarah@worleyconflictresolution.com.

We are relieved to see USCJ/USY take this issue so seriously. They have instituted ongoing training, safety protocols and additional background checks, and continue to review policies to ensure they are engaging in best practices, including further recommendations Ms. Worley will make.

Please share this note with anyone you feel can provide information. We know that reliving trauma is painful — we hope that sharing your story will also bring bits of healing. We share this letter with sadness for past events as well as a commitment to work towards healing from past trauma and safety for our children for generations to come.

With prayers for healing, TOM MITCHELL, RABBI MARV GOODMAN AND RABBI NAT EZRAY

Soon after that High Holiday season, I became a cantor myself. I have led High Holiday services nearly every year since then. I have often reflected on the difference between performance and leading services. And I have always tried to balance the two.

A rabbi once pointed out that the most holy part of the shofar blast is not the blast itself. It is the silence that comes in the moment after the final tekiah. In that moment exists infinite possibilities for awakening, enlightenment and inspiration.

Through many years of performing, I have learned that a similar moment exists at the end of every musical performance. When we listen closely and delay our applause just a little to allow for that silence to be fully experienced, it can be a remarkable moment. Prolonging the silence only intensifies its depth.

I have come to believe that by avoiding applause altogether, as we do in services, we can take the holiness of that moment and infuse the moments that follow with the same depth and magnitude. It takes some discipline, and it requires a conscious decision and agreement, but one can learn to hold that energy for quite a while. That is what I keep in my mind when I finish something beautiful in a service.

After the rabbi’s heartfelt commentary, Cantor Koransky and the choir once again launched into the Naumbourg setting. It was, just like the day before, a truly glorious thing!

At the end of it, the congregants didn’t applaud. After a few moments of silence, they gave Cantor Koransky and the choir a thunderous standing ovation. n

Racism and the Holocaust

Regarding Whoopi’s comments that the Holocaust was not about racism: Perhaps her comments were taken out of context. Perhaps ABC and the public overreacted to a mistake or ignorance (“Are Jews white? Is Whoopi Goldberg Jewish? ‘The View’ Holocaust controversy, explained,” online Feb. 3). People seem to get upset over a politically incorrect word when they should focus on serious manifestations of fake reality or news.

As a prisoner in Auschwitz, my mother was in line for Dr. Mengele’s experiments. She was not taken because Mengele had selected others to prove and justify Nazi Aryan race theory. He “proved” that Jews were not Aryans based on skull measurements of the living and dead. Hitler taught his followers that the blonde, blue-eyed Germans and Scandinavians were “Ubermenschen.” German scientists, intellectuals and institutions of higher learning soon “found proof” that the German superiority was because they were of the Aryan race, entitled

to rule the rest of the world.

To suggest, as Whoopi did, that the Holocaust had nothing to do with racism is plain ignorance. We should excoriate those who show hate and bigotry rather than Whoopi.

NORMAN WEISS | ORINDA

Not about our color

In her Feb. 4 letter to the editor (“Whoopi is not wrong’”), the writer says she is a white, American Jewish person. That is lovely, but totally irrelevant to Nazi ideology. Her counterparts living in Germany or Poland in the early 1940s could have stated their nationality, religion and color till they were blue in the face while the Nazis dragged them off to the camps or shot them in pits. The Nuremberg Laws included the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which asserted that Aryans — meaning Germans and some others — were

continued on page 26

Stephen Saxon is a professional singer, brass player, composer, cantor, author and cybersecurity engineer. He lives in the Fairview area of Alameda County.

By applauding, the rabbi said, the congregation is separating itself from the prayer, making it a performance.

In Poland I found a relative I never knew existed

GERI SPIELER | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

After Grandma Regina died, I stood over her grave in Los Angeles, my belly swollen with my son Joshua. Twenty-one years later, in 1992, Joshua and I visited Warsaw, Regina’s birthplace. What a gift, us wandering around the city together, seeing the Museum of Warsaw and the Jewish Historical Institute.

Walking next to Josh, a 6-foot college boy, made me feel as short as Grandma had been. Grandma Regina Anuszewicz Bloom, 5-foot-1, had come to the United States in 1910, then lost all her relatives remaining in Poland to the Holocaust. Though I was able to visit her grave, visiting her lost relatives was stolen from her.

We sauntered down another street. Josh stopped and dug into his backpack.

“Hey,” he said, “I have this note from your mom. It has the names and addresses of some relatives she thinks live in Warsaw. She said she found it in her mother’s stuff after she died.”

Josh added he’d put it in his address book and really hadn’t thought much about it.

I laughed. “Josh, no one is left of her family. She always said the Nazis killed everyone.”

The next morning, we asked the hotel concierge if she could find a phone number for one of the addresses; she called once, but there was no answer. On her second try, someone answered and identified himself as Joseph Anuszewicz. Even though I was skeptical, my heartbeat quickened. I didn’t want to

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

a superior race. Yes, race. Jews were an inferior race — a subhuman race — and thus should be exterminated.

Whoopi should not be suspended, but she was surely wrong. This is an opportunity to teach people, including some Jews, the racist underpinning of Nazi ideology.

LYNN C. KOSS | FAYETTEVILLE, NY

Converts were not safe

Anyone who thinks that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi monsters did not consider Jews a race need only be reminded that conversion to Christianity or Islam did not save any Jews. Case in point: Sister Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, born Jewish, converted to Catholicism, became a devout Catholic and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.

NATE SALANT | HOOVER, AL

get my hopes up, but I couldn’t help it.

Anxiously, I asked the concierge to ask Joseph if he was related to a woman by the name of Regina Anuszewicz Bloom. Did that name mean anything to him?

The concierge conversed with Joseph in Polish, and us in English, and back again. “He says yes,” the concierge replied.

“Does he speak Russian? My son speaks Russian.”

“Yes.”

“Could we go visit him?” I said.

“No. Stay here at the hotel. He will come to see you.”

Soon the concierge called our room. “The man is here. He says to have your son come down with you.”

I held my breath all the way down in the elevator. When the doors opened to the lobby, people were milling about. The crowd thinned, and my eyes fell on one person, an elderly man standing by a wall … someone I would have recognized anywhere. He had Grandma’s blue eyes, stocky frame and quizzical expression. It was clear he belonged in my family.

I smiled, and he just looked back at me. I approached him and said, “Are you Joseph?”

He didn’t answer. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small photograph. He pointed to the picture and then looked at me.

I pulled Josh close to translate.

The photo he held had been taken at my cousin’s wedding many years earlier when my grandma was still alive. Apparently, she, or someone, had mailed the photo to him. I pointed to each person in the picture.“That’s Regina, that’s my Aunt Jo, Aunt Rose, Uncle Louis and my mother, all Regina’s children. That’s me and my brother.” I continued to identify everyone in the family photograph.

continued from page 25

Whoopi’s premise

In my 98 years as a Jew, I’ve always been of the opinion that we Jews are white in some areas of the world and of color in others. However, to prove or disprove Whoopi’s premise re: the Holocaust — that it was “man’s inhumanity to man” — it may be possible to determine how many of those Jews in the various concentration camps were white or of another color.

Just my take.

MEL CORREN | STOCKTON

Where are the men?

I mostly enjoyed the article “These Bay Area women are building the kosher kitchens of their dreams” (online Feb. 8). My spouse (also a rabbi) and I have long wanted to redo our

Tears dripped down my face. Joseph’s eyes were wet, too.

Joseph had his arm around Josh and spoke to him in Russian. “What happened to Regina?” Joseph asked. “The letters stopped 20 years ago. We kept writing, but heard nothing back.”

I learned that Joseph and his younger brother, Januz, were my mother’s first cousins, the sons of one of Regina’s brothers and the only survivors of her entire family. Some siblings and relatives fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and died there and others died in the BergenBelsen concentration camp.

Joseph told us he had survived the war by joining the Polish army formed in the Soviet Union, which was armed by the Russians and fought alongside the Red Army. He was proud of his service, and even showed us his old uniform. Januz, at age 12, had gone high up into the Ural Mountains and worked in a mine.

Josh raised his eyebrows. A grin spread across his face. He was as amazed as I was about Joseph — our Polish relative and a Holocaust survivor. Josh’s connections to his Polish Jewish roots were now a concrete reality for him. It seemed normal to me to have a European grandmother to identify my lineage. But Joshua’s grandmother, my mother, was a modern woman with a career. My grandma Regina made matzah balls from scratch and her own horseradish. My mother bought Manischewitz matzah balls and horseradish from the store.

“It was amazing,” Josh said after we returned home. “At the moment I think it was a blur. But once it was clear what had happened, and how haphazard and unplanned and really unlikely it was, [that’s what] I think made it really incredible.”

While finding these relatives was a gift for me, the real gift came from Josh’s appreciation of his lineage and his sense of being proud of his heritage. n

kitchen and to specifically work with a kitchen designer familiar with kashrut. So I was disturbed by the article’s headline. Both of these women have male spouses. Do these men never use the kitchen? What was important to them? Were they even involved in the design at all? It’s hard to believe that long-married couples embarked on such a large project with input only from one voice in the couple. The article, unfortunately, perpetuates stereotypes that women are the ones who run the kitchen with little to no input from male life partners.

JENNIFER GORMAN | TORONTO

Call ‘Liberated’ what it is

I have a problem with the headlines of J. in print vs. online concerning the Castro Valley Unified School District contract with the Liberated

Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Coalition, aka “Liberated” (“Castro Valley school board approves contract with ‘liberated’ ethnic studies group,” Jan. 20).

The headline in the print edition was “Castro Valley OKs ethnic studies deal with anti-Zionist group,” while the headline at Jweekly.com says “Castro Valley school board approves contract with Liberated ethnic studies group.”

Why did the editors feel a need to reassure their print audience that Liberated is just an “anti-Zionist” group? Indeed, throughout the entire article the group is called, as it is, “antisemitic.” So why the headline? Perhaps “anti-Zionist” sounds more woke than “antisemitic.”

Liberated should feel the heat for promoting its decisively rejected curriculum. There is no need to camouflage its antisemitism by suggesting it is “just” anti-Zionism.

VLADIMIR KAPLAN | SAN MATEO

Geri Spieler is a Palo Altobased author, journalist and former research director for Gartner. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

Joseph Anuszewicz (second from left) receives the Cross of Valor for his service in World War II, August 1945.

Amnesty International’s ‘apartheid’ label for Israel is absurd and patently wrong — and I should know

MERVYN DANKER | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

The recent report from Amnesty International UK, replete with distortions of reality, contained no surprises. It follows in the wake of similar reports from Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, all aimed at delegitimizing Israel and casting the Jewish state in the worst possible light, including the calumny of labeling it an “apartheid” state.

The slander of Israel’s enemies knows no limits!

Amnesty’s report labeling Israel an “apartheid” state refers not only to recent years but dates back to the very founding of the state in 1948. From Year 1, Amnesty claims the Jewish state merits the title and as such should be removed from the family of nations.

And in Amnesty’s amen corner, there are echoes from the chorus of Israel haters, such as the horrendously named Jewish Voice for Peace, terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, and individuals from both the far left and the far right.

However, in addition to the most prominent U.S. Jewish groups and organizations that have punched back hard are

the voices and support of lawmakers in the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel and the United States.

As a South African who lived through the worst excesses of the apartheid state, and who also lived in Israel for periods of time and visited the country several times, I can attest that the connection is an absurd and spurious one.

For the first 40 years of my life I lived in South Africa, where every aspect of one’s life was regulated and determined by one’s racial group. Blacks, Coloreds or Mixed Race and Indian peoples were, by law, told where they could live, go to school, which university they could attend, where they could swim, which movie theater they could enter, where they could eat and where they could play. Only whites had the right to vote. “Whites Only” signs were ubiquitous. Institutionalized discrimination existed for decades, affected and afflicted the dispossessed, people of color, cruelly and viciously.

Needless to say, this bears absolutely no resemblance to a country where an Arab judge sentenced a former Jewish president to a prison term, where Arab doctors head the country’s

most prestigious hospitals, where Jewish scientists and Muslim scientists working side by side are at the forefront of breakthroughs in scientific innovations and discoveries.

One-fifth of Israel’s population is Arab. Muslims and Christians are entitled to whatever rights and privileges a democratic country can offer. Hardly sounds like “apartheid” as I remember it — and to label Israel as such is a disservice and insulting to the millions who suffered under the real apartheid.

American Jews need to make their voices of disgust and opposition to Amnesty’s report heard as loudly and forcefully as they can. The knives are out, the enemies are baying for the demise of Israel, and we should not be found wanting. n

Generational sacrifices have given me my Judaism

SAMANTHA SOLOMON | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

There is a popular joke among Jews, that any Jewish holiday can be summed up in three sentences: They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!

While I have always loved that we, as a people, are dedicated to food, the first sentence of this summary is eerily accurate. On Purim, we celebrate the great Queen Esther, who bravely protected her Jewish brethren from a massacre by an antisemitic adviser to the king of Persia. On Passover, we honor the courage of Moses, who led the Exodus of Jewish people out of Egypt, where they were enslaved. On Hanukkah, we remember the Maccabees, who fought the rule of an oppressive king and regained ownership of our vandalized but still holy temple.

On all of these holidays, we commemorate the valor of ancestors who stood up in the face of oppression, and we rejoice in our unexpected survival.

In “Republic,” Plato wrote “what is honored in a country is cultivated there.” Our religion teaches us to honor the resilience and bravery of those who fought for our people, cultivating these valuable lessons, which are now fundamental to our existence.

A brief glance through our more modern history reveals a relentless pattern of horrific antisemitism; through all of it, we have continued the trend of surviving against the odds.

From the Spanish Inquisition to the atrocities of the Holocaust, the Jewish people have suffered inumerable loss. And somehow we are still here. We make up less than 0.2 percent of the world’s population, yet we have survived millennia of hatred and unflagging xenophobia.

Every time the Jewish people have been forced to rebuild, they rose to the challenge. The destruction of the first Temple gave rise to the second. Like a phoenix born from ashes, the Jewish people have a tireless commitment to survival. The strength required to rebuild a nation after near annihilation

even once is cosmic, yet my ancestors have done it regularly.

Judaism teaches us to pass on our values l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. Among the many gifts I have received through this lineage, a passionate survival instinct frequently feels most important. The grit and resilience of my ancestors is hardwired into my DNA.

Generation upon generation of Jews have faced antisemitism, yet somehow, against all odds, I am still here. Despite every attempt to eradicate our otherness, we remain. From the stories of our holidays to the history learned in Sunday school, the spirit of resilience is instilled deep within us at a young age. It is a necessary resilience that is tested at every turn.

When I was 10, there was a bomb threat at the local Jewish day school. When I was 13, a week after I became a bat mitzvah, a man shot and killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue not so different from my own. I’ve seen vandalism and verbal assault in my newsfeed; I’ve heard dangerous tropes and pure vitriol from all walks of life, from acquaintances to elected leaders.

As I watch the growing antisemitism in the United States and worldwide, I cannot turn away and pretend I’m not involved. I am duty-bound to pay attention and engineered to respond.

I’ve heard countless times that religion is a choice, and if people are being unkind, then I can simply choose to not be Jewish. This thinking is flawed.

Judaism is a fundamental part of my identity. It is in the foods that I eat, the holidays I celebrate, the values I hold, and the ancestors I honor. It colors the way I view the world and the ways I hope to change it. From my earliest memories of lighting the Shabbat candles at my surrogate grandmother’s house to the endless hours I spent running around the gaga pit at Sunday school. From my daily mitzvahs to my commitment to tikkun olam, repairing the world.

I love that bagels with lox are my cultural food, and that my family shows affection with passionate arguments and incessant interruptions. I love that my grandfather has taught me all the Yiddish swear words he knows so that I can talk smack while we play chess. I love that my goal in life is to be a mensch, a good person.

Recently, there was another attack on a synagogue, this one in Colleyville, Texas, the latest in a series of violent attacks in our community centers. Maybe it’s sensible to consider avoiding these places all together, for our own safety.

But I cannot forget my ancestors who fought for my right to be Jewish.

Although I am terrified, and rightfully so, I will go to temple proudly. I will join a Jewish community in college. I will have a Jewish wedding when I get married. My kids will complain when I force them to get up early for Sunday school. I will remember the words of my ancestors and eat bagels with lox. I will bring matzah ball soup to people who are sick.

Above all, I will always try to be a mensch.

There’s an old Yiddish proverb: Hope for miracles, but don’t rely on them. I hope that one day we won’t have to consider being ourselves as an act of resistance. I hope that one day walking into a synagogue will be as easy as coming home and not as terrifying as entering a war zone.

However, I will not rely on miracles. n

Mervyn Danker is the past regional director of AJC and has served as head of school for Jewish institutions in South Africa, Australia and the U.S., including at Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City. He lives in San Mateo.

Samantha Solomon is a 16-year-old high school sophomore from Menlo Park. She is a member of the Jewish Students Association at Castilleja School and Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.

HOME & GARDEN

How these Bay Area women built their dream kosher kitchens

EMMA GOSS | J. STAFF

Thanks to modern technology, you can buy a luxury refrigerator that has a built-in function for “Sabbath mode.” In fact, there’s a whole range of kosher-certified appliances that Bubbe and Zayde could have never imagined. These days, every choice you make — from the materials for your kitchen counter to the storage options for multiple sets of dishes — can elevate a kosher kitchen.

And Jews in the Bay Area are taking advantage of the opportunity to build their dream kosher kitchens amid the pandemic-induced home renovation craze.

Over the past two years, the kitchen has been transformed into a space serving functions well beyond just meals. For

in 2019 to $40,000 in 2020, the survey found. And the amount spent on major and even minor kitchen remodels continued to climb through 2021, Houzz reported.

In the Barron Park neighborhood of Palo Alto, Lorri Lewis is in the middle of her dream kitchen renovation. Lorri, 73, and her husband, Rabbi Sheldon Lewis, who served Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto for 33 years before retiring in 2007, live in the same house where they raised their children. They moved in when it was brand new, in 1976.

The family has always kept a strictly kosher home, performing the ritual hand-washing (netilat yadayim) before meals, disconnecting from all technology

She’d been mulling the idea of renovating her home for years, but in the spring of 2021, her outdated kitchen and its low-functioning appliances convinced her the time was now.

“We had to do it because things were just falling apart,” Lewis said.

A friend connected her with Debra Winston, a Jewish interior designer who coincidentally had once been invited to the Lewis home for Shabbat dinner decades earlier but wasn’t able to make it. When the two women convened to discuss the kitchen remodel, Lewis said she felt a kindred spirit with Winston, who had been brought up in a kosher home and kept one throughout her life.

kitchen is storage, because you have to have dairy and meat of everything — plus Passover,” Winston said.

To satisfy Lewis’ bread-baking needs — she says she hasn’t bought a loaf of bread in more than 10 years — Winston added a baking center next to the wall oven, and a tall, pull-out pantry for flour, canned items and dry goods. There is additional storage in the built-in buffet in the dining area for Passover dishes, many of which belonged to Lewis’ mother. Prior to the renovation, these dishes were tucked away in a laundry room cabinet.

Star-K, one of the largest kosher food certification agencies in North America, also has a web page that’s something of a catalog for kosher appliances. Lewis perused it and decided on a Wolf wall oven

example, the table where you eat your dinner can change into a work desk where you boot up your laptop the next morning.

So it’s of little surprise that the kitchen was the most popular target of Americans’ remodeling dollars in 2020, according to a survey of some 75,000 people by the home renovation site Houzz. Moreover, the average amount Americans spend on major kitchen remodels is going up, from $35,000

on Shabbat, and separating meat and dairy. Lewis, an avid bread baker, especially sourdough, keeps six sets of dishes, though in her small kitchen there wasn’t enough room to store them together. Last year, one of the burners on her 45-year-old stove stopped working and the oven no longer self-cleaned.

“Things were just rusting out and looking ghastly,” Lewis said.

“She had the insights into the project that I needed without having to explain every last detail,” Lewis said.

Winston designed a new footprint that turned the kitchen and dining room into one open room, and added an island that stores dairy kitchenware on one side and meat kitchenware on the other. It has a second prep sink for hand-washing, food preparation and cleanup. And she added a second dishwasher, so Lewis no longer has to use a portable one to clean her meat dishes and utensils.

“The most important thing in a kosher

with “Sabbath mode” that allows her to program the oven to run at a prescribed temperature at a set time during Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

“I checked everything through Star-K,” Lewis said. She chose quartz countertops and a stainless-steel main sink with an extra-large basin for her baking sheets. Both materials are easy to clean and nonporous, able to withstand the boiling water that is used for kashering. That kind of durability was not a feature of older kitchen materials.

“In the past, they would have to put aluminum foil over the Formica because it couldn’t be kashered,” Winston said, recalling her grandmother’s kitchen in Kansas City, Missouri.

“I always think back to my grandmother’s kitchen, which was a tiny, little

continued on page 30

Double-decker drawers allow utensils to be kept separately from soup ladles; design by Harrell Remodeling. (Photo/Emma Goss)

Bonnie Slavitt loves her new kitchen’s innovative storage features. (Photo/Emma Goss)

Lorri Lewis chose quartz countertops and a stainlesssteel main sink. Both materials are easy to clean and nonporous, able to withstand the boiling water that is used for kashering.

Coming soon in J.

Remodeled kosher kitchens expand space and storage

continued from page 28

galley kitchen, and she would have 20-some people over for the holidays. And she managed,” Winston said. “It’s truly a luxury to be able to have all these wonderful storage opportunities, great appliances and materials that are good.”

Also in Silicon Valley, Winston got Bonnie Slavitt of Los Gatos started on a full home remodel, which was designed and completed nine months ago by Gloria Carlson, a Jewish senior designer at Harrell

said.

Unlike Lewis, Slavitt did not grow up keeping kosher. But she gave up her fondness for eating shrimp, lobster and clams when she was living in Phoenix in the late ’70s and participating in the Jewish Federation’s young leadership program. She was on a retreat, engaged in conversation with a Reform rabbi from Hebrew Union College, who admitted to the group that, unlike all of them, he kept kosher.

“Everybody was very surprised,” Slavitt said. His reasoning, she recalled, was this: “It’s not as if God’s going to zap me if I eat the wrong thing. It’s that every time I stop and eat, I have to stop and think about what I’m eating, and thank God for the food.” For Slavitt, “that made the most amount of sense. So I turned to my husband, and I said, that’s why I want to keep kosher,” Slavitt said.

They started small, with just one set of dishes and cookware, buying only kosher meats and food products. When the marriage ended, Slavitt ramped up her commitment, amassing kitchenware and tools for dairy and others for meat. It wasn’t until the second night of Rosh Hashanah in 2021 that she was able to show off her newly remodeled kosher kitchen. She prepared a feast of chicken soup with matzah balls, brisket and “the works,” as Slavitt put it, for 10 dinner

Remodeling (Slavitt’s kitchen appears on the company home page).

Slavitt, 75, led J. on a tour of her “dream” kosher kitchen. Its best features, she said, are the innovative storage solutions. Double-decker drawers separate utensils from soup ladles — she has a drawer for meat, and one for dairy. In the corners of her kitchen, drawers of Tupperware spin outward for easy access. The kitchen island is Slavitt’s favorite, due to its popping blue paint. It’s similar to Lewis’ in function, separating meat and dairy kitchenware seamlessly. Two pull-out cabinets with three levels neatly store her spices and oils. Gone are the days of schlepping her Passover dishes from their colorcoded bins in her garage to the kitchen cabinets.

Back then, “It took me two to three days, cleaning out the kitchen, bringing it in, emptying it,” and doing the same in reverse order for her non-Passover dishes, Slavitt

guests. The meal preparation was easier than ever, with everything in its place, and a place for everything.

Slavitt credited her impulse to purge items from her old kitchen for inspiring how her new kitchen would be laid out.

“I would look at the kitchen and things and say, Am I going to use this? And if I’m not going to use it, get rid of it. Donate it, just get it out,” Slavitt said, sharing her tip for any prospective kitchen renovator.

Winston said a dream kosher kitchen doesn’t have to cost a fortune. “People always find a way to make it work,” she said, noting that refrigerators cost from $800 to $10,000, depending on preference.

“The sky is truly the limit,” Winston said, “and in Silicon Valley, people go up there.” n

Before and after: Lorri Lewis’ old kitchen, above, and a rendering by Debra Winston Design of how it will look when complete.

J. Life

From weakness to strength, we are the stiff-necked people

TORAH RABBI DOV GREENBERG

Ki Tisa

Exodus 30:11–34:35

Everyone has a story that defines who they are.

The question is: Is your story empowering you to maximize what God has given you? Or is your story causing you to fall short?

Steve Jobs was born out of wedlock and adopted as a baby. His peaceful early years were shattered one day when a neighborhood kid asked why his birth parents had gotten rid of him.

Steve sat down on the grass, crying his eyes out at the thought he had been discarded. The truth hit him like a load of bricks.

His adoptive parents — sensitive, kind people who loved him — saw he was crying, saw his distress and told him the story was emphatically not true. He wasn’t thrown away, they told him. Rather, they chose him.

That changed his life.

His story became, I’m chosen. I was the only one they picked. That is a much better story.

Which story was in fact true?

Whichever one you choose. Whichever one you decide is true is the one you will live. Our narrative will dictate where we go and how we get there.

In one sense, nothing changed when Steve’s parents told him their story of his adoption — the facts of his origins were no different. His birth mother had still decided to give him up for adoption, and his biological father maybe had never known he existed. Yet the story his adoptive parents gave him changed everything. It allowed him to reframe where he came from and fuel where he was going.

It totally transformed the way he understood himself. Instead of an unwanted outcast, he now was able to see he

was special by virtue of his parents’ choice.

What was Moses’ story?

His “biography” reports that he was adopted as a baby by Pharaoh’s daughter. He grew up in the royal palace, dressed like an Egyptian, walked like an Egyptian and spoke like an Egyptian. His very name, “Moses,” was given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter. By upbringing, he was an Egyptian. But by birth he was a Jew.

So is Moses the Egyptian or is Moses the Jew?

It was his choice, and his story became, “I am a Jew, and I will rescue my people who are suffering.” That way of understanding his story changed Moses’ life. And it changed ours, too.

As it is with an individual, so it is with a nation. Every people has its story. What is the Jewish story?

Some 3,300 years ago on a hot day in the Sinai Desert, our ancestors built the Golden Calf. In response, God said to them, “After all I’ve done for you, you do this? You are a stiff-necked people. I will abandon you.”

But Moses intervened, as this week’s Torah section reports, and said, “Forgive us, because we are a stiff-necked people, and God forgave the people.”

The difficulty in Moses’ argument is self-evident: The very trait that Moses cites as a reason for God to forgive the Jewish people was the one driving God away from them in the first place! That doesn’t even begin to sound logical or sensible. If anything, you’d think he’d want to downplay this negative quality.

How are we to understand this?

Moses was asking for God to look upon the Jewish people with favor because what was then our greatest vice would one day become our most heroic virtue. He was asking God to forgive us, because we will change our story: In the chapters to come, that stubbornness will be not a tragic failing but a noble and defiant loyalty.

Moses was right.

We are a stiff-necked people, and it is because of that stubbornness that, despite all the odds, we have managed to survive. For 3,000 years, other nations have continually called upon us to disaffiliate from Judaism, but we have always refused. We have resisted their pressure and persecution.

We are a people awesome in our obstinacy. And that was the essence of Moses’ argument. It was a bet on us that has paid off.

That’s the story of the Jewish people: a transformation of a flaw into a strength. Redeployment as repentance and redemption.

Each of us confronts a similar choice about what story we will tell ourselves. We all can change our stories at any time. We can all, in that way, transform our weaknesses into our greatest strengths.

May we write beautiful stories. n

CELEBRITY JEWS

The Oscars are coming

Tracee Ellis Ross officially announced the Academy award nominations in a live broadcast last week. There were a few Jew-helmed projects on the list — notably, Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” which drew seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director. That makes Spielberg one of four people to have been nominated eight times for best director.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is up for best adapted screenplay for her take on “The Lost Daughter,” based on the Elena Ferrante novel, which she also directed. And Andrew Garfield was nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Jewish playwright Jonathan Larson in the musical “Tick, Tick… BOOM!” “It’s very surreal,” Garfield, 38, told Variety. “I keep thinking about myself as a 16-year-old acting student, just wondering if I had what it took.” The Oscars will be held March 27, and one of the three hosts is Amy Schumer.

Game? What game?

Some people watch the Super Bowl for the actual football game. But others watch it for the celebs and the commercials — and some for the Jewish celebs who star in the commercials. Jamie-Lynn Sigler rebooted her “Sopranos” character as Tony’s daughter for a Chevy ad. In a spot for Lay’s potato chips, Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd chatted in formalwear, and then Rogen seemed to get Jewish-married to a corpse bride. Eugene Levy appeared in a Nissan ad, while Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, William Shatner and Doja Cat also starred (separately).

Continuing to honor the survivors

In other Spielberg news, the Shoah Foundation, which he set up in 1994 to document Holocaust history, is branching out with a series in which the children and grandchildren of survivors share their stories. The first interviewee was actor Yuval David (“Madam Secretary”), who recounted the wartime experiences of his Polish grandparents.

Kravitz family keeps going

In an interview with Elle, Zoë Kravitz opened up about her famous parents, actor Lisa Bonet and musician Lenny Kravitz, who was named after his Jewish uncle. “There was a little bit of embarrassment around what came with my last name,” Zoë said about starting her acting career. She acknowledged her head start but needed “to prove not only to the world, but to myself, that I deserve to take up space in the industry.”

‘Ghostbusters’ director dies

Hollywood macher Ivan Reitman has died at 75. He was behind some of the most beloved comedies of the late 20th century, including “Animal House,” which he co-produced, and “Ghostbusters,” which he directed and produced. Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia, but his family fled the Nazis when he was a small child, eventually settling in Canada. “Animal House” (1978) established him as a trailblazer of a new breed of irreverent comedy. n This

Rabbi Dov Greenberg leads Stanford Chabad.

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon

week’s column is by J. staff writer Maya Mirsky.

Maggie Gyllenhaal Zoë Kravitz

Paul Rudd (l) & Seth Rogen

Tracee Ellis Ross

“The Golden Calf,” from the Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible Illustrations.

Yiddish wine it’s not, but Machaia is still a joy

friends in New Jersey. Wedgewood’s signature 2007 Symphony — a Bordeaux blend — won in a blind tasting when their daughter Laura worked in the tasting room at Rock Wall Wine Co. in Alameda, and several of her co-workers chose it as their favorite.

could make his wine there, they said yes.

Yiddish was spoken in Howard Paul ’s home until he was 5. That’s when “my father was explaining to a friend some stupid thing I did, and I turned and said to him, I understand what you’re saying. And that ended Yiddish as his code language.”

Fitting then, that the East Bay winemaker has a red-blend wine named Machaia from Wedgewood Vintners, a boutique winery in Vallejo. The Yiddish word, usually spelled mechaya, “means a gift, a wonderful thing, lovely, delightful or pleasant,” Paul said. “All of those things describe the wine.”

“The absolute best Super Tuscans come from the Bolgheri region of Italy,” Paul elaborated about the 2019 vintage. “Mine is similar to these extraordinarily expensive wines, so what came to mind was Machaia, spelled the Italian way.”

(It is not the only locally produced wine with a Yiddish name; there is also Mensch, from Berkeley’s Covenant Wines.)

Before he became a winemaker, Paul was a psychologist with a private practice in New Jersey and taught at Rutgers Medical School. He also was the book review editor of the professional journal Child & Family Behavior Therapy, and he continues his work there as its editor-in-chief.

His wife, Evelyn, known as Skippy, got the wine bug during a trip to Europe, and Paul became equally enamored. She worked as a nurse and they raised a family, but wine was always a shared passion, going way back.

In 1971, the couple became friendly with the owner of a local wine shop in Highland Park, New Jersey, and soon started hosting wine tastings there. They also wrote and published the Central Jersey Wine Gazette.

Fast-forward to 2003, when they saw an ad offering the opportunity for anyone who wanted to make their own wine. That’s when they started making wine in New Jersey, with grapes they imported from California.

“We just thought it might be fun, and it was,” Paul said. “People began to like the wines I was making and a small cult formed around them.”

Their wine didn’t only pass muster with

Several of Paul’s vintages have won awards. Most recently Machaia took a silver medal in its category of the San Francisco Chronicle’s wine competition, and Symphony took a gold medal in the same contest.

“I make wine that I like,” Paul explained, and he prefers blends over those made from one varietal. Symphony is his French blend, similar to a Bordeaux. His zinfandel blend is called Zinfull. And since there is a style referred to as Super Tuscan, he felt there should be a Super American, and that’s his cabernet blend, which he calls “easy to drink.”

Paul says he is able to offer such good wine at fair prices (between $40 and $45)

Because the Pauls moved to the Bay Area right before the pandemic, socializing and making new connections hasn’t happened so much. They’ve been set up to sell since January, and Paul is looking forward to introducing his wines to the public. He’ll even deliver to some local addresses. He’s permitted to ship to 13 states, and has a wine club.

With the tagline “wines that make your mouth happy,” Wedgewood Vintners wines are available on the website, wedgewoodvintners.com.

When we tried Machaia it was, as expected, a mechaya. More than aptly named, it made our mouths happy, indeed.

SMALL BITES

After 10 years, Monica and Aaron Rocchino have sold the Local Butcher Shop to their employees, making it a worker-owned co-op. We first wrote about the shop in 2014 when we heard that many Tawonga campers and staff had found work there through Monica’s long association with Camp Tawonga.

Located in North Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto, the Local Butcher Shop opened in 2011 and distinguished itself by carrying only sustainably raised meat that was raised within 150 miles of the store. Saul’s Deli, which is committed to sustainability, was an early customer.

The couple decided to sell the business they’d started because they were having a hard time finding a work/life balance, Monica said.

“It was taking its toll, and yet we weren’t so keen on the idea of selling it to anybody who would take what we did and do something else with it,” she told J.

Then Project Equity, an organization that partners with the city of Berkeley, did an analysis to see whether the Butcher Shop could be turned into a worker-owned co-op. “This was a possibility we never thought of,” Monica said, “and was a win-win for everyone.”

By the time the couple moved to Vallejo in 2019 to be closer to their children, they were already familiar with many Bay Area wineries because they had been buying their fruit for so many years.

“We came out here frequently and knew the vineyards from which my fruit came,” Paul said. He would always bring a few bottles for the winemakers here to taste.

When Paul asked the owners at the Wooden Valley Winery in Fairfield if he

because grapes from the Suisun Valley are half the price of Napa Valley’s, which is right next door.

“Making it there, we have Napa-quality wine without Napa prices,” he said.

While Paul is the winemaker, nothing passes muster without Skippy’s approval. They met at the beginning of their careers in medicine, and now in this later chapter of their lives, after 54 years of marriage, they are still working together.

Now both in their 40s, Rocchino said, “We were the oldest people there, and we were also the only married couple and the only people with children, and we had such great people, it seemed like a good time to pass the baton. Everyone has a lot more energy and new ideas that we didn’t have because we’re burnt out. We know they will take it further into the future with new, fresh energy, but maintain the philosophy and standards working with local ranchers and farmers.”

After a brief break, Aaron has just started working for Oakland’s Cream Co. Meats, while Monica is open to new

THE ORGANIC EPICURE ALIX WALL

The Food section is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky

Howard Paul and his wife, Skippy, have been making and enjoying wine together for decades, first in New Jersey and now in the East Bay.

possibilities in the sustainability field. “Whatever it is,” she said, “I still want to feel like I’m making a positive impact on the planet and something that allows us more work/life balance.”

Midnite Bagels will be opening its first café in the coming months in San Francisco at 646 Irving St., an Inner Sunset space that was a former boba tea shop. “We don’t have to do a ton of work, we just need to do some cosmetic changes to the dining area,” chefowner Nick Beitcher said.

Beitcher is a former baker at Tartine in the Mission District. Midnite has seen rapid growth since its inclusion in the New York Times’ now-famous article declaring that the Bay Area’s bagels were be er than New York’s.

It’s been “very rewarding and humbling,” Rosenblum said, and people have been reacting to the deli in exactly the way he had hoped.

Not only has the feedback been overwhelmingly positive, “I’ve learned there are a lot of people living here from New Jersey.”

Reader tip: Thank you to reader Anat Sapan, who identifies herself as a “New York Jew in the Bay always on the search,” who wrote to us about her extreme love for the bagels at Solomon’s Delicatessen in Sacramento. While we’ve covered Solomon’s extensively since it opened in 2018, we have not wri en specifically about the bagels.

Calling them “a metziya,” which translates from Yiddish as “a real find,”

The offerings will also include espresso drinks, bagel sandwiches and babka. The bagels will be made in Midnite’s recently opened production space in Dogpatch, and then delivered to the Irving location. Beitcher also told J. that Midnite Bagels will soon be carried by Berkeley Bowl.

Chef Adam Rosenblum told J. he was caught a bit off guard by the demand for his new Jewish deli concept at Li le Red Window in North Beach earlier this month, as he ran out of product the first few days a er opening on Feb. 1.

Though unprepared for the onslaught, he said, now “We’re ge ing to a be er place of being caught up and able to meet demand.”

Sapan wrote: “Yesterday I had a bagel that reminded me of a time in NYC in the eighties when bagels were not bigger than a plate. When you didn’t have to scoop the inside out. When the ratio of inside to outside was perfect. Where are these amazing bagels? At Solomon’s in Sacramento. They are as delicious hot as they are cold the next morning. Wow. The dough is perfect. I only wish I bought more and didn’t have to schlep to Sacramento.”

Readers, if you taste some local Jewish food that is particularly worthy of mention, drop us a note. “We” are only one person in this column and can’t get everywhere. Always happy to share reader suggestions. ■

Little Red Window Jewish deli opened Feb. 1 in North Beach to a large crowd.

Seated Outdoor Tastings

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Visit www.hagafen.com or call call (707) 252-0781 x113 to reserve.

Teaming up 2 old favorites: borscht and gefilte fish

COOKING FAITH KRAMER

A leap year on the Hebrew calendar occurs seven times every 19 years, and when it does, an extra month of Adar gets added. Through March 3 we will be in Adar I, and then comes Adar II through April 1 — and each is associated with joy, luck, good fortune … and fish!

Starring in the role of the latter in this borscht recipe is none other than gefilte fish straight from the jar. These renowned fish cakes shine in their role as ready-made dumplings, and you can add horseradish to the soup for that familiar zing. Moreover, the soup’s golden color portends good luck and fortune.

The borscht is flavored with hawaij, a Yemeni spice mix for soup available in some specialty markets and online. Substitute curry powder for a similar taste. And for another take on fish soup for Adar, check out my previous column at tinyurl.com/ faithk020122.

GOLDEN BORSCHT WITH GEFILTE FISH

Serves 8 to 10 as a main course

2½ lbs. golden/yellow beets (trimmed weight; see notes)

2 (24 oz.) jars of gefilte fish with liquid, room temperature (see notes)

2 cups thinly sliced carrots

2 cups chopped fennel bulb (reserve fronds) or celery

1 Tbs. minced fresh ginger

1 Tbs. sugar plus more if needed

2 tsp. hawaij or curry powder

1½ tsp. salt or to taste

½ tsp. ground black pepper or to taste

3 cups Yukon gold, red or new potato chunks (cut into 1-inch pieces, peeling optional)

4 cups chopped cabbage (cut into ½-inch pieces)

¼ cup apple cider vinegar plus more if needed

Garnishes (see below)

Scrub beets well, removing all dirt and debris. Cut off roots and any remaining stem and greens. Place beets in a 7-quart or larger pot or Dutch oven. Cover with water. Cover with lid. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower heat and simmer for about 1 hour (timing will vary), or until a fork can slide halfway through before meeting resistance. Remove beets, but reserve cooking liquid. Let beets rest until cool enough to handle. Remove skins by rubbing off with fingers or scraping with a spoon. Cut the beets into ½-inch pieces and set aside.

Measure the reserved cooking liquid. If necessary, add water until you have 8 cups. Return to pot. Remove gefilte fish from jars and set aside. Pour liquid from the jars into measuring cup. There should be 4 cups. If not, add water to compensate. Pour into the pot with beet liquid. Cover and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Lower heat to simmer. Stir in carrots, fennel, ginger, sugar, hawaij, salt and pepper. Simmer covered 5 minutes. Add potato pieces, cabbage and reserved beet chunks. Adjust heat if needed to keep at a simmer. Simmer covered 30 to 45 minutes until beets are tender.

Cut gefilte fish pieces in half vertically. Gently stir into soup. Simmer for 5 minutes or until fish is heated through. Taste and add salt and or pepper as needed. Turn off heat. Stir in vinegar. Taste. It should have a pleasant sweet-sour flavor. Add sugar or vinegar as needed. Ladle into bowls and garnish as desired. Serve the Yemeni hot sauce z’hug (see my recipe at tinyurl.com/faithk-zhug) or horseradish on the side.

Garnishes (select one or many): Top with chopped dill, parsley and/or the reserved fennel fronds or leaves. Sprinkle with grated lemon zest. Top with dollops of dairy or nondairy sour cream or yogurt. Top with sautéed chopped beet greens, chard or kale. Drizzle with tahini sauce.

Notes: About 6 large beets come to about 2½ lbs. trimmed (without greens). Red or orange beets are a good substitute, but the soup’s color will be affected. Use plastic gloves to avoid staining hands. Do not use gefilte fish labeled “sweet.” Recipe divides well if you want only 4 to 5 servings.

Make in advance: Halt the recipe after adding potato pieces, cabbage and beet chunks. Store in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat and resume the recipe where gefilte fish pieces get cut and added into the soup. n

Faith Kramer is a Bay Area food writer and the author of “52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Jewish Kitchen.”

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Lifecycles

B’NAI MITZVAHS

BENJAMIN GARRETT MOYLE Son of Elizabeth and Shawn Moyle, Saturday, Feb. 26, at Temple Sinai in Oakland.

IONE COHEN Daughter of Nancy Keizer and Dan Cohen, Saturday, Feb. 26, at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

OREN FOX Son of Adeelee and Alex Fox, Saturday, March 5, at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.

LAILA HOCHSCHILD Daughter of Jennifer and Leonard Hochschild, Saturday, March 5, at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

OBITUARIES

DOROTHY ELAINE MARDER

Sept. 8, 1925–Jan. 31, 2022

Dorothy Elaine Marder passed away peacefully on Jan. 31, 2022. A private ceremony was held on Feb. 4 at Hills of Eternity in Colma.

Dorothy was born in New York City on Sept. 8, 1925 to Shirley and Sol Tenser. Her parents owned a chain of family shoe stores in New Jersey. Shirley also worked alongside Sol in the stores. Dorothy and her brother Mark grew up in the north New Jersey town of Long Branch. While a student at Temple University she met Irving Marder at a USO party. She married Irving in 1946 and moved to San Francisco to continue college at UC Berkeley. They graduated together in 1948 — she with a BS in Marketing and he as a Doctor of Optometry. Irving practiced in downtown San Francisco near Union Square, and she continued her education for a Masters in business education while raising three children (Jay, Lee, and Valerie) living in Woodside, California. Known as Grandma Dot, she was a devoted wife, grandmother and mother-in-law.

Dorothy worked as a substitute teacher in high school business classes. She was a lifetime member of B’nai B’rith as well as a member of Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City. Dorothy moved to Cloverdale in 1998 to be near her daughter Valerie and family when Irving died. She joined Congregation Beth Ami and participated in local community affairs. Dorothy was active as a docent for the Cloverdale History Museum, as well as a member of Clover Springs’ committees. Dorothy was an avid bridge, Mah Jongg and piano player. She loved living in Cloverdale, and exploring Northern California’s wine country.

She leaves her sons Jay Marder (Randa Klein) and Lee Marder (Diann Simmons) and daughter Valerie Marder (Jonathan Kreger),

JOSHUA JACOB Son of Lisa Rose and Max Jacob, Saturday, March 5, at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.

CLAIRE KORNBERG Daughter of Susan and Joel Kornberg, Saturday, March 5, at Peninsula Sinai Congregation in Foster City.

ARIELLE RADINSKY Daughter of Viktoriya Lebedeva and Iliya Radinsky, Saturday, March 5, at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek.

ZACHARY ROBINSON Son of Tami Welch-Robinson and Rob Robinson, Saturday, Feb. 19, at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek.

JENNIFER ROSS Daughter of Susan Runyan and Douglas Ross, Saturday, March 5, at Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame.

MADDOX WICKMAN Daughter of Andi and Charles Wickman, Saturday, Feb. 26, at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.

SASHA ZINN Daughter of Matt and Cindy Zinn, Saturday, March 5, at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.

seven grandchildren, Talia (Andrew), Josh (Laura), Ari (Kalie), Kiro (Elhan), Iona, Jacob and Isaac (Sidney), and nine great-grandchildren. If you wish to honor Dorothy, donations can be made to the Cloverdale Historical Society at cloverdalehistoricalsociety.org.

BEVERLY KONKOFF

Jan. 1, 1935–Jan. 24, 2022

Beverly A. Konkoff, 87, died peacefully on Jan. 24, 2022 in Carmichael, CA. She was born on Jan. 1, 1935 in San Francisco, the daughter of Martin and Lena Aizenberg.

Beverly graduated from Lowell High School, class of 1953, and spent a brief time at UC Berkeley before beginning a successful retail career as a buyer and manager. She continued at the American Cancer Society, opening and managing many Discovery Shops.

In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by her brother Stephen Aizenberg and her second husband, Dr. Herbert Konkoff. Beverly is survived by her children Mitchell (Teri) Ostwald, Karen Soskin and Gregory (Deborah) Ostwald; grandchildren Sarah (Jaime) Feldman, Rachel Ostwald, Shelby (David) Stormzand, Aaron Soskin, Kayla Soskin and Arianna Ostwald; and great grandson Jack Morris Feldman.

She is also survived by her sister Carol Loew, first husband Thomas Ostwald, as well as many nieces, nephews and friends.

Beverly was involved in many organizations, including the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, ORT, Hadassah, singing in the synagogue choir and enjoyed her time performing at the Hillbarn Theatre in Foster City. Services took place at the Home of Peace in Colma on Jan. 27, 2022. Those who wish to remember Beverly may contribute to the American Cancer Society in her memory.

Sinai Memorial Chapel | 415.921.3636

IDA CHARLIP

Oct. 10, 1927–Jan. 20, 2022

From an early age, Ida was always an integral member of her family circle and community. That tradition continued throughout her 94 years. Born into the thriving Jewish community of Oak Street in San Francisco, she along with her brother, Maury, were raised by Russian immigrants, Joe and Dora Flantzman. As a child “Chaileh” spent much of her time with family elders, where she learned the ways of the old world, family, community, tzedakah, Jewish traditions and Yiddish. Those values learned in her youth lasted throughout her lifetime and were shared with all that knew her.

While attending Washington High School, she was the first violinist in the school orchestra and was a charter member of Beta Tau sorority, where she met many of her lifelong friends. Gifted in her ability to cultivate relationships, she remained close with those friends and their families her entire life. She attended City College of San Francisco for two years. During that time, she met Sid Charlip at the local synagogue, and they were later married in 1948.

The couple lived in San Francisco, started a family and soon moved to Daly City, where they began to raise their three children: Arlyne, Deborah and Steve. In the early ’60s, Ida and Sid found their dream home in the Baywood area of San Mateo. It was then that Ida continued with her goal to create a beautiful and special household. That home soon became the backdrop and focal point for decades of family gatherings, events and holiday celebrations. It was Ida’s wish to live out her years in that house, and she did until her passing.

The family joined Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, where Ida was active in their women’s sisterhood. Ida was very involved with her community and in the late ’70s and early ’80s; she volunteered for Planned Parenthood, where she counseled young women. Also during that time, she taught English to Russian immigrants and sponsored members of her family to immigrate from Moscow to the Bay Area.

In 1965, Ida co-founded Dataprint Corporation with her husband. The business thrived for many years, and when Sid passed away in 1979, Ida stepped in to run the company for another 35 years until she was 88 years old. Over the years, all three children (and grandchildren) would help in supporting the business.

Once her four grandchildren (Seth, Jules, Daniel and Marielle) were born, much of Ida’s focus was on developing very close bonds with each of them. Family gatherings at the house, as well as trips to many destinations including France, Italy and Israel, became yearly events, further strengthening the family bonds. Ida was the family archivist. She captured and archived all family moments, travel and events in photographs. For decades, whenever family or friends gathered, she’d insist on taking group pictures to capture the time spent together. It was during this time that she earned the nickname “Mrs. Kodak.” Over

the years she lovingly cataloged and archived all the pictures she took into 45 full-size photo albums.

She most enjoyed having her family around her, spending time in her home and keeping up on news and politics. With an active and keen intellect, Ida enjoyed staying up on current events and engaging in dialogue on political and social issues. She was known, and greatly appreciated, for her curiosity and genuine interest in people and always took the time to know what was happening in the lives of each member of her family and large circle of friends. She lived a long and active life in which she touched the hearts of many people, creating an impact on their lives.

The Charlip family would like to thank Ida’s loving caregivers Amie and Sharo and those who sent their thoughts and blessings to Ida before her passing. A private burial service was held at Eternal Home Cemetery in Colma, where Ida was laid to rest alongside her husband, Sid.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the organization of one’s choice.

Sinai Memorial Chapel | 415.921.3636

HARRY A. BATTAT

June 3, 1935–Feb. 4, 2022

Harry A. Battat passed away on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco after a heroic battle with cancer and Covid. Harry was born June 3, 1935, and grew up in San Francisco. He attended George Washington High School, where he was president of his senior class, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Harry joined his father’s business, the Liberty Gold Fruit Company, along with his two brothers, Frank and Ralph. He loved working with his family and growing the LIGO brand into a major global powerhouse for canned fish, fruits and vegetables all over the world. He was still engaged in the business even while convalescing.

Harry was deeply devoted to his wife, Patty, the love of his life. Having met on a blind date in college, the two were inseparable during 62 years of marriage. They spent weekends at their home in the Napa Valley. They traveled the world together, especially to Europe, which they visited every year until Patty’s death in 2019.

Harry was a passionate fan of San Francisco sports teams, especially the Giants. He enjoyed nothing more than to watch a game, where he was always quick to declare defeat only to witness later victory and be delighted with the seemingly improbable win.

Harry was a devoted father and avid supporter of his sons Tommy, who died in 2013, (Jennifer) and Randy (Chris) Battat, and grandfather, “Graddy,” to Scott, Ali, Jared and Lily Battat.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living (sfcjl.org).

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Sheri and Paul Robbins

Arlene and Leonard Rosenberg

Isadore and Helene Rosenthal

Thomas N. Ross

Karen and Steven T. Sager

Allen Samelson

Barbara Schapira

Lauren and Rick Schwartz

Sherry Scott Design

Susan and Richard Seiler

Gail and Steven Shak

Heidi Shale and Earl Cohen

Carol and Stephen Shapiro

Nancy and Ed Sherman

Lara Shumer

Carol Ruth Silver

Harriet Silver

Katheryn Simpson

Robin Soffer

Sandra Sohcot and Brian Stern

Julie and James Solomon

Linda and Morris Spiegelman

Sander I. Stadtler

Bruce Steir

Jim Stern

Rikki and David Sudikoff

Laura Sutta Anonymous

*A Donor-Advised Fund of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund

NEWS of Northern

OBITUARIES Lifecycles

continued from page 37

RICHARD GREENBERG

Oct. 11, 1924–Jan. 31, 2022

Richard (“Dick”) Greenberg died peacefully and comfortably in hospice care at Rhoda Goldman Plaza in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2022. He was 97.

Richard was born on Oct. 11, 1924 in Stockton, California to Fredrick and Genevieve Greenberg, and grew up with his older sister Phyllis just a short bike ride from the San Joaquin river. He attended UC Berkeley, but World War II intervened, and he entered medical school at the University of Nebraska as an Ensign in the Navy V12 program. When the war ended, he transferred to UC San Francisco to finish medical school and to complete a residency at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute.

Richard then served in the Korean War, this time as a Captain in the Air Force Medical Corps. After the war, he began his advanced training at the SF Psychoanalytic Institute.

On an icy night during an impromptu road trip back east on a winter break from medical school, Richard had a serious car accident. Laid up for weeks in a Cleveland hospital, he was captivated by his intelligent, outgoing and beautiful occupational therapist, Hannah Spiro. They bonded over a shared love of books, starting with Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead.” Only a year later, after a wedding in Cleveland, Hannah joined Richard in San Francisco to begin their new life together and start a family.

Richard was a skillful therapist. He was valued by his patients for guiding them to more fulfilling lives, and respected by his colleagues for his penetrating and subtle insights. He rose to become Chair of the prestigious Committee on Membership of the American Psychoanalytic Association; was an active member of both the SF Psychoanalytic Institute and the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies in Princeton; and for many years was a clinical professor and admissions committee member at UCSF.

Richard was a lifelong mentor, confidant, advisor and source of emotional support to the extended Greenberg and Spiro families, to his many friends, and to his children’s friends. He was immensely proud of the family’s adventures and accomplishments, and a rock of stability and wisdom when there were setbacks.

But his life was more than sober counsel. He was an avid gourmet and wine lover, a founding member of the SF chapter of the International Food & Wine Society. He and Hannah spent many a summer dining their way through many of the Michelinstarred restaurants of France. An enthusiastic, if not exceptional, doubles tennis player, he and three Cal classmates (the self-proclaimed “Tennis Chefs”) treated their wives once every summer to a multicourse gourmet dinner, often at his and Hannah’s magical home on the Belvedere lagoon.

Richard had one weakness; a passion for sporty, esoteric, and woefully impractical cars. His Jenson-Healey, Fiat 124, and Rover 2000 all shared the distinction of being in the shop as much as they were on the road.

Richard was predeceased by his wife Hannah and their youngest son Jonathan. He is survived by his sons David (Jayne) in Phoenix and Donald (Lisbeth) in San Francisco; grandchildren Jesse (Olga), Genevieve (Joseph), Jamie, Liza (Kai), and Jake; great-grandchildren Rhys, Evan, Eli, and Eva; and daughters-in-law Robin Sandenburgh and Ellen Weiss.

A family memorial will be held in July at the Mt Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael. Donations may be made to Earthjustice, 50 California St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94111.

GILBERT P. GRADINGER

Oct. 5, 1930–Jan. 28, 2022

Dr. Gilbert Paul Gradinger was a beautiful man, inside and out. He died peacefully at his home on Jan. 28, 2022. Though he suffered a stroke seven years earlier, his spirit remained and he loved his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren until the very end.

Gil was born on Oct. 5, 1930 in Waterloo, Iowa to Leo and Thelma Gradinger. He had a happy childhood surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, his older sister (Elaine) and the local Jewish community. Leo died at the age of 46 when Gil was only 16. Thankfully, Thelma was a strong, capable woman who successfully raised her two children.

Gil attended college at Northwestern University. After two years of excessive fun, Gil decided to transfer to Washington University so he could get serious about his studies. After graduation, he stayed for another four years to attend medical school. One spring vacation, he was offered the job of lifeguard for the AEPi sorority national convention in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It was there that he met the woman he would love for the rest of his life, Sally Ann Levit. When Gil went to meet Sally’s family in Piedmont, California, Sally’s 15-year-old sister, Rhoda, thought he was Rock Hudson walking up the driveway. And so began a long and happy relationship between Gil and his in-laws, Pearl and Al Levit, and his sister-in-law, Rhoda Wolfe.

While in medical school at Washington

University in St. Louis, Gil and Sally’s daughters, Lori and Jodi, were born 13 months apart. After medical school, Gil opted for a warmer climate and Sally got to return to her beloved California, where Gil did his surgery and plastic surgery residencies at University of California San Francisco (UCSF). After Gil’s training, he had two years in the military to complete and was stationed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. During this time, Gil, Sally, and their now four children (son Leo was born in 1958 and son Jeff was born in 1961), lived in Green Valley on the 16th fairway of the local golf course. With their family in tow, Gil and Sally made their last move to San Mateo, California in 1963 so Gil could join the practice of Dr. Raymond Kauffman. Gil’s career as a plastic surgeon was exceptional. He was a teacher, mentor, book and article writer, exam proctor and presenter at conferences and meetings. He was admired and respected both locally and internationally, and most importantly, he loved his work until the day he retired in December 1999 just shy of his 70th birthday.

In retirement, Gil enjoyed woodworking, golfing, skiing, traveling with Sally, reading and puttering around the house. By this time, Sally and Gil had 12 grandchildren (Joey z’l 1995) and their greatest accomplishment was unfolding as they created a unique relationship with each of their grandchildren by, among other things, taking them on annual ski trips to Tahoe and visiting the out-of-town kids regularly. The role “Papa’’ played in the lives of each of his grandchildren cannot be overstated. To this day, it is not uncommon to hear a grandchild ask, “what would Papa do?” when faced with a dilemma or decision.

Gil had a stroke on Jan. 2, 2015. While it greatly affected his physical mobility, he pursued every available avenue of rehabilitation and allowed his brilliant and loving caregiver, Talia, to take care of him morning and night. His children, grandchildren, family and friends visited often. With the daily assistance of Sally and son Jeff, Gil remained in his home of 59 years until he passed away. He remained engaged with family, friends and the 49ers, and continued to be a gentleman and loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather until the end of his life. He will be missed and remembered by so many.

Gil is preceded in death by his mother, Thelma Dorfman, his father, Leo Gradinger, his sister, Elaine Crystal, and his grandson, Joseph Wes.

He is survived by his children: Lori Gradinger and her wife, Ann Marie Smith; Jodi Gradinger-Wes and her husband, Robin; Leo Gradinger and his wife, Melanie; Jeff Gradinger and his ex-wife, Mary. Eleven grandchildren: David Wes and his wife, Peri; Nicholas Gradinger; Rachel Groshong and her husband, Ryan; Zoe Alexander and her husband, Silas; Sam Dunnington and his wife, Hailey; Max Gradinger; Dr. Ari Wes and his partner, Leah Zuroff; Alex Gradinger; Lucy Gradinger and her fiancé, Alex Grieve; Gus Gradinger and his fiancé, Annie Sullivan; Lucas Gradinger. Four great-grandchildren: Dylan Wes, Logan Wes, Miles Wes and Chase Dunnington. Sister and brother-in-law, Rhoda and

Sheldon Wolfe; nieces, nephews, cousins and a multitude of good friends.

A private burial took place on Feb. 3, 2022. Gifts in Dr. Gilbert Gradinger’s name can be made to Peninsula Temple Beth El, San Mateo, California. Sinai Memorial Chapel | 415.921.3636

JACQUES ROOS

March 11, 1928–Jan. 25, 2022

Jacques Roos passed away peacefully on Jan. 25 in Palo Alto with his sons by his side.

He was a third-generation Californian, born in San Francisco on March 11, 1928, to Camil and Lenore Roos. Jacques (nicknamed “Bud” by his mother which stuck with him with his kids through his entire life — he was Jack to everyone else), grew up in the Forest Hills area of San Francisco. He met our mother, Bettye Isaacs, at Temple Emanu-El Sunday school. They went on to attend high school at Lowell High together. Jack graduated from U.C. Berkeley and had the good fortune of attending Cal when, with his critical support from the stands, Cal went to the Rose Bowl several times during his tenure (sadly, never to see such success again during his life even though he would go to virtually every Cal football game while his health allowed it).

Jack and Bettye raised three boys in the Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco (the famous 29th Avenue) around the corner from his sister-in-law and brother-in-law and best friends, Lois and Julian Rhine. Jack spent the majority of his professional life as a businessman working at Merritt College in Oakland. A significant part of his time there was during the black power movement of the ’60s and ’70s. Jack and Bettye moved to San Mateo in the late 1980s. After Jack retired from Merritt, he started a new career as a travel agent, allowing Bettye and him to follow their passion for foreign travel. They were lucky enough to travel to Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, and Japan to name a few of their favorite places. They particularly loved taking their grandchildren on cruises (in pre-Covid days).

Everyone who knew Jack will tell you he was the nicest guy in the world. He was a kind man, always thinking of his friends, of which he had many, but most of all, caring deeply about his family. Jack loved taking his family on annual summer trips to Lake Tahoe and winter trips to Sun Valley, Idaho, where his oldest son Brad opened in 1978 the most popular bar in town, Whiskey Jacques, named after Jack. He took particular joy in seeing his grandchildren grow up and seeing, at least through FaceTime, his five great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his loving wife of 69 years, Bettye; and survived by his three children Brad (Susan), John (Susie), Michael (Juli); his six grandchildren, their spouses and five great-grandchildren, niece Victoria, nephews Andy (Jill), Larry (Amanda), Ron (Cynthia), cousins by dozens and grand-nephews and grand-nieces. If you wish to honor Jack with a donation, please consider The Trees Remember, thetreesremember.com/memorial-trees, Cal football, or the charity of your choice.

GAY YOUNG

Oct. 31, 1937–Jan. 31, 2022

Gay Young, 84, passed away peacefully at her home in Palm Desert, California, on Jan. 31, 2022 surrounded by her loving family: Bernard Young, her husband of 64 years, and their three children: Bradley, Carrie and Adam Young.

Gay was born on Oct. 31, 1937 in San Francisco to Harry and Pearl Sugarman and was the younger sister of Joy Spiegelman. A third-generation San Franciscan, Gay was raised in the Marina District, where her family maintained a notable presence in the city’s business and charitable endeavors. She graduated from Lowell High in 1955 and would later attend the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied English. She was an adoring grandmother to Sophie (22), Zoe (21) and Max Young (18), who loved their Nanny dearly.

A sports enthusiast, Gay skied and played tennis in her early years. She was an avid golfer, playing alongside Bernie for over 40 years; they were members of Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City and Indian Ridge Country Club in Palm Desert, their home for the past 20 years. Gay made many lifelong friends through golf, and loved looking out at the fairway from her desert home each day. Football was also her passion, especially college football, and she rarely missed a game, specifically USC, where Adam attended, and Alabama.

After meeting Bernie on a blind date when Gay was 19, the couple was engaged within a few months. Gay and Bernie were married on Jan. 26, 1958, at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco, where the family remained members for many years. Gay only had eyes for Bernie; their

devotion to one another as husband and wife resonated strongly throughout their marriage, influencing their children. They loved to explore and travel the world together and as a family, where many milestones were celebrated.

Gay was generous, gregarious and loved to entertain. Always stylish, Gay left an impression on everyone she met, a genuine force of life. She found true happiness in motherhood by guiding and supporting her children throughout their lives. Gay’s name embodied her real identity and spirit at her core: joyous, exuberant and vivacious.

A private ceremony was held at Hills of Eternity in Colma, followed by a Celebration of Life memorial in San Francisco. In lieu of flowers, those wishing to honor Gay’s life may do so by donating to Jewish Family and Children Services in San Francisco (jfcs. org/give).

STUART SIEROTY

March 23, 1927–Jan. 29, 2022

on Monday, March 7.

Stuart Elman Sieroty was born on March 23, 1927, to Arthur and Sadie in San Francisco, CA. He was their only child. He attended Town School for Boys and graduated from Lowell High School. He was Bar Mitzvahed at both Temple Emanu-El and Sherith Israel. During WWII, Stuart served in the US Navy in San Diego for 8 months and was honorably discharged at the end of 1945. He graduated with a BS in Business from UC Berkeley in 1950, and throughout his life, he was an unwaveringly enthusiastic UC Bears fan and a generous supporter of the Haas School of Business.

cared for Stuart herself until his death.

Stuart was an excellent stockbroker, a man who understood people’s motivations and desires. He was always ready to listen, to make sound suggestions and was always positive, seeing the best in every situation and in every person. Stuart provided generously for his children’s education, and he supported each of his children and grandchildren’s life goals with his only desire that each of them find what truly makes them happy.

Stuart Sieroty passed away at his Los Angeles home on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022 (27 Shevat 5782) at the age of 94.

Stuart is survived by his wife Sylvia Cho, his daughters Lisan Sieroty Lema (Cameron) and Pia Sireoty Spector (Jay Valancy), his son Christopher Sieroty, and his granddaughters Arielle and Talia Spector.

Stuart is predeceased by his parents, Arthur (z”l) and Sadie (z”l) Sieroty.

Rabbi Jonathan Bernhard officiated at a memorial service on Feb. 2 at the home of Stuart and Sylvia. A private family funeral service will take place at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California,

Stuart moved to Los Angeles in 1952 to work in his family’s business, Eastern Columbia Outfitters. He married his first wife Joan Bonwit and together they adopted Lisan. Eventually the marriage ended and Joan and Lisan moved to New York City, though Lisan spent summers and winter vacations in Los Angeles. Stuart then married Josephin with whom he had two children, Pia and Chris. By that time, Stuart had left the retail business and became a stockbroker. He worked for Sutro and Company before moving to UBS Paine Webber from which he retired at the age of 75 as a top producer. In retirement, Stuart married Sylvia Cho and together they traveled extensively and enjoyed life. Sylvia lovingly

Stuart loved the horse races, he attended Hollywood Park with regularity, and he even owned a share in a racehorse. He shared his love of “the track” with his children and grandchildren. He always loved a good Bloody Mary, an excellent hotel bar, and fine dining. He enjoyed movies, books, and nature. On many trips to Yosemite and Alisal Guest Ranch, he’d gather his kids around and tell them to take a series of deep breaths of the clean air and to appreciate the still beauty of their surroundings.

Stuart provided a beautiful childhood for all three of his children, and he instilled in each of them an excellent work ethic. His last words to his daughter Pia on Jan. 24 were “I got this.”

Donations in memory of Stuart can be made to the Haas School of Business or Town School for Boys, San Francisco.

The Obituaries section is supported by a generous grant from Sinai Memorial Chapel, sinaichapel.org

André Leon Talley, Oprah and me

ACT TWO JANET SILVER GHENT

Eulogies to fabled fashion editor André Leon Talley filled the New York Times last month, with descriptions like “mythic,” “creative genius,” “the last of the great pontificating editorial personages.” Talley, who died Jan. 19 at age 73, was all these things, as well as the only Black internationally acclaimed arbiter in the elitist fashion world. Larger than life at 6-foot-6, he “was a singular force in an industry that he had to fight to be recognized in,” his friend Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, told the Times.

Talley and I go way back. Pitted against him as a panelist on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” I had to fight to be recognized, and if the New York Times had printed my letter, mine would have been the only one to allege that Talley was so over the top that he had lost his connection with folks on the ground. I was one of those groundlings, and Talley had no difficulty upstaging me.

In December 1988, when I was a reporter and a disgruntled former fashion writer at the Oakland Tribune, Dianne Hudson, Oprah’s then–executive producer, phoned me on a Wednesday afternoon. Oprah was doing a segment on “The Fashion Conspiracy,” the title of Nicholas Coleridge’s 1988 book. But Coleridge wasn’t available. In desperation, Hudson asked Coleridge’s publicist if he knew anybody else who could address the dark side of the rag trade. He suggested me.

My conflict about being a fashion editor had given me nightmares. The industry had nurtured my immigrant great-grandparents, who had evolved from tailors to manufacturers, and I was grateful that family members offered me wholesale apparel. Yet I felt torn about touting conspicuous consumption, which conflicted with my 1960s values. But in 1977, when offered a job in journalism after eight years as a stay-at-home mom, I grabbed the opportunity. The Contra Costa Times had a part-time job opening for a fashion writer, at $6 an hour. I showed up wearing a cute leather cap. I was hired.

At first, the job was fun: I loved interviewing celebrities, attending galas and organizing photo shoots. But by the 1980s, when I moved to the Oakland Tribune, it became old. During New York Fall Fashion Week, then staged in March on Seventh Avenue, I visited designer showrooms every day and filed from my hotel room every night, using a modem that attached to a phone with suction cups.

Since I was from the “out-of-town press,” Calvin Klein’s gatekeepers informed me, “You will be standing.” The start of the show was delayed by almost an hour, starting only after the arrival of Andy Warhol, who wore chartreuse instead of his usual black. Warhol’s attire made news, but Calvin’s clothes did not, in my opinion. They were expensive but ordinary. “Why am I here?” I said to myself. “I want out.”

But then Oprah drew me back into the fashion arena, flying me into Chicago. On her show, my role was to bare my disillusionment with the fashion establishment. But I didn’t have a chance against the flamboyant Talley, who had schlepped along a collection of clothes that looked as if they were designed for professional women — from the world’s oldest profession.

When he showed a $500 ensemble (nearly $1,200 in 2022 dollars) that could convert into two outfits, making it “affordable,” I demurred, saying that was far beyond my readers’ budgets.

“They can dip into their piggy banks,” he replied.

“My readers don’t have piggy banks,” I said.

“Fashion should be fun,” he continued.

“Yes,” I chimed in, “but there’s a downside to that fun.” Then I talked about the sweatshops in Korea, where shirts that sell for $40 in the U.S. are made for under $2 by a laborer who earns $7 a week and loses his vision by the time he’s 25. “That doesn’t strike me as very much fun.”

The audience clapped, but after I made that point, I couldn’t seem to get much screen time.

After watching the show, my mother called me the Jane Fonda of fashion. Said my father: “They didn’t want to hear what you had to say. You were asked to be controversial, but they wanted the show to be fun. They didn’t want to hear about sweatshops.”

Talley, by contrast, was the Truman Capote of fashion. He came out of poverty in North Carolina. By virtue of talent and grit, he made his home in Fantasyland, where he was never invisible. Lacking his aplomb, I couldn’t possibly outtalk him on “Oprah,” and I was demolished. But if I can smile at the memory, and write about it (tinyurl.com/ghent-oprah), I’ll never become invisible. n

The kids are all grown up … and now I want Christmas!

Dear Dawn: I am not Jewish; my wife is. When we spoke with the rabbi before our Jewish wedding, we said we would raise our children Jewish. He also asked if we planned to have Christmas, and my wife-to-be said no. I have never said anything to her, but I resent the promise she made and I always miss Christmas. Our children are now grown and married. I would like to have Christmas in our home. It wouldn’t be a religious Christmas, just a time at home remembering my youth — a tree, a big meal, holiday music. Do I raise this issue now or let it lie and just accept I gave up Christmas a long time ago? — Hurt Husband

Dear Hurt: I am sorry for your decades of suffering in silence, but now you must talk to your wife. This is an excellent time to begin since Christmas is 10 months away.

Plan your words in advance so you don’t just blast out your negative feelings. You do blame her and it’s important that’s not the first thing she takes in. You don’t want her in a defensive stance; you want her to be receptive to your feelings.

Start by saying you’ve never lost your love for Christmas. Tell her what you remember fondly — the lights, special foods, music. Then say having that experience at home will no longer influence the kids. Tell her you would like to experiment this coming December by having some of the things you yearn for. While you have the right to demand this, you will enjoy it more if she embraces doing this for you.

My goal is for your wife to recognize your dedication to the plan she created for raising the kids Jewish, so point that out. She should feel grateful

for all you have done. Now it is time for some reciprocity.

You two should approach this as an extended experiment. Neither of you know what you are comfortable with just yet, so create a plan so you’ll both know what to expect come December. Afterward, evaluate the experience. Did it satisfy your longing? Was it awkward for her? Discuss. Make a new plan for December 2023. What worked? What should change? Get creative! See if there are Christmas movies you both enjoy. Hold hands while listening to the many Christmas songs written by Jews.

Decide how to handle this with your extended family and close friends. What will your shared message be? If people probe, perhaps say, “It sounds like you either don’t understand or are not comfortable with our choices. That’s your prerogative. I’m afraid I don’t have any more to offer on the subject.”

Next, you need to tell your children. Simply say, “We wanted to give you a solidly Jewish home environment without introducing non-Jewish elements. However, now that we have launched you successfully, I want to have Christmas because I loved it as a child and want to relive some of those memories.” Be prepared to answer questions. Don’t cast their mother in a negative light. This is between you two, not up for scrutiny by them. Remain firm in the message “we wanted to be sure you had a solely Jewish home.”

Finally, wait until after you’ve had a Christmas together and your wife sees it doesn’t change the world. Point out that obviously your love for her was more powerful and important than celebrating Christmas. Add that your happy marriage has greatly outweighed the bumps that every relationship experiences. n

Dawn Kepler leads Building Jewish Bridges, a program that embraces Bay Area interfaith families. “Mixed & Matched” offers advice for Jews in interfaith relationships and families. Send letters to dawn@ buildingjewishbridges.org.

MIXED & MATCHED DAWN KEPLER

Janet Silver Ghent, a retired senior editor at J., is writing a memoir on her late-life romance. She lives in Palo Alto and can be reached at ghentwriter@gmail.com.

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