J. The Jewish News-01-24-25_They're-Home

Saturday, March 8, 2025

CAMP TAWONGA

You’re Invited!

 Honor 100 beautiful years of community, connection and joyous Judaism in nature at Camp Tawonga’s 100th Anniversary Celebration.

 The gathering will include a standing dinner reception featuring delicious food, wine and beer to toast this extraordinary milestone.

 Classic Tawonga tunes provided by Isaac Zones and his band SHAMATi, joined by special guest Tawonga song leaders who will lead us in Havdalah.

Come mark this extraordinary milestone and celebrate the magic of Camp Tawonga!

Event Chairs

Debra and Mark Leslie

Sara and Josh Leslie

Sharon and Seth Leslie

Event Planning Committee

Paul Herman, Chair

Rachael Kirk-Cortez

Vicki Maler

Rabbi Deborah Newbrun

Diane Stern

Betsy Zeger

Our Hosts: The Campfire Crew

Anna Akullian

Adam Alcabes

Rachael Bonfilio

Jen Boxerman

Lena Brook

Steve Catechi

David Coffman

Jessica Colvin

Anna Fogelman

Lom Friedman

Robyn Frye

Jordan Gill

Mimi Gordon

Jeff Greendorfer

Andy Grossman

Allyson Halpern

Paul Herman

Sarah Kaatz

Gene and Susan Kaufman

Ira Kaufman

Nina Kaufman

Rachael Kirk-Cortez

Michelle Kletter

Sarah Lefton

Alexis Lezin-Schmidt

Daniella Lowenberg

Stacy Mason

Donna Friedman Meir

Talia Nagar

Rabbi Deborah Newbrun

Miriam Ordin

Sarah Prensky-Pomeranz

Katie Quinn

Monica Pallie Rocchino

Saul Rockman

Gregg Rubenstein

Sam Rubin

Larissa Siegel Solomon

Diane Stern

Judy Stern

Ariel Trost

Lisa Wachtell

Jennifer Wolfe

Jon Yolles and Stacey Silver

Betsy Zeger

Jeff Zlot

Jane Zones

Raleigh Zwerin

Thank You to

Mark and Debra Leslie

Josh and Sara Leslie

Sharon and Seth Leslie

Roz and Jerry Meyer

Primark Benefits (Gregg Rubenstein and Stephen Dobrow)

LOWER FALLS LUMINARY

Robyn and Mike Frye

Paul Herman and Ed Swanson

Sarah and Benjamin Kaatz

Troper Wojcicki Foundation

Deborah and Peter Wexler

COW’S HEAD CONTRIBUTOR

Lena Brook and Jonah Becker

Jennifer and Abe Friedman

Ben, Jake, and Anna Kramarz

Becca Meyer and Jeff Resnik

NGA Family Foundation

Juliet Sampson and Simon Mays-Smith

Ariel Trost and Jesse Goldhammer

Jeff and Connie Zlot Family

LADYBUG COVE

LEGEND

Anonymous

Charles and Melissa Benard

Stacy Mason and Tod Cohen

Carlos and Grace Munoz

Sarah and Ariel Rabin

RMLow Foundation

Saul and Barbara Rockman

John F. Sampson and Sharon L. Litsky

Alison and Steven Stein

Raziel and Hava Ungar

Adam Weiss and Lisa Russ

Lisa and Matt Wertheim

Mary and Harold Zlot

Jane and Stacey Zones

PARADISE PATRON

Michael Bien and Bien-Kahn Family

David and Heather Coffman

Daniel Edelson

Mikiko Huang and Marshall Stoller

Emma and Josh Shak

Larissa Siegel Solomon and Rowan Solomon

Libby and Frank Silver

SECRET BEACH SUPPORTER

David J. Arrick

Eve Bernstein and Alex Gersznowicz

Rabbi Mychal Copeland and Dr. Kirsti Copeland

Dr. Herb and Tanya Goodman

When Saturday, March 8, 2025, 6–10pm

Where

715 Harrison Event Space, San Francisco

Tickets & Sponsorships

Sponsorships are still available starting at $500. Sliding-scale tickets at $54–$180 each. There will be no solicitations at the event.

Judy Levin and Barry Epstein

Harriet Prensky and Bill Pomeranz

Raznick-Erwin Family

Diane Stern and Andy Quintana

Jon Yolles and Stacey Silver

Betsy and Paul Zeger Family

LOWER PIPELINE LEADER

Azus Foundation

Melanie and Matt Bayley

Dale Brodsky and Bob Brooks

Philip Gara

Jim Heeger and Daryl Messinger

The Kirk-Cortez Family

Naomi Mezey and Matt Paul

Talia Nagar and Brett Gabby

Miriam and Erick Ordin

Jamie Simon and Dan Harris

Tarnoff Family Formation, PC

Laura and Jason Turbow

PIPELINE PARTNER

Rabbi Raphael Asher and Jennifer Rosenberg

Adam Berman and Deena Aranoff

Dr. Gil and Mollie Breger

Steve Catechi

Shannon and Doug Cogen

Rachel Gibson and Jeremy Weinstein

Susan Gill and David Gill

Dov and Jenny Grunschlag

Lori Hillman and Neal Polachek

Sheila and Ned Himmel

Marilyn Hoffman and Noam Cohen

Gene and Susan Kaufman

Jacob Leland and Robin Pearce

The Meir Family

Eva and Erni Newbrun

Renee Samson

Adrienne and Norman Schlossberg

Steve and Darci Smith

Susan and Maury Stern

Deborah and Bradley Wasserman

Rabbi Eric Weiss and Dan Alpert

Raleigh and Michael Zwerin

(List as of 1/17)

TUOLUMNE RIVER TRAILBLAZER

Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund

Ilana Drummond and Sharon Dulberg

Marjorie Freedman

The Halpern/Cohen Family

Robert and Marla Kane and Rachel Kane

Space is available to experience Camp Tawonga in 2025!

Jeffrey Rhine Greendorfer and Family

Jewish Silicon Valley

Leddy Maytum Stacy

Architects

Beth Cousens and Joel Aufrecht

Judy Edelson

Anna and Michael Fogelman

Steve Gershik and Naomi Sachs

ON THE COVER: People gather in Tel Aviv as three Israeli hostages are released on Jan. 19 (DEBORAH DANAN); fire crews battle the Palisades inferno on Jan. 7 (CAL FIRE/FLICKR)

Batsheva Dance Company

Among the world’s most exciting makers of contemporary dance, Ohad Naharin brings his powerhouse company to Berkeley for the Bay Area premiere of a daring recent work.

• By phone at (510) 642-9988

• In person at the Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall

• Please note: The Ticket Office is open Tues–Fri, 12–5:30 pm; Sat-Sun, 1–5 pm (closed Mondays)

• Online using Promo Code BATS10:

» You must enter promo code BATS10, then look for the “Special Offer A” price type when selecting your seats.

» This offer is valid for price levels 3–6 and requires a login. If you do not have a Cal Performances account, register at the prompt.

» Limit of four (4) tickets. Not applicable on prior purchases. The offer expires February 22, noon.

Andy Altman-Ohr, Sue Fishko , Dan Pine, Alix Wall

COLUMNISTS Howard Freedman, Karen Galatz, Janet Silver Ghent, Faith Kramer, Dr. Jerry Saliman, Micah Siva

ADVERTISING & PROMOTION

ACCOUNT EXECS Nancy Beth Cohen, Meryl Sokoler

ART & PRODUCTION

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR Antonio R. Marquez

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Michelle Palmer, Steve Romero

BUSINESS

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Allison Green

DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE Carrie Rice

MARKETING ASSISTANT Holley Newmark

ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Linda Uong

TECHNOLOGY

IT SUPPORT Felipe Barrueto

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CO-PRESIDENTS Steven Dinkelspiel, Carol Weitz

VICE PRESIDENTS Andy Rittenberg, Jerry Yanowitz

SECRETARY Patricia Rosenberg

TREASURER Jane Springwater

MEMBERS Liz Berman, Alex Bernstein, Mark W. Bernstein (imm. past president), David Cornfield, Alexandra Corvin, Rabbi Joey Felsen, Howard Fine, Inna Gartsman, Alia Wechsler Gorkin, Samantha Grant, Steve Katz, Susan Libitzky, Rabbi Deborah Newbrun, Susan Sasson, Harmon Shragge, Peter Waldman

PAST PRESIDENTS Marc Berger, Lou Haas, Jon Kaufman, Dan Leemon, Adam Noily, Lory Pilchik, William I. Schwartz jweekly.com 415.263.7200 info@jweekly.com

Bay Area

NEWS | EVENTS | PEOPLE

ISRAEL-HAMAS CEASE-FIRE

As hostages return, our joy is laced with a deep bitterness

ANALYSIS | YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

For a moment at least, as the first hostages were released, Israelis once again acted like a united people. Catching a televised glimpse on Jan. 19 as the three young women were transferred to Red Cross officials while surrounded by hundreds of terrorists, a whole nation seemed to weep with relief.

The joy over their release was mixed with rage against a terrorist regime that holds children and old people hostage while denying their families proof that their loved ones are still alive. When a masked terrorist laid his hand on one of the young women during the handover, I wanted to throttle him. I imagine other Israeli parents felt the same.

But there the emotional unanimity ended. The hostages — Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher — returned to a bitter and divided nation. Many Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for repeatedly sabotaging a hostage deal, yielding to pressure from his far-right coalition partners who opposed a ceasefire. The same deal now being implemented, several coalition members confirmed, could have been reached months ago and saved the lives of hostages who have died or been murdered in captivity. This time, pressure from Donald Trump as he prepared to take office apparently persuaded Netanyahu to relent.

Far-right leader Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to topple the government if it extends the cease-fire beyond the first phase of the hostage release. Netanyahu reportedly has assured Smotrich that he will resume the war after the first phase, which ends in less than six weeks. That would almost certainly doom any chance of further hostage deals.

Israelis have embraced the hostages as virtual family members. On the facade of a nursing home in my Jerusalem neighborhood is a giant poster with the faces of elderly hostages and the words, “Everyone’s grandparents.”

The streets are covered with photos of hostages, urging passersby to “look them in their eyes.”

In recent days a new poster has appeared, featuring faces of hostages not included in the current exchange.

“Don’t leave us behind,” they plead. The implicit warning is that the government intends to do just that.

The bitterness on the right is no less acute. In one protest against the deal, parents of fallen soldiers bore

at Hebrew University two decades ago, wrote to a friend after learning that the terrorist who placed the bomb was set to be released: “I can’t breathe.” But, she added, “We will hold each other up and the hostages will come home.”

The scenes of Hamas victory parades in the ravaged streets of Gaza only intensify our angst. The war was not supposed to end this way, with Hamas resuming control of Gaza and its leaders threatening more terrorism to come.

A new poster has appeared, featuring faces of hostages not included in the current exchange. “Don’t leave us behind,” they plead.

coffins and asked whether their sons had died in vain. The government promised victory over terrorism. Instead, in their eyes, it capitulated to Hamas.

Likewise, some Israelis who lost family members in terror attacks across the decades feel violated. One man said the state betrayed him after he was informed that his brother’s murderer was set to be released as part of the cease-fire deal.

Sherri Mandell, whose 13-year-old son Koby, together with another boy, was stoned to death by Palestinians in 2001, wrote in the Times of Israel: “I’m glad that my son’s murderers were not found. I would be terrified that I, too, would receive a phone call telling me they were letting out Koby and Yosef’s killers.”

Israelis who support the deal are also horrified by the mass release of terrorists. Esther Abramowitz, who lost several friends in a terrorist bombing of a student cafeteria

When Israel went to war after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the intention was to destroy the Hamas regime. The worst atrocity against Jews in a hundred years of Arab-Jewish conflict had convinced Israelis that we could no longer live next door to terrorist enclaves committed to our country’s destruction.

The war against Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah had two strategic goals. The first was to break the siege on our borders. The second was to restore our shattered military deterrence.

As the hostage deal painfully attests, those goals have been only partly achieved. Hamas and Hezbollah are decimated but hardly destroyed. The Assad regime in Syria, the main conduit of Iranian weapons to its terror proxies, has been replaced by an anti-Iranian regime, but its jihadist leaders could also turn their weapons against Israel.

In the coming weeks, Israel’s streets may erupt with conflicting expressions of rage — against the release of terrorists and against the government wavering on further hostage deals. As we grapple with unbearable dilemmas, many here will discover that the divide within Israeli

ety also runs within themselves. n

soci-

Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square Fountain became a site to call attention to the hostages and honor the dead after Oct. 7, 2023. A year later, the weather-beaten memorials include the names of fallen soldiers. (NATALIE WEINSTEIN/J. STAFF)

Former hostage Emily Damari, draped in an Israeli flag, enters Sheba Medical Center on Jan. 19 to reunite with family. (ISRAEL GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and author of the 2018 book “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.”

BAY AREA ISRAEL-HAMAS CEASE-FIRE

‘Choose life over war’ Bay Area Jews react to hostage and cease-fire deal

SUE FISHKOFF | CORRESPONDENT

Jews across the world, including in the Bay Area, were glued to their screens last weekend waiting to see whether three Israeli young women would finally be freed after 471 days of captivity in Gaza. Their release was delayed for hours on Jan. 19, but finally word came: The first hostages freed under the terms of the cease-fire agreement were back in Israel, in the embrace of their families.

While the wave of relief and gratitude has been palpable, for some it is tempered by frustration and anger over what the agreement might mean for Israel in the long term. It is far from perfect, with 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in Israel set to go free in exchange for 33 hostages released across the 42 days of the first phase. Ninety-four hostages are still held by Hamas.

Some Bay Area Jews who spoke with J. noted that other potential agreements have fallen apart. Still, the announcement of any deal at all allowed for a touch of hope after the heartbreak that began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people, taking 250 hostages and sparking a multifront war.

“It’s a clear mitzvah to bring home captives,” said Senior Rabbi Mark Bloom of Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, though he still has concerns about whether the contours of the deal ultimately will be beneficial for Israel.

“It could turn out bad,” Bloom said on Jan. 16, if the agreement enables Hamas to stay in power in Gaza. “I think most Americans don’t understand that there is a price that might be too high.”

Even with reservations, there are some who hope the agreement will mark the beginning of the end to a dire chapter in Jewish history.

“The majority of Israelis believe we should choose life over war,” said Offir Gutelzon, an Israeli expat and tech

entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who co-founded UnXeptable, a pro-democracy activist group. “Now that the door is open, we must make sure it doesn’t close.”

For one group of East Bay Jews and Israeli Americans, calling attention to the plight of the hostages has been a singular focus. Since November 2023 they have held vigils on a highway overpass to show solidarity with the hostages and their families. They showed up again on Jan. 17, when dozens of Israeli and American flags fluttered along the El Curtola Boulevard overpass above Highway 24 near Lafayette.

Lafayette resident Itzhik Goldberger, one of the vigil’s organizers, described the potential release of 33 hostages in the first phase of the cease-fire deal as “just the beginning.”

“Our job will be finished when the last one is returned home,” Goldberger said. “When we sit comfortably in our armchairs and around the dinner table, we have to remember there are still people in the dungeons of Hamas, going through hell.”

On the overpass, Dublin resident Lindsay Levin handed out stickers bearing the number “469” — the number of days the hostages had been in captivity. The stickers also showed images of two balloons representing the two Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir, who were abducted with their parents on Oct. 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Kfir, 9 months old when he was taken, and Ariel, who was 4 years old, are the only captive children still held in Gaza. They and their parents are on the list of 33 to be released in the first phase, although Hamas claimed long ago that the mother and boys are dead.

Jan. 18 marked Kfir’s 2nd birthday.

Goldberger and his friend, Yoav Harlev, both of them Israelis who grew up on kibbutzim, started the Lafayette overpass vigil trend on Nov. 11, 2023. That first day it was just the two of them, with flags and banners showing the faces of the hostages. They were quickly joined by others, and the daily vigils swelled to dozens, sometimes hundreds of participants.

“We are here to remind the tens of thousands of drivers in the cars passing by that people are being held, decimated, raped, whatever,” said Orinda resident Lior Rubin, also a former kibbutznik. “We cannot let them be forgotten.”

The usual crowd on the overpass is about “50-50 Israeli and American Jews, with some non-Jews as well,” said Jeff Goodfriend, a retired attorney from Lafayette. “It’s a real community up here.”

Most of those who showed up on Jan. 17 seemed to know one another. One woman brought a challah she baked, and the group paused for a quick Kabbalat Shabbat, which included Kiddush and a shofar blowing.

Giovanna Blackston of Walnut Creek used to be a regular at the overpass demonstrations, she said, but eventually stopped coming. She decided to show up this time because of the hostage and cease-fire deal and brought her two children, Liiv, 7, and Oliver, 11.

“It feels like an important teaching moment,” she said. “It’s only been bad news for so long. When there's even a glimmer of something to feel good about, I want to grab it.”

Blackston said that when she first heard of the cease-fire deal, “I thought, ‘That’s not going to happen.’” Now she is “cautiously optimistic.”

Her reticence was shared by others in the crowd.

“We are very hopeful, but it’s a deal with the devil,” said Rubin, speaking of Hamas.

Goodfriend said he mostly felt discouraged.

“I’m saddened because we failed them,” he said of the hostages. “Our first sticker said 30 days. Now it’s 469.”

Nevertheless, the vigils will continue.

“People need to be educated,” said Julia Babka-Kurzrock, another longtime regular.

Babka-Kurzrock, a board member of Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek and a teacher at the Contra Costa Midrasha, speaks about the war to her students and to other groups, as well as on her LinkedIn page. She was floored when one woman, whom she describes as a “non-Jew, a professional person,” responded to a post by writing: “I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t realize there were still hostages being held.”

That, Babka-Kurzrock said, highlights the ongoing importance of the vigils.

Harlev agreed.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to celebrate until the last hostage comes home,” Harlev said. “Even if there’s just one hostage there, we have to keep going.” n

J. staffers Gabe Stutman and Niva Ashkenazi contributed to this report.

John Yerina waves Israeli and U.S. flags during a Jan. 17 rally to keep attention on the hostages still being held by Hamas. (PHOTOS/AARON LEVY-WOLINS/J. STAFF)

Ayala Mendelson wears an Israeli flag and images of the Bibas children — along with stickers showing how many days the hostages have been held in captivity in Gaza.

Longtime Jewish radio host Ronn Owens faces health and financial challenges

LEA LOEB | J. STAFF

Former longtime San Francisco radio host Ronn Owens shared recently that he faces significant health and financial challenges and has asked for community support.

Owens, 79, who hosted the popular “Ronn Owens Program” on KGO 810 AM for decades until retiring in 2021, discussed in a Dec. 31 Facebook post that in addition to living with Parkinson’s disease since 2001, he has endured four bouts of cancer — most recently colon cancer — and what he described as serious heart issues.

“For 48 years, I poured my heart into KGO, sharing stories, sparking conversations, and connecting with you all,” Owens wrote in his post. “It’s been a rough road, and honestly, it’s hard to admit that the financial strain has become overwhelming on top of everything else.”

Friends and family launched a GoFundMe campaign, according to a letter on the crowdfunding site. As of Jan. 22, more than 1,300 donors had given over $111,000.

“I never imagined I’d be in this position, but here I am, asking for a little help from the community that has meant so much to me,” he wrote on Facebook.

Owens joined KGO in 1975 and became one of the station’s most popular hosts, tackling a variety of topics from politics to personal issues. He hosted a range of guests, including athletes, musicians, comedians, Nobel Prize winners and world leaders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the mid-1990s he bested nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, with more than 100,000 listeners in an hour.

Born Ronald Lowenstein, Owens was known for being proudly Jewish and for his outspoken support of Israel.

Friend and fellow longtime San Francisco broadcaster Michael Krasny told J. that despite challenges, Owens “remains in high spirits” and has kept his “wonderful” sense of humor. “It just is remarkable to me how

he’s kept his grace and his positivity about just about everything,” said Krasny. “He’s just extraordinarily, extraordinarily resilient.”

Owens, who now lives in Arizona, and Krasny speak on the phone weekly to catch up and check in.

Krasny hosted “Forum,” a program covering current events, politics and culture, on public radio station KQED from 1993 to 2021. He credits Owens with helping him find his place in radio back in the late 1970s, suggesting Krasny join KGO as a backup host. They became colleagues, then later competitors when Krasny moved to KQED. The two dominated San Francisco’s airwaves for decades and have maintained an enduring friendship.

“We used to joke about that word ‘legend’ because I once introduced Kirk Douglas as a legend, and he got very angry. He said, ‘You know, legends are dead. I don’t want to be a legend,’” Krasny recalled. “But Ron really is, in many ways, a legendary figure.… He had a very faithful following, and he had people

who not only respected but revered his work and the ability he had to take on big issues.”

Owens’ journalistic contributions earned him a place in the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2007 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2015. In response to his Facebook post, fans shared messages of encouragement and fond memories of his program.

“The Ronn Owens Show was an institution to San Francisco, and I am grateful for all the years you dedicated to us,” wrote Michael Burke. “You are and will always be the example of what a healthy debate should be in my book, Ronn.” n

CREATIVE SPIRIT OF SAN FRANCISCO

“Conversation

By Carol Nelson and Illona Root-Chang

Ronn Owens at his KGO studio. (COURTESY)

Probe: OUSD teacher created divisive climate for Jews

GABE STUTMAN | J. STAFF

A third-party investigator hired by the Oakland Unified School District found that a former middle-school teacher posted “antisemitic materials” in and near his classroom during the 2023-2024 school year, creating a divisive and “unwelcoming” environment for Jewish students.

The finding, released confidentially to the complainant on Jan. 13 and shared with J. the next day, corroborates a specific grievance filed on behalf of Jewish families over antisemitic acts at Montera Middle School in the Oakland Hills. But the complaint is just one of many like it filed by Bay Area Jewish families since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its terrorist attack in Israel, precipitating a destructive, deadly war and a global spike in antisemitism.

Attorney Marleen Sacks filed the complaint with the district on Nov. 28, 2023, through the state’s Uniform Complaint Procedures (UPC). It is one of nine similar complaints she has filed against the Oakland school district alleging 20 to 30 incidents of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, she said. Many more UPC complaints have been filed

in Berkeley, San Mateo County, San Francisco and other Bay Area districts.

“This is one of many, many issues I filed complaints about. They take place all over the district,” she told J., speaking of Oakland, where she lives. “This is the first finding we’ve gotten. The district is very slow to respond.”

The complaint alleged that an English teacher at Montera put up posters attacking

Israel in and just outside his classroom in the fall of 2023 and for several weeks refused to take them down when confronted. “End genocide now,” one stated in all-caps, according to photos published in the Telegraph, a student newspaper. Another said, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Next to those posters was one of a Renaissance sculpture called “The Pietà,” which depicts Jesus after crucifixion. Surrounding “The Pietà” were what appeared to be photos of Palestinian victims.

The teacher “displayed a poster of ‘Pietà,’” the investigation report states, “which, apart from the deicide trope, by nature excludes non-Christians from the conversation.”

The teacher, Arvind Reddy, did not agree to an interview with the investigator who conducted the inquiry, according to the report, but responded to written questions in which Reddy “took a firm stance against Israel’s actions related to what they described as the ‘genocide’ of Palestinian individuals,” the report said. Reddy no longer works for the district.

The investigator determined that Reddy did not “ensure that all sides of a controversial issue are impartially presented,” in violation of district policy.

The investigator interviewed several witnesses, including students and adults, according to the report.

One, a teacher, described having a “visceral reaction” to the posters, and avoided the hallway outside Reddy’s classroom where they were posted, the report said. Another witness said that the posters were a “shock” and described one as a “call for ethnic cleansing.”

religious background, and affiliation with the District of those who complained indicated that the posters were reasonably perceived to be antisemitic and divisive.”

The Oakland Unified School District did not respond to a request for comment.

Public school districts across the Bay Area have long dealt with controversy related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but tension has been supercharged since the start of the current war.

Teachers unions in San Francisco and Oakland approved stark statements condemning Israel in the early months of the war — statements that did not mention the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Meanwhile, some teacher groups have pledged to “teach Palestine,” or educate students about the subject from a Palestinian perspective critical of Israel. Oakland teachers did so during an unsanctioned “teach-in” on Dec. 9, 2023, drawing rebukes from a group of pro-Israel Jewish families. The Berkeley schools superintendent, Enikia Ford Morthel, was called to testify before Congress last spring in response to a litany of complaints, including that a second-grade teacher supervised a lesson in which her students wrote “stop bombing babies” on sticky notes.

Dozens of Jewish families left the Oakland Unified School District early last

“This is one of many, many issues I filed complaints about. They take place all over the district. This is the first finding we’ve gotten. The district is very slow to respond.”

Marleen Sacks, attorney

year due to concerns about antisemitism and one-sided instruction about the conflict.

Amid this atmosphere of heightened tension, teachers with strong pro-Palestinian views have pledged to carry on and oppose efforts by district administrators, pro-Israel Jewish families and others to tamp down their plans to introduce materials in the classroom absent of Israel’s perspective.

Three witnesses “tried to engage in a dialogue with Reddy about the posters and the impact they had,” the report said, “but Reddy was not interested in discussing the matter beyond defending their right to display them.”

The report added, “The variety in age,

On Jan. 16, a group called the Oakland Education Association for Palestine, an off-shoot of the teachers union, held an information session called “Teaching Palestine in 2025.” A digital flyer for the event said it was designed to help teachers “feel empowered in teaching about the ongoing genocide in Gaza” and provide information on what it described as “OUSD’s repression of Palestinian solidarity.” n

An Oakland Unified School District meeting on Nov. 9, 2023. (COURTESY)

SHABBAT AROUND THE TABLE DINNER

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 5:00 – 8:30 PM

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO

Community Partners:

Bishulim SF

Honeymoon Israel

JCCSF Camp

Jewish Baby Network

PJ Library

Wise Sons at the JCCSF

Supporters:

Barbara Bass Bakar

Crankstart

Linda & Sandy Gallanter

The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation

Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund

Koret Foundation

The Koum Family Foundation

Taube Philanthropies

Corporate Sponsors:

Bank of San Francisco

ECHO Technology Solutions, Inc.

Woodruff Sawyer

In inaugural address, Trump casts himself as ‘peacemaker’

BEN SALES | JTA

In his defiant return to o ce, President Donald Trump cast himself as a “peacemaker” during his inaugural address and cited the release of the “hostages in the Middle East.”

In a benediction following Trump’s inaugural address on Jan. 20, the president of Yeshiva University prayed for the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza — a er three women were released the previous day — as well as for calm on college campuses.

Trump, inaugurated to his second term as president in a ceremony freckled with prominent Jewish a endees, focused his address on what he predicted would be the “golden age of America.” Among the domestic policies he outlined were a broad crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the imposition of tari s and a halt to government recognition of transgender identity.

on in the weeks before entering o ce. He also vowed to retake control of the Panama Canal, which the United States ceded to Panama decades ago.

“Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable,” he said.

“We will measure our success not only by the ba les we win but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” he added.

“Hear the cry of the hostages, both American and Israeli, whose pain our president so acutely feels,” said Berman, who Y.U. said was the first American Israeli to speak at a presidential inauguration. “We are so thankful for the three young women who just yesterday returned home, and pray that the next four years brings peace to Israel and throughout the Middle East.”

Before mentioning the hostages, Berman also obliquely referenced the pro-Palestinian protests that rocked university campuses last year, praying that God “guide our schools and college campuses, which have been experiencing such unrest, to inspire the next generation to pair progress with purpose, knowledge with wisdom and truth with virtue.”

He spoke of his election victory in November. But he also took aim at what he called a “catalogue of catastrophic events abroad” under his predecessor, Joe Biden. Trump did not mention the wars in Ukraine, Israel or Gaza by name but lamented a “government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders.”

He pledged to reduce American military involvement abroad and to end foreign conflicts, a pledge he made repeatedly during the campaign and doubled down

To comfort, care, and companionship Let us handle the cooking, cleaning, and maintenance, so you can focus on enjoying life to the fullest in a supportive and welcoming community.

Experience a lifestyle tailored to your needs, with attentive staff, enriching activities, and a welcoming environment that feels just like home Your well-being is our priority, and we're here to make every day special

Call (650) 600-6926 to schedule a time to experience the vibrant life at Moldaw today! For more information, visit our website at moldaw.org

Trump’s advisers were central to the Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage release deal that o cially began the day before the inauguration. Trump has since signaled that he is commi ed to making the cease-fire last. e deal’s initial phase is set to see a total of 33 Israeli hostages released over six weeks in exchange for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners. Later phases include the release of the remaining hostages and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier, that’s what I want to be,” Trump said in his address. “I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed o ce, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.” e line drew a standing ovation.

He gave his half-hour address in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in front of a crowd that included prominent Jewish Americans.

Miriam Adelson, the Republican megadonor who was one of Trump’s biggest supporters, was in a endance. Also present were Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his Jewish daughter and son-in-law who were heavily involved in his first administration but are expected to stay out of his incoming White House.

Berman was one of a range of faith leaders to deliver prayers at the ceremony, though one who had been on the program did not appear. Imam Husham al-Husainy of Dearborn, Michigan, a Muslim-majority city that Trump won in November, was due to speak. But he sparked protest from right-wing activists who objected to his past comments defending the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah — with which Israel just fought a monthslong conflict.

“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end.”

At a post-inauguration rally at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., family members of Israelis held hostage in Gaza appeared onstage with Trump.

ey were joined by Noa Argamani, a former hostage who was freed by the Israeli army in June. e Israelis, many holding hostage posters and all wearing yellow scarves, were called on stage by Witko , who played a crucial role in the hostage deal.

Tech magnates Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman were there, as was Jacob Reses, a top aide to Vice President J.D. Vance. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate minority leader, a ended, as did Steve Witko , Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Following Trump’s address was a benediction by Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, the flagship Orthodox institution in New York City. Berman began with a famous quote in Hebrew from Jeremiah, “Blessed is the one who trusts in God.” Berman proceeded to speak in greater detail about the Israeli hostages as well as unrest on college campuses.

In addition to Trump signing controversial executive orders at the rally, tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk created alarm a er twice appearing to deliver a Nazi salute. His gestures divided the Jewish community, which was le trying to determine Musk’s intentions. Musk, for his part, pinned a video of his speech with the salute to his X page. He mocked his critics without explicitly clarifying the salute’s intent, writing on X, “Frankly, they need be er dirty tricks. e ‘everyone is Hitler’ a ack is sooo tired.” ■

Philissa Cramer and Andrew Lapin of JTA contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump

Then President-elect Donald Trump speaking at AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 22. (GAGE SKIDMORE)

Alexandra Kaplan, Companioa Caregiver Coach, with a Companioa Member

Gala Honoree Adele Corvin

L.A. WILDFIRES

Anguished L.A. communities carry on with Jewish life

EMMA GOSS | J. STAFF

LOS ANGELES | Orly Israel first spotted the smoke in Pacific Palisades around 10 a.m. on that fateful Tuesday, Jan. 7.

“You could see that hill on fire,” he told J. three days later, motioning into the distance as he stood in the ruins of his family home in the once-bucolic neighborhood in Los Angeles. “That’s when we started packing.”

Israel, 30, along with his younger brother and their parents, evacuated after pulling together photo albums, journals, passports and computers, as well as a couple days’ worth of clothes.

“I would have thrown everything I own in my car if I could have, if I’d thought, ‘Oh, this is everything you get,’” he said.

The same night, Israel came back with a friend, determined to save his family’s home. (A video of their firefighting efforts has been viewed millions of times on social media.)

With trees and fences on fire, embers flying and winds gusting, they used a garden hose to try to saturate the property. But as the flames closed in, they were forced to flee. The entire house was consumed.

“I was right here, spraying this lawn, spraying the fence,” he said just three days later. “It was surreal.”

J. visited L.A.’s Jewish communities as they observed their first Shabbat amid evacuations, flames and smoke during the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles County’s history. Strong Santa Ana winds have tested the limits of fire crews, with more brush fires and hot spots popping up. At least 28 people have died. The fires have scorched some 40,000 acres, bigger than all of San Francisco.

As of Jan. 22, the larger Pacific Palisades Fire was 68 percent contained, with 11 confirmed dead. The more destructive Eaton Fire, which killed 17 people, was 91 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

The Los Angeles area is home to the second largest Jewish community in the U.S., with more than half a million Jews, according to a 2021 Brandeis University study. An estimated 125,000 Jews live in areas impacted by the fires. Hundreds of Jewish residents lost their homes.

Many Bay Area residents have family, friends and other close connections in Los Angeles. L.A. native Paul Lowenthal, division chief fire marshal for the Santa Rosa Fire Department, is more familiar than most with the devastation of wildfires. As a veteran of the department, he experienced the horrors of the 2017 Tubbs Fire, which consumed 36,800 acres, killed 22 people, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and wiped out URJ Camp Newman.

On Jan. 9, Lowenthal arrived in Pasadena with about 70 Sonoma County firefighters to provide mutual aid. He spoke with reporters

and community members, answering their questions and hearing their stories.

Pasadena is Lowenthal’s hometown. The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, destroyed early on in the conflagration, was the synagogue where he became a bar mitzvah and where his father once served as president.

“There’s a lot of family history there,” he told J. on Jan. 10, standing across the street from his former middle school, which suffered “significant” fire damage. “There’s a lot of connections.”

Also in L.A. from the Bay Area were Rabbi Nico Socolovsky and seven members of Congregation Shir Hadash, his synagogue in Los Gatos.

prepared baskets of supplies and homemade treats for first responders, including handwritten messages of gratitude.

PACIFIC PALISADES

On Jan. 10, Orly Israel and his father arrived at what for 20 years had been their family home in the so-named Alphabet Streets, a flat residential area with blocks named in alphabetical order. They began sorting through the rubble and ash to see what, if anything, was salvageable.

“This was the doorway,” Israel told J., gesturing to a pile of debris. “I want to find a mezuzah, I really do.”

So far, the only meaningful item recovered from his childhood home was a clay

Cellin Gluck, a Hollywood feature filmmaker, was heading to his home nearby to find out what was left.

“Dude, do you want a hug?” Israel asked him. Gluck responded with a chuckle.

Pacific Palisades is a tight-knit neighborhood. Over the years, Gluck and his family had enjoyed Shabbat dinners at the Israel home, and at least one Passover seder.

Over at Gluck’s property, more ashes and rubble. Not a single home was standing for several blocks.

Gluck and his wife bought their house in 1998 and raised their two children to adulthood there. On Jan. 7, the day the fires broke out, Gluck’s wife and daughter evacuated, taking along their four cats and dogs.

They came for the Kol Tefilla conference held in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, where a large concentration of Jews and Jewish businesses are located. The threeday “soulful Shabbat experience” hosted by Temple Beth Am went on as planned, though more than two dozen attendees canceled.

Naomi Parker, a member of Shir Hadash, also considered canceling, concerned that her presence could “add to the chaos” as Angelenos were evacuating. But when she saw an email update from conference organizers encouraging attendees to come in solidarity with Los Angeles, participate in creative worship and singing, and engage in community service, she was grateful for the opportunity.

”I thought, of course, that’s our way,” Parker said. On Jan. 12, conference attendees

vessel created by his grandmother Joan Israel that depicts the Old City of Jerusalem. “There’s a menorah,” he said, pointing to a painted scene on the pottery.

Israel, a freelance development executive, had recently moved back in with his parents as he prepared to launch a new company. His father, David M. Israel, is an Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning television producer who has been behind hit shows for 30 years. He was just a few months away from retiring, his son told J. The house was going to be rented out, and his parents were planning to take time to travel. None of that looks possible now, Israel said.

As Israel was being interviewed, a family friend from the neighborhood pulled up in a car.

Kehillat Israel synagogue was left standing, but roughly 300 households — nearly a third of the 920-household congregation — lost their homes.

Gluck and two neighbors stayed behind to try to divert stray embers from lighting their homes on fire — until it became far too dangerous to keep trying.

In the rubble on Jan. 10, he found three coffee mugs intact, including one from his wedding set.

“This was my wife’s favorite coffee cup,” Gluck said. Another was a gift from his son. And the third belonged to his mother. He also found a sculpture he’d made as a kid.

Gluck said he wasn’t interested in mourning for the home he lost.

“I’d grieve if somebody died, but I’m not going to grieve for a house,” he said. “I’m sitting here going, ‘Goddammit, I should have grabbed that or I should have grabbed this,’ but I didn’t. It’s a lot of stuff. It’s years of stuff. But it’s stuff.”

Firefighters respond to the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles on Jan. 7. (CAL FIRE/FLICKR)

L.A. WILDFIRES

Just a mile away is Kehillat Israel, the largest Reconstructionist congregation in the United States. The synagogue was left standing, but roughly 300 households — nearly a third of the 920-household congregation — lost their homes. Among them were Senior Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Associate Rabbi Daniel Sher and Rabbi Emeritus Steven Carr Reuben. More homes are still in danger, and Kehillat is closed due to the evacuations and risk.

Pacific Palisades is a “warm and haimish” neighborhood that has always felt like the “nicest shtetl in America,” Sher told J. on Jan. 12. He often saw Kehillat Israel members out in the community, running into them at his children’s school pickup, at the farmers market and at Cafe Vida, a popular restaurant now destroyed.

That the synagogue itself came out unscathed is seen as somewhat of a miracle. While buildings across the street lie in ruin, Kehillat’s landscaping is still green. The “audible relief” expressed by congregants upon hearing that the synagogue survived “is proof that what we had can be rebuilt,” Sher said. “As Jews, we’ve done that for a long time.”

PASADENA

As the Eaton Fire was bearing down the night of Jan. 7, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris and her husband, Laurence Harris, drove to the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC), where they met up with the building’s security guard and the synagogue president. The four were on a rescue mission to save all 11 Torah scrolls.

Ash and embers were flying in their faces, Laurence Harris recalled to J. The electricity was out, but the Torahs were already in the lobby. Former Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater had come earlier to remove them from the sanctuary and chapel. The group managed to get every Torah scroll, unscathed, into the Harris family’s car

— including one of particular historical importance.

“There’s one, a Persian Torah, that they smuggled out of Iran during the Iranian Revolution,” Harris said.

On Friday afternoon, Jan. 10, he stood overlooking the debris and mangled remnants of what once was a sanctuary, a chapel, a Hebrew school and a community preschool. The historic Conservative synagogue had occupied its address on North Altadena Drive for 80 years.

“Hundreds of thousands of lifecycle events have gone on here,” Harris said. “The most incredible thing is the memories.”

With sundown approaching, his focus turned to Shabbat.

“We’re still running a synagogue, even though we don’t have a building,” Harris said, pulling up information on his phone to share the location for services and a potluck dinner that night. “It doesn’t matter about the building. It’s the leadership and the people who make the synagogue.”

The next day, PJTC Rabbi Jill Gold Wright focused Shabbat morning services on gratitude. Some 50 members were gathered in a Catholic school’s theater — just four days after the fire destroyed their synagogue and many homes in the community.

They read from one of the Torah scrolls saved from the fire.

Noah Golden-Krazner, the Torah reader that morning, wore jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt rather than his usual buttondown shirt and tallit. He and his family had evacuated with their two cats from their home in Altadena, and he hadn’t packed a Shabbat wardrobe.

He barely had time to practice the week’s portion, he said, yet still chanted it all the way through.

Gold Wright paused before the

continued on page 12

Susan Alexander

Claire Axelrad and Mark Pahlavan

Judith L. Bloom

Jacquelyn Brand

Stanley Brandes

Allison and Richard Lenat

Elaine Highiet

Jill Hoffknecht

Sandra J. Johnson

Rabbi Valerie Joseph*

Ava Kahn and Mitchell Richman

Sue Adler-Bressler and Dave Bressler

Lisa Chanoff

Mary E. Claugus

Marsha Cohen and Robert Feyer

Jeff Colvin

Anna and Leon Cooper

Susan B. Crystal

Lael Culiner and Josh Smith*

Doris and Larry Cutler

Joanne Donsky and Stuart Oremland

Marianne and Albert Figen Foundation

Barbara E. Finkelstein

Susan Bacher Fox

Bob Frankle

Rivka Sherman-Gold and Irving Gold

Alisa Goldberg

Juliette and Jeffrey Goldman*

Susan M. Goldsmith

Barbara Goldstein

RoseAnn and Norman Goodwin

Stella and David Goodwin

Allison J. Green

Nancy Greenberg and Martin A. Segol

Pamela Grossman

Danielle Hacker and Jake Teitelbaum

Xenia and Gary Hammer*

Margaret Hand and John Hartog

Susan Helmrich and Richard Levine

Rachel and Michael Kesselman

Tanir Ami Konecky and Josh Konecky

Bobby Kushner

Bobbie Landau

Judy Leash

Irene F. Lefton

Daniel Lehmann

Claude L. Lowen

Gwen and Patrick Mahoney

Melanie Maier*

Miriam and Abe Mazliach

Denise and Erik Migdail

Gale Mondry and Bruce Cohen*

Barbara and Robert Morrison

Susan Phillips-Moskowitz and Peter Moskowitz

David Moss

John S. Osterweis

Martha and Richard Pastcan

Carolyn Pines and Judy Schwartz

Jing and Joel Piser

Denise and Mike Pope

Mary and David Rabb

Michele Rabe

Rayna and Richard Ravitz

Ruth Sherman Ress and Victor Ress

Laurel Rest

Alissa Robinow

Susan Romer and Don Ungar

Eva and Aaron Roodman

Maureen and Paul Roskoph

Barbara and Sheldon Rothblatt

Susan Saltzman

Janet Schneider

Kenneth Schwartz

Marilyn Sefchovich

Gail and Steven Shak

Michael Silverman

Carolyn and Mark Solomon

Anthony Stone

Raphael Stricker

Cherie Tannenbaum

Jennifer Taxay

Diane and Dave Toole

Shayna and Derek van Hoften

Bonnie Volk and Jonathan Blatteis

Donna and Stewart Weinberg

Ted B. Wertheimer

Ruth Willheim

Julie Wilton and Harry Shulman

Diane and Josh Wirtschafter

Linda and Steven Wolan

Susan Wolfe

David Zebker

Judy and Steve Zimmerman

Anonymous

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

Cellin Gluck holds coffee mugs he found in the rubble of his house in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 10. (EMMA GOSS/J. STAFF)

Fast-moving L.A. fires leave Pasadena synagogue in ruins

continued

list of names, she turned toward the congregants and began naming those present whose homes were destroyed in the fire. Among them were Levine Grater, as well as the sisterhood president and the synagogue security guard.

e worshippers joined in, calling out more names. ey prayed for the families in their congregation whose homes were now charred rubble and for the entire community who had lost their spiritual home.

“We pray for refuah shlema,” Gold Wright said, “for a complete and whole healing of our bodies, of our minds, of our hearts and of our souls.”

Several worshippers embraced throughout the service, some wiping tears from their eyes.

HELPING ONE ANOTHER

Synagogues and Jewish communities around Los Angeles quickly stepped up to help.

In Pasadena, members of PJTC have been hosting families in their homes. One congregant, who works for the restaurant chain Sweetgreen, provided packaged vegetarian salads.

Adat Ari El, a Conservative synagogue in Valley Village in the San Fernando Valley, plans to host PJTC’s services and b’nai mitzvah for as long as they need a space, Senior Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei told J.

“We’re going to give you our sanctuary, you’re going to run it like your service, and we’ll be guests in our own home,” Schuldenfrei said he told the clergy. “We want to stand in support of you.”

To Schuldenfrei, the gesture is in line with what he’s witnessed during the crisis.

”People have just opened their hearts with acts of love and kindness,” he said.

Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue near UCLA, opened its main sanctuary to Kehillat Israel’s congregation over Shabbat, Sher said, and Sinai Akiba Academy, a private Jewish day school in L.A., collected

new toys for Kehillat children who had not been able to return home.

“Over 300 people came Friday night and prayed,” Sher said, and “80 percent of the people there lost their homes.” e next day, they hosted a bar mitzvah for a family who had evacuated.

“To throw candy four days a er this devastation … nothing will stop us from celebrating the people who deserve to be celebrated and connect to a tradition that’s timeless.”

With his house destroyed, Sher and his wife were staying with family in Redondo Beach, along with their children, ages 7, 5 and 2, and their dogs, Herzl and Golda.

“All of this is a Jewish lesson,” Sher said. “We know this too shall pass. Our story is one of renewal and pain and also taking that story and being the light that the world needs”

Lowenthal has seen this play out in his own Santa Rosa neighborhood, ravaged by fires more than once.

“I didn’t know nearly as many of my neighbors before the fires as I do now,” he said. “As a neighborhood, we’re a lot stronger.” ■

Orly Israel holds pottery his grandmother made depicting Jerusalem’s Old City. He found it in the rubble of his childhood home on Jan. 10. (EMMA GOSS/J. STAFF)

Los Angeles fire relief: Here’s how donations can help

J. STAFF

As L.A. communities struggle in the aftermath of the fires, many in the Bay Area Jewish community have mobilized to help. At San Francisco’s Manny’s cafe, owner Manny Yekutiel, who is from L.A., collected donations of nonperishable food, masks, baby supplies and other urgent supplies and drove them to L.A. with other volunteers. Value Culture, a Jewishled San Francisco nonprofit, donated the proceeds from a weekend of events to support fire relief. The Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region also launched a fundraising campaign. “Having experienced this in our region not long ago, our hearts go out to the Los Angeles community,” said an email from staff.

Here is a list of L.A.-based organizations accepting donations for fire relief and assistance.

KEHILLAT ISRAEL (PALISADES)—The congregation in Pacific Palisades has set up the KI Community Palisades Fire Assistance Fund. While the synagogue survived the fires, hundreds of members, including the clergy, lost their homes. Proceeds will go toward aiding those who suffered major losses or need financial assistance, ourki.org/firefund.

PASADENA JEWISH TEMPLE AND CENTER—The 100-year-old synagogue burned to the ground Jan. 7 in the Eaton Fire, and many congregants lost their homes. A GoFundMe campaign seeks to raise $500,000 for “needs not

covered by other aid” and to support the community, tinyurl. com/PasadenaGoFundMe. Donations can also be made to the PJTC directly either via its website at pjtc.net/payment.php, or by mailing checks/gift cards to 1355 N. Mentor Ave., P.O. Box 41660, Pasadena, CA 91104.

CHABAD FIRE RELIEF FUNDS—Chabad of Pacific Palisades has set up a Palisades Emergency Support United Relief Campaign to help affected residents who have suffered catastrophic losses, ChabadPalisades.com/firerelief. Chabad of Pasadena is also raising funds, charidy.com/fires.

FRIENDS IN DEED—A nonprofit that provides support and resources to vulnerable Angelenos experiencing homelessness or on the verge of homelessness. Executive director is Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, former rabbi at Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, who with his staff has been operating a round-the-clock shelter. friendsindeedpas.org/ donate-to-friends-in-deed.

JEWISH FREE LOAN ASSOCIATION—The JFLA offers zero-interest and zero-fee loans to people of all faiths and backgrounds. Affected L.A.-area residents can apply for a Wildfire Relief Loan to cover emergency expenses, including temporary housing, at jfla.org/firerelief. Donate to the JFLA loan fund at tinyurl.com/JFLAFund.

JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER LOS ANGELES—A Wildfire Crisis Relief Fund will support affected community members, jewishla.org/wildfire-crisis-relief, or mail a check payable to JFEDLA (“Wildfire Relief Fund” in the memo line), P.O. Box 54269, Los Angeles, CA 90054-0269.

JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE LOS ANGELES—JFSLA is collecting donations to provide assistance to impacted communities, jfsla.org/fire-assistance.

LA ARTS RELIEF FUND—The Getty Museum is leading a Los Angeles Arts Community coalition to provide emergency relief for artists who lost their homes, studios or livelihoods in the fires. To donate, visit tinyurl.com/LAArtsFund.

LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION—L.A.’s city funding does not cover all of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s operational costs; the LAFD Foundation helps meet the remaining needs of local firefighters, tinyurl.com/ LAFDFund.

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN L.A.—The council is offering $100 vouchers per person per household to support displaced individuals and families that can be used at the council thrift stores. The fund will help impacted families with urgent wildfire relief needs, ncjwla.org/lafire. n

Judy Bloom, advocate for women and peace, dies at 80

SPECIAL TO J.

Judith Gold Bloom, a fierce advocate for women’s rights, devoted her life to mentoring and advocating for women in business and politics. She also worked to promote peace among Israelis and Palestinians.

Bloom died on Jan. 8 at the age of 80.

“Judy could walk the fine line of being warm and welcoming while also stating her thoughts and feelings clearly and with confidence,” said Rabbi Lisa Kingston of Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo, where Bloom’s memorial service was held on Jan. 12. Kingston considered Bloom her “moral compass” around social justice and Israel.

“Her respect was earned because of her commitment to Jewish values and study. Her opinion was valued because we knew it was well-formed and thoughtful,” Kingston said.

Born in Chicago on Dec. 14, 1944, Bloom and her family later moved to Sacramento, where she met her future husband, Jordan Bloom, through a Jewish youth group.

A er graduating summa cum laude from UC Berkeley, Judy taught French and Spanish to middle-school students. When her three

children were young, she began a lifetime of service volunteering at an array of organizations, including ORT America, the League of Women Voters, Shalom Bayit, the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women, the Peninsula JCC, Peninsula Temple Beth El and Jewish Community Relations Council.

Bloom was a mentor to Naomi Tucker, executive director of the Bay Area domestic-violence prevention nonprofit Shalom Bayit, for over two decades.

“She was a fiercely unapologetic advocate for women, the Jewish people, Israel, and bridge-building for peace,” Tucker said in an email. “A true justice warrior, no task was too big or too small for her. She was incredibly hardworking and dedicated, a tireless volunteer and consummate professional, a wise, incredibly skilled and open-hearted leader, a ray of sunshine and joy in many lives.”

In 1983, when then-Assemblywoman Jackie Speier was forming the San Mateo County Advisory Council on Women, she tapped Bloom to help found the group. As chair of the council, Bloom led

We mourn the loss of our beloved leader, mentor, friend and Legacy/Endowment Chair

JUDY GOLD BLOOM, z”l

A pioneering feminist leader in the Bay Area Jewish community, Judy gently yet firmly paved a path for justice wherever she went. She fought for women’s safety, independence and equality alongside her pursuit of many passions and causes. She led with kindness, love, curiosity, deep wisdom, clear purpose, a joyful heart and unrelenting determination.

Her three decades of extraordinary leadership and mentoring to so many of us at Shalom Bayit are a gift to generations. May her memory inspire us to carry forward her principled legacy of working for peace and justice.

groundbreaking hearings in which low-income women testified about the feminization of poverty.

She ended up spending a decade on Speier’s sta , serving as her district director. “She was incredibly smart, organized and principled,” said Speier, who remained a close friend a er going on to serve in Congress. “She was a feminist before it was common — let alone

a ractive — and she put 150% into whatever it was she was doing.”

Working with Speier, Bloom became the founding president of the Professional Business Women’s Conference, focused on developing and mentoring women. She went on to serve as executive director for Resourceful Women, director of employer services at Jewish Vocational Service, and director/ development o cer for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Endowment Fund.

A er she retired in 2010, she packed her life with her passions: flowers, cooking, travel, music and dancing. She was a dedicated Torah student and got involved with the New Israel Fund and J Street, traveling to Israel and visiting the West Bank to promote a two-state solution. In the final months of her life, she was teaching young children to swim and tutoring children in English and Spanish.

She is survived by her husband, Jordan, children Michael, Nicole and Jon; daughtersin-law Diane, Sue and Jill; grandchildren Miriam, Elena, Evan, Marlee and Anya; and brother Norm. ■

Judy Bloom (COURTESY)

Mira Shelub, partisan who resisted Nazis, dies at 102

LEA LOEB | J. STAFF

Mira Shelub was a survivor, and she was a fighter. She was just 20 years old and laboring in a work camp in 1942 when she joined a unit of wartime Jewish partisans, hid in the Polish forest, conducted combat missions and resisted Nazi tyranny. A er two years, she came out of the forest alongside the man she would marry, and took steps to begin her new life.

On Dec. 30, 2024, Mira Shelub died in San Francisco. She was 102.

Mira was born Jan. 13, 1922, in Zhetel, Poland, and raised in a modest but happy home with her father, Chaim Michoel Raznov, who owned a general store, her mother, Chanah Rashke, her sister, Sara, and her brother, Morris.

“ ey didn’t have much in material means,” said her oldest son, Irwin Shelub, “but they made the most of what they had, and they were rich in spirit.”

Mira was ambitious and studious from a young age, with aspirations of becoming a teacher. A er a ending a Yiddish elementary school, she was one of only two students accepted into the prestigious

Real-Gymnasium in Vilna. At age 13, she moved nearly 100 miles away to live with relatives while pursuing her education, focusing on Yiddish language and literature.

“She wanted to leave her li le small town and go to something more vibrant and big,” said Elaine Shelub, Mira’s daughter. “She was very young… but this was a theme for her. She had a will to do things once she made a decision, and she had dreams for herself.”

However, her studies in Vilna were disrupted by the start of World War II and the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland. Mira returned home to Zhetel, persisting in her studies until June 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Within a week, Nazi forces were occupying Zhetel, forcing all Jews into a ghe o.

In August 1942, the Nazis began liquidating the ghe o, murdering nearly all 4,500 Jews living there. Among the 300 who escaped death were Mira and her sister, who hid behind a false wall in a chicken coop. When they emerged three days later, they were marched with other survivors to a work camp, where they were relieved to find that

the rest of their family had also survived.

One day, two partisans showed up in search of a doctor. Seeing an opportunity to escape from the work camp and fight for

their future, Mira, 20, and Sara, 17, convinced the partisans that they should join their movement. e sisters le and headed into the forest with their father’s blessing, throwing away their yellow stars.

“I see this choice as my passage to adulthood,” Mira wrote of that decision in “Never the Last Road: A Partisan’s Life,” her 2015 autobiography. “I began anew, going from victim to master of my own fate.”

Unlike many women in partisan groups, Mira did not limit herself to domestic tasks. She quickly proved herself capable of much more, becoming an armorer who managed the weapons and a trusted night patroller who guarded the group while they slept.

One night she was on patrol with Nuchem “Nonye” Szelubski, a young commander from a neighboring shtetl. e two began to talk — or argue, as their children today recall the story — and their debates led to a deep bond.

“Here they are, these two young people on guard duty, arguing about chemistry and politics,” said daughter Elaine Shelub. “And at

continued on page 41

Mira Shelub (COURTESY)

Spotlight on the Community Our Crowd

HONORS

Rabbi Zvika Krieger spiritual leader of Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, was ordained by Aleph: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal. This is his second rabbinic ordination and his first Renewal ordination. Krieger is a rabbinic entrepreneur fellow at the Center for Rabbinic Innovation and has served in board and leadership positions for Sukkat Shalom/Milk+Honey camp at Burning Man, Jewish Studio Project, DC Minyan and Temple of the Stranger. He previously worked as Facebook/ Meta’s first-ever director of responsible innovation

and as senior vice president of the Center for Middle East Peace in Washington, D.C. Krieger has a BA from Yale University and studied at the American University in Cairo and Yeshivat Sha’arei Mevaseret Zion near Jerusalem.

Aviv Elor, 27, and Ash Robbins, 28, were featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the health care category as co-founders of Immergo Labs, Inc. The Mountain View company uses artificial

intelligence and virtual reality to enable physical therapists to work via 3D telehealth with patients anywhere in the world. Both are graduates of UC Santa Cruz with degrees in robotics engineering; Elor also has a Ph.D in computational media and works as an adjunct professor on campus. He is the older brother of OIympic gold medal wrestler Amit Elor of Walnut Creek, who was an early tester of the Immergo platform.

Adam Swig, founder of the philanthropic and cultural nonprofit Value Culture, was honored by the City of San Francisco with Adam Swig Day on Dec. 29. The proclamation by the Board of Supervisors was presented by former board president Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Rafael Mandelman at the “Winter Wonderland Hanukkah Celebration” at Chase Center, hosted by Value Culture.

Adam’s grandmother, philanthropist Roselyne “Cissie” Swig, received recognition from San Francisco as well on Jan. 3, when she was presented with a key to the city by outgoing Mayor London Breed to honor her legacy of philanthropy, leadership and dedication to women’s empowerment, social welfare, education and the arts.

Three local educators are among a cohort of 80 fellows chosen for M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. They are Roy Meron, co-director of Jewish studies at Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City; Rory Katz, children and family educator at Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley; and Analucia Lopezrevoredo, founder and executive director of Jewtina Y Co. in San Francisco. M2’s fellowship brings together Jewish educators from around the world to reimagine the field of Jewish experiential education, providing fellows with the educational frameworks and pedagogical approaches needed to inspire meaning and purpose in Jewish life.

Taube Center for Jewish Studies writer-in-residence Maya Arad received the Neumann Prize for a lifetime of achievement in Hebrew literature, awarded by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This is the only major Israeli prize offered to Hebrew writers living in the diaspora. “The finest living author writing in Hebrew is in exile,” went one description of Arad’s work. “The Hebrew Teacher” recently made waves with its English translation; her latest novel is “Happy New Years.” The Hebrew edition was just published, and the book will be available in English in August 2025.

Two Bay Area college students were chosen for the Bronfman Fellowship’s Campus Commons program, which aims to help students break down barriers and build bridges across differences on university campuses. Clementine Leonard a Berkeley resident studying at UC Santa Cruz, and Lauren Tapper of Stanford University were selected to participate in the first cohort of the program.

HAPPENINGS

A delegation of young Jewish leaders from San Francisco attended the Chabad Young Professionals International Jewish Leader-

Adam Swig with his declaration from the city, flanked by S.F. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman (left) and former board president Aaron Peskin. (COURTESY)

Roselyne Swig receives the key to the city from outgoing San Francisco Mayor London Breed. (FRANCIS TSENG)

LEA LOEB | J. STAFF

Maya Arad (MIRA MAMON)

Rabbi Zvika Krieger (COURTESY)

Aviv Elor

ship Summit in New York City over MLK weekend. The gathering brought together 700 young Jewish leaders representing 100 cities and 30 countries worldwide. The San Francisco representatives participated in workshops and think-tank sessions tackling pressing issues such as rising antisemitism, dating and relationships, mental health, the Middle East and Judaism’s relevance in the modern world. Miriam and Brachie Ferris climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain. The mother-daughter team made the trek up the 19,341-foot mountain in Tanzania to raise funds and awareness for Friendship Circle, a nonprofit serving special-needs children. Miriam Ferris co-directs Chabad of Berkeley with her husband, Rabbi Yehuda Ferris.

The Jewish Film Institute-supported film “Coexistence, My Ass!” will have its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The film, directed by Amber Fares, follows Israeli comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi as she struggles to create a comedic one-woman show about racism, sexism, war, peace and… her backside. The film is the recipient of a JFI Completion Grant and the 2024 Envision Award, which recognizes a film’s ability to envision a world free of hate.

COMINGS & GOINGS

Jamie Simon has been named interim CEO of Foundation for Jewish Camp. She previously spent 17 years at Camp Tawonga, including

six years as its CEO, before becoming chief program and strategy officer at FJC in 2023. Jeremy Fingerman will step down as CEO in March after 15 years with the organization.

PHILANTHROPY

San Francisco philanthropist and Jewish community lay leader Nancy Grand donated $2.5 million to SF Hillel in honor of her late husband, Stephen Grand, a longtime Hillel supporter who died in 2021. SF Hillel serves both graduate and undergraduate students at nine campuses across San Francisco. As recognition for the gift, the SF Hillel house will be known as the Nancy and Stephen Grand Building. The funds will allow necessary renovations to the house at 33 Banbury Drive, including security upgrades and ADA accessibility. The gift and start of construction are contingent on SF Hillel raising $2.9 million by June 30, toward the overall campaign goal of $8.2 million.

“Stephen understood that San Francisco Hillel serves all Jewish students who attend secondary education in the city,” Nancy Grand said in a press release. “It is my hope that the renovated building will serve many more students at a time of critical need.”

OPPORTUNITIES

Applications for the San Francisco-based Jewish Film Institute’s Completion Grants are open. The grants provide resources for filmmakers finishing the final stages of their independent film and media arts projects that probe nuanced and surprising corners of Jewish life, history, culture and identity. Apply by Feb. 21. jfi.org n

At 100, Auschwitz survivor recalls ‘chaos, despair’

FIRST PERSON | LUBA GRUNGRAS

San Francisco resident Luba Grungras is a Holocaust survivor who recently celebrated her 100th birthday. The following is her testimony, as recalled and written down by her son, Neil Grungras. She will appear at S.F. Congregation Sha’ar Zahav at 2 p.m. Jan. 26 to share her story, with her son’s assistance, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls on Jan. 27.

I do not seek to “prove” to anyone that the Holocaust and Auschwitz were real. Those who deny will learn little from me or from the monuments you erect to the horrors European Jewry underwent.

Nor do I seek sympathy. At 100, I’ve lived more life, in more countries, than the vast majority of people. I raised two children and have three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I had a long career, lived as a strong, independent woman and enjoyed the love of friends and family. And if all this were not enough, I had the privilege of rebuilding a homeland in Israel after 2,000 years of Jewish dispersion. I can only wish each of you a century of life with the depth and kavanah (intention) that I had.

I tell you my story so that you may learn and teach others what American Jews have

Polish. Like many Polish women of her time, my mother was fluent in French, which she often spoke with her peers. The women of our family were well educated, and some studied at the Sorbonne.

Like most of my peers, I identified as Jewish by ethnicity and culture. I didn’t attend synagogue more than a handful of times in my life — neither in Poland nor during my years in the U.S. or Israel. Yet, my

I tell you my story so that you may learn and teach others what American Jews have not learned nearly well enough.

family and I were, and remain, Jews.

My parents were nominal Zionists. While we had been taught that Israel was the Biblical home of our forebears, this knowledge was purely theoretical. The “Promised Land” was seen as a destination for socialists, communists and idealists, not for the Polish-Jewish upper class.

I was 15 when the Nazis breached the

not learned nearly well enough: Antisemitism is a virus of endless mutations. As a Jew in the diaspora, you must never bury your head in the sand to this reality.

I was born in 1924 in Lodz, Poland, where my father’s family owned a large fabric-dye factory. On my mother’s side, my grandparents owned a textile factory in a nearby village, where many of the villagers worked. We lacked for nothing. One of my fondest memories is listening to my mother play Chopin and other classics. At home, we spoke

Polish border on Sept. 1, 1939. A week later, the Wehrmacht fully occupied Lodz. Measures to target and isolate the Jewish community began almost immediately. Widespread violence, looting and public humiliation were common. Jewish homes and businesses were raided by German soldiers and local collaborators, and Jewish-owned businesses and properties were seized.

The Lodz Ghetto was officially established on Feb. 8, 1940. Over the coming weeks, all of the Jews were forced to relocate to the

ghetto, allowed only to bring their most essential belongings. My family made the journey across the freezing city several times, transporting what little we could carry on a two-wheeled cart.

The Nazis never intended for all 233,000 of the Lodz Jews to survive. Only 160,000 were moved into the ghetto, which the Nazis intended as a labor hub. The remaining 70,000 — children, the elderly and the sick —

were either murdered on the spot or sent to the nearby Chelmno extermination camp.

Living conditions in the ghetto were horrific. We shared an outhouse with several families, and the only water source was an outdoor pump that froze in winter. Malnutrition was widespread, and starvation claimed countless lives. Despite the constant fear, suffering and death, we fought to preserve our humanity. Cultural, religious and social activities continued in secret.

The Lodz Ghetto was one of the last to be liquidated, in 1944, because of its importance to the German war economy. I was deported from the ghetto late that year, leaving my mother and sister Edzia behind.

The grueling 150-mile journey to Auschwitz lasted about three days. We were among thousands of deportees crammed into cattle cars, which had previously been used to transport livestock. We stood for the entire journey, with no ventilation, food, water or sanitation.

When the cattle car doors opened at Auschwitz, I was thrust into an atmosphere of terrifying chaos, confusion and despair. Immediately, a horrific stench overwhelmed me. I later learned it was the burning flesh of

new arrivals. The stench was searing, an odor no survivor will ever forget. Once it entered your lungs, you could never breathe freely again.

I was stripped of my clothes and given striped pajamas and wooden shoes to wear. A number was tattooed on my forearm. Living conditions in the women’s barracks were brutal, dehumanizing and relentlessly abusive. The barracks were filthy, with floors covered in dirt, urine and excrement. Without cleaning supplies or the ability to wash, the conditions were unbearable. The stench of human waste and decaying filth filled the air.

Several weeks after I arrived at Auschwitz, another inmate told me that my sister and mother had arrived. During the selection, Edzia was sent to the right. My mother, deemed beyond the age for labor, was sent to the left. Wanting to stay close to our mother, Edzia sprinted to the left to join her. A young Nazi guard barked at her to go to the right. A few minutes later, she tried again, and once more, he sent her back. On her third attempt, he did not intervene. She marched with our mother into the gas chamber.

In late 1944, as the Red Army advanced through Poland, the Nazis began transporting the remaining inmates of Auschwitz westward. We were sent by truck to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, deep inside Germany. On April 15, 1945, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen. They ordered the remaining Nazis to collect the hundreds of dead bodies scattered throughout the camp. When I awoke among the corpses, I did not understand I was still alive. ***

EDITOR’S NOTE: After liberation, Luba spent four years in Sweden, where she was reunited with her father, who also survived Auschwitz. The rest of her family died in the ghettos or death camps. In 1949, she immigrated to Israel, where she married and had a son and daughter.

In 1967, Luba, her husband and son Neil moved to New York, and in 2003, she moved back to Israel. It was only in October 2023, when the Israel-Hamas war began and Neil realized she was unable to get to her basement during bombing alerts, that he made the “hard decision” to bring her back to the U.S. She now lives at the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living.

Luba does not consider herself a Zionist but is adamant in her support for Israel as a safety net for the Jewish people. Sha’ar Zahav Rabbi Mychal Copeland recently visited and asked Luba what she should tell her congregants regarding increasing antisemitism in this country.

“My mother had two words for her,” Neil said. “Learn Hebrew.” n

Luba Grungras lived in Israel until she was 98, when her son moved her to San Francisco. (AARON LEVY-WOLINS/J. STAFF)

A 1920 photo of Luba Grungras’ mother’s family hangs in her room at the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living. Her mother is on the far left.

CAMPS & EDUCATION

Tawonga marks 100 years of melding Judaism

DAN PINE | CORRESPONDENT

Solomon Lezin-Schmidt doesn’t remember his first summer at Camp Tawonga. Why would he? He was only 2 at the time.

His mother was then a staffer at Tawonga, which explains his early introduction to the popular Jewish summer camp. Nearly every summer since, Lezin-Schmidt has returned, first as a camper, then as a counselor, drawn to the beauty and communal spirit of the site near Yosemite National Park.

“It creeps up on you. After a few days, you feel this deep satisfaction being in a natural space,” said Lezin-Schmidt, now 19. “I found all of my deepest friendships and connections at Camp Tawonga after years of shared memories and inside jokes, being able to exist without any stressors, forming bonds when you’re the best version of yourself.”

Now a sophomore at Whitman College, he represents the latest of many generations of Tawonga alumni.

This year, those generations will celebrate Tawonga’s 100th anniversary.

of investing in Jewish camps and Tawonga specifically. They know the payoff is that you raise a generation of people who grow up to be involved in Jewish life.”

A century ago, a group of Bay Area Jewish summer camp enthusiasts launched Tawonga, initially at Lake Tahoe. In 1964, the camp relocated to its current 160-acre Groveland location, on the Tuolumne River. Over the years, a Tawonga ethos took shape, embracing reverence for nature, fostering community and celebrating Jewish life.

Rabbi Deborah Newbrun is director emerita of Tawonga. As a teen, she worked there as a counselor. After graduating college she returned in 1983, becoming assistant director and eventually director, a post she held until 2006. She still adores the camp.

“I became a mentor and educator for camp directors around the country, so I’ve traveled to no less than 40 camps,” said Newbrun, who serves on J.’s board. “Camp Tawonga is the most spectacular. In the middle fork of

Campers, staffers and supporters past and present will mark the centennial with a party and fundraiser on March 8 in San Francisco. Money raised will bolster yearround camp programming, provide financial assistance to needy camp families and fund forest stewardship and maintenance.

“As we celebrate 100 years of Tawonga, I feel so grateful to generations of past leaders, family, staff, campers and supporters who made this possible,” said Tawonga CEO Rebecca Meyer. “People see the value

Tuolumne, with black oaks, pines and incense cedar, I just loved the place. I just loved that Judaism could be taught in the outdoors.”

Early in her tenure, Newbrun started Adventure Quest, a Tawonga program that offers teens backpacking, rock climbing, rafting and kayaking experiences in Big Sur, Canada and up and down the Sierras. It was one of many innovations that expanded Tawonga’s menu of activities, which now include family camps such as Keshet for LGBTQ+ families, a b’nai mitzvah program

periods of his life.

“My father passed away when I was 13,” Coffman said. “After he passed away, I felt really taken care of [at camp] — that support I got in a difficult time in my life, the intentionality of Tawonga, the canon of ethics, that the children come first. My years as a counselor, what I learned and practiced with other people’s kids, made me the parent I am today.”

Meyer has been serving in the camp’s top post since 2023 when she replaced longtime CEO Jamie Simon, who will become interim CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp in March. Meyer, who has been on Tawonga’s yearround staff for 20 years, said that one of her goals has been to preserve what has always been unique to the camp.

“I found all of my deepest friendships and connections at Camp Tawonga.”

Solomon

longtime camper and counselor

and High Holiday celebrations.

Shabbat is made extra special, with white linen tablecloths in the dining hall on Friday nights and only-on-Saturday sugar cereals offered on Shabbat morning.

“At Tawonga I learned the love for Judaism,” said David Coffman, 48, a San Francisco accountant who grew up a Tawonga camper and joined the board as an adult. “Singing prayers and Jewish songs, being in a loving Jewish community really grabbed me.”

Coffman traces his family history back to the Gold Rush days in San Francisco. His great-grandfather served as a rabbi at what was then Congregation Beth Israel (now Am Tikvah). His father was a Tawonga board member, which meant he started going to camp early: Coffman was 8 when he attended his first three-week summer session. He was a camper for eight years and later served as a counselor and assistant unit head.

Coffman credits camp with helping him get through one of the most traumatic

“People feel very separate and disconnected from nature,” she said. “We spend most of our time indoors, in paved concrete jungles, and a lot of time on screens. When you have the opportunity to see the stars at night, to hike to the top of a mountain and look at the view, to lean against a tree and read a book, to swim in fresh water, to hold a frog in your hands: These are the experiences people have at Tawonga. It makes you feel part of something bigger.”

For Lezin-Schmidt, that also meant a stronger sense of Jewish identity. “When I say the prayers I feel a sense of pride in the shared tradition and experiences,” he said. “One of the best experiences of my life was being on staff. Giving back to [Tawonga] felt so good because I was deeply shaped by my counselors. They taught me about healthy masculinity. That drove me to be the best counselor I could be.”

Tawonga has endured its share of tragedy. In 2013 and 2018, the camp evacuated because of nearby wildfires, the first of which burned several structures on the property. In 2013, 21-year-old arts instructor Annaïs Rittenberg died after a tree branch fell on her. And in 2021, counselor Eli Kane of Berkeley drowned in a nearby swimming hole while he was off duty.

Some key people will be missing from

Lezin-Schmidt,

Al Tyberg holds Buddy Katchinski at Tawonga’s Cisco Grove in 1926. (COURTESY CAMP TAWONGA)

Campers gather for Shabbat services at Camp Tawonga’s amphitheater in summer 2016.

(DAVID A.M. WILENSKY/J. STAFF)

and love of nature

the 100th birthday celebration. In 2022, longtime camp executive director Ken Kramarz, who did much to shape camp culture over the last 40 years, died at age 69. In 2023, former assistant director Ann Gonski who together with Newbrun and Kramarz formed what Coffman affectionately dubbed “the three-headed monster” of Tawonga, also passed away.

“I think about Ken every single day,” Meyer said. “I’m so inspired by his vision. We truly have brought to life his vision to grow from being a summer camp to being year round. He envisioned investing in our beautiful property: We built cabins, expanded the dining hall, built a health center, created

a development department and hired a communications director. It’s all part of the secret sauce that helped Tawonga thrive.”

Now that Camp Tawonga is turning a spry 100, its admirers are singing its praises.

“It speaks to a Bay Area ethos of loving nature,” Newbrun said, “of loving Judaism, of wanting to connect Jews to each other in a clean, healthy ideal environment. This summer oasis fortifies them for life.”

Lezin-Schmidt said that to him, Camp Tawonga “means everything in terms of how we will rebuild our world. It continues to demonstrate such important values to generation after generation. I wish there were more outlets like Camp Tawonga in the world.” n

Deborah Newbrun, left, joins other song leaders in 1985. (COURTESY CAMP TAWONGA)

From right, camp leaders Ken Kramarz, Deborah Newbrun and Rabbi Sydney Mintz help lead a Shabbat stroll in the 2000s. (COURTESY CAMP TAWONGA)

Grants from Israel aim to strengthen local Jewish education

SUE FISHKOFF | CORRESPONDENT

EarlyJ, which supports 48 Jewish preschools across the Bay Area, and NorCal Jewish Day Schools, a regional collaboration of a dozen schools, are local recipients of historic grants approved by the Israeli government.

In all, seven Jewish groups in the U.S are receiving a total of $4 million in grants from the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism, aiming to improve the quality of education and attract more students.

The grants, announced in late November, represent the first time that an Israeli government agency has financially supported formal Jewish education in the U.S., according to those interviewed by J.

“What is important is that the State of Israel is saying, for the future of the Jewish people, we must invest in deep Jewish education in the diaspora,” said Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah, an umbrella group for Jewish day schools in North America that also received a grant.

Bernstein noted that the Israeli government has in the past given money to day schools in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, as well as to less formal forms of Jewish education in North America, such as summer camps and Hillels.

The grant program was initially announced in June 2023 by Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, who said that his ministry would allocate $40 million to a new project called Aleph Bet aimed at strengthening Jewish education in the U.S., particularly in the wake of increased antisemitism.

The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and subsequent war put the brakes on the project until fall 2024. The grant amount also dropped significantly, to $4 million.

Aleph Bet is a joint initiative of the ministry and the Jewish Federations of North America. A nonprofit called UnitEd chose the recipients and is running the project, which focuses on increasing day school and preschool enrollment, fostering Jewish identity and improving both quality of education and connections to Israel.

“The Ministry understands the relationship between a strong Jewish identity, best developed in a Jewish day school, and the battle against antisemitism,” Rabbi Scot Berman, a UnitEd director who is overseeing Aleph Bet, told J. in an email. “The Jewish people need Jews that identify Jewishly and are proud of who they are, where they came from and where they are going. The way to do that is through education.”

Distributed across the seven organizations, the $4 million is symbolic more than anything else, said those interviewed.

generation of leadership?”

The Jewish day schools in Northern California have worked together for more than 20 years, Sandel noted, with the heads of schools meeting regularly to discuss issues of common concern. In 2021, with help from the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund — both based in San Francisco — the 12 day schools in the region formalized their relationship by creating NorCal Jewish Day Schools. The organization seeks to increase enrollment b persuading more Jewish parents of

It seeks to transform the “reach and quality” of Jewish early childhood education.

The Weingarten Foundation joined as an anchor funder in 2024. Together the three foundations helped fund the project with $12 million for its first five years; additional funders pushed the total over $20 million.

EarlyJ’s goal is to “significantly increase” preschool enrollment. Both EarlyJ and UnitEd see early childhood ed as the start of a pathway for children through the Jewish educational system “and exposing them and their families to Jewish life,” said EarlyJ founding president and executive director Sharona Israeli-Roth.

The NorCal group is receiving $160,000, said Peg Sandel, head of school at Brandeis Marin, a K-8 school in San Rafael that is part of NorCal Jewish Day Schools.

“It’s not big dollars. It’s not game-changing for us,” she said. Regardless, Sandel added, the money is meaningful for what it represents.

“For 70-plus years, the direction of support has been diaspora communities giving to Israel to support Jewish life in Israel,” said Sandel, speaking on behalf of the group. “This is really the first time where Israel said: Hey, the folks in America are struggling under rising antisemitism and growing anti-Zionism. Is there a way in which we can support the work of Jewish day schools, which we know are strong incubators of strong Jewish identity, cultivating the next

the value of day school education.

Sandel and Bernstein said they believe that such a collaboration is unique nationwide. Berman concurred and said the same is true about EarlyJ, noting that this is why the two groups were chosen for grants.

“UnitEd found these to be exciting initiatives that have local support, are measurable, sustainable and replicable. They are also both innovative in their thinking and strategy, and offer a large-scale solution to problems that were usually solved (or not) on a school-by-school or sole organization level,” he told J.

EarlyJ launched in spring 2023 as a joint venture of the Rodan Family Foundation and the Koum Family Foundation.

Nationwide, some 20% of Jewish families send their children to Jewish preschools, but according to a 2017 Federation study, that is true for just 16% of Jewish families in the Bay Area. EarlyJ’s goal is to raise that number to 20% by 2027.

EarlyJ works by giving grants and by funding programs designed to help the 48 preschools in the Bay Area improve their reach and the quality of their education, and to develop and strengthen their leadership, Israeli-Roth said.

In less than two years, EarlyJ has distributed more than $3 million through 46 grants. Some have helped schools increase capacity, such as $50,000 to the JCCSF preschool that enabled it to enroll more than two dozen new students and run for a full day; and some have expanded school activities, such as $50,000 to bring a Jewish music program to five local preschools.

In addition, EarlyJ supported the creation of three new Jewish preschools in the Bay Area last year, helped add security to many schools in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, and increased enrollment in local preschools by 7.9%.

“Our work truly highlights the importance and distinctiveness of Jewish early childhood education, positioning it as a critical stage in shaping the future of the Jewish community,” Israeli-Roth said. Preschools “are not babysitters. This is where the Jewish community starts, and our responsibility is to invest in them.”

How will these two organizations use their grant money?

Sandel said the $160,000 grant to the NorCal group will help kickstart the next phase of the 12 Jewish day schools’ marketing campaign: hiring a consultant who will help each school develop a marketing strategy — much more efficient than each school hiring its own consultant, which would be financially prohibitive, Sandel said.

Adding the Diaspora Ministry to its list of donors will help NorCal generate interest from other philanthropists, Sandel noted. “It shows we have attracted attention abroad,” she said.

Israeli-Roth and Berman declined to say how much money EarlyJ is receiving, but Israeli-Roth said the money will augment grants it gives to local Jewish preschools.

Becoming part of the Aleph Bet project is about more than receiving grants, both Sandel and Israeli-Roth said. The seven recipient groups will convene monthly and will present their work to other Jewish educators at conferences.

“So the work is not just receiving the money,” Israeli-Roth said, “but creating those relationships and sharing information that will make us better.”n

Students from Brandeis School of S.F. perform the national anthem during Warriors’ Jewish Heritage Night on Dec. 5. (AARON LEVY-WOLINS/J. STAFF)

Talia Malcolm-Brandt and Nora DeGennaro play with clay at Gan Preschool in San Rafael. (COURTESY)

Here’s what Jewish seniors look for in a college today

ELI BERK | JTA TEEN FELLOW

College campuses remain places of uncertainty for many Jewish students, though the pro-Palestinian protests that roiled campuses and led to accusations of antisemitism following Oct. 7, 2023, appear to have leveled o .

For Jewish high school seniors trying to decide where to spend the next four years, the question of safety and Jewish identity play a key role in the application and decision-making process currently underway.

JTA spoke with four Jewish high school seniors from across the U.S. to hear their perspectives on how the protests and their a ermath a ected their college application process.

What follows is an abridged transcript of the discussion, edited for clarity, with Isabelle Stavsky of Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, Hayden Cohen of Westchester, New York, Eliana Soi er of Brookline, Massachuse s, and Teddy Fleiss of Dallas, Texas.

How have campus protests a ected your choice of colleges?

STAVSKY: I have been looking at how the schools have been handling it because I definitely think that says something about the place and the support that you will get as a Jewish student. I’m not necessarily crossing schools o of my list because they’ve had protests or incidents because that’s kind of everywhere now.

COHEN: I’ve tried to look at the strength of the Jewish community. ere can be so much hate on campus, but at the end of the day I’m not joining them; I’m joining the Jewish

SOIFFER: I did cross one school o my list entirely, and that was Columbia. Columbia was never really my favorite, and I think their situation was too much for me. ere were protests in most places [so] I’ve been trying to talk to students: Did you feel safe? Did you feel supported? Did you feel like you had a community? I think if I was going to limit myself to only places where it was completely shut down, or there were never protests, I wouldn’t have enough options.

FLEISS: I toured Vanderbilt last January. On my tour, there were a lot of signs about what Israel was doing badly, and that kind of turned me o initially. But it was a Friday, so I went to Chabad with my family, and I

continued on page 26

SUMMER CAMP 2025

JCCSF camps are back and primed to deliver an unforgettable adventure for preschoolers to 10th graders.

Culinary & Art, Musical Theater & Dance, Sports & STEAM, Outbound Camps, CIT Program, AM/PM Care and more!

Camps from June 3 – August 22 1-, 2- & 3-Week Sessions

REGISTER NOW AT JCCSF.ORG

The JCCSF appreciates the generous support of the Koum Family Foundation, the Koret Foundation, Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, Taube Philanthropies, Crankstart Foundation, and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

CAMP BRANDEIS is open to all children entering Kindergarten

From left, Eliana Soi er, Hayden Cohen, Isabelle Stavsky and Teddy Fleiss. (COURTESY)

It's s'more than just summer camp—it's J-CAMP!

At J-Camp, we build a spirited community where campers are immersed in joyful camp activities and develop meaningful relationships with others while engaging in individual personal growth. Traditional and Hebrew immersion options available. Grades TK–10. We Got Game…And So Much More!

Put the Cool in Afterschool!

Club J is a one-of-a-kind, licensed program providing a wide range of activities to engage children from transitional kindergarten through fth grade. Our program supports multiple hands-on learning experiences, including arts and humanities, physical activities and literacy, as well as a wide range of free elective classes.

Planting the seeds to nurture curiosity and creativity. The Leslie Family Preschool offers a welcoming environment incorporating play-based, hands-on learning and guided exploration for children. We foster Jewish values and traditions while honoring individuality and welcoming and respecting all faiths. Now accepting applications for the 2025–26 school year.

Our Jewish overnight camp for grades 3–11 serves up sports and life skills through top-notch coaching grounded in Jewish values. We foster sportsmanship, teamwork and community, helping your child grow—as an athlete, a leader and a person. We offer sports training, camp activities and more, on CSU, East Bay's outstanding campus.

Jewish seniors consider protests, community in college decision-making

continued from page 24

saw how connected the Jews were with one another, and how nice the community was. I talked to them about the protests, and they said, “Yeah, they sucked, but it brought us together, and it wasn’t too bad.”

How did Jewish life on campus, like Chabad and Hillel, play into your decisions?

SOIFFER: I’ve looked more specifically for Hillel, because I’m not super Orthodox. I’ve been asking: Is the Hillel on campus pretty central? Or do you have to walk 20 minutes off campus to find it? I’m not kosher, but Hillel at UPenn used to charge a surcharge. If you were kosher, you could only eat twice a day on a full meal plan. They only recently changed that in the wake of the protests. Maybe because people thought, “Hey, maybe you should treat your Jews a little better.”

STAVSKY: Something I’m really trying to focus on is having a community that’s going to be a safe space, and that’s going to be somewhere that you can talk about your experiences, or have support, or meet people who have been on the campus for longer than you have, and have dealt with these protests.

What feedback or pressure did you get from your parents about applying to colleges?

STAVSKY: My parents probably have been a little more paranoid throughout this process than I have. They went to Yeshiva University and its Stern College for Women, so they didn’t have to deal with this. I guess it’s scary that your kid’s going to be away from home and you’re not there to help them. And college campuses, these bubbles away from home, have stuck out in our country as places where there’s really concentrated protests and hate.

FLEISS: They’re not worried about my safety, really. It’s more about if I feel comfortable being Jewish at the school.

Did you go on any college visits that showed you really good things, or really not great things?

STAVSKY: I went down to Southern California to tour schools like UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and California Polytechnic State University. We visited the Hillels, and that was definitely comforting to see a community, but there were also protests everywhere. I wear my Magen David every day. That was

one of the first times that my mom and I took off our stars because we felt uncomfortable with how many protests there were on a lot of these campuses. That was a really surreal feeling.

How have you thought about representing your Jewish identity in your application?

COHEN: I want schools to know that I’m Jewish and that I will make an impact for Jewish students, because that’s who I am. I go to Jewish day school. It’s an important part of my identity. So schools should know it, and my identity should be reflected in my application.

STAVSKY: I definitely had that question. I don’t think if I was applying to college two years ago, I would have questioned talking about my Judaism because it is such a big, defining piece of my life. I think that then, I would have done it without a thought, but I definitely did have to think about it. I came to the conclusion that I’m not going to hide part of myself.

SOIFFER: Judaism hasn’t really come up in any of my essays, and that’s partly because I end up writing about something else. I’m

mixed: part Filipino, part Mexican, part Moroccan. It leaves me a lot of options to write about.

Did you end up applying to the schools where you took off your Magen David before visiting?

STAVSKY: It was right after Oct. 7, and we saw protests, we saw posters, but we weren’t yelled at or anything. Before we went to that campus, we were just unsure, and took the necklaces off. Now, in my Common App [essay] I talk about not taking my Magen David off and how proud I am. It’s so much more than a piece of jewelry. Just that fact that I had to think about needing to hide that I’m Jewish felt so crazy to me. Five of my great-grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and their stories are ingrained in my family. It was really a wake-up to think about hiding my Judaism like they did. It shows the reality of how serious these times are. n

Editor’s note: This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.

TALKS & WORKSHOPS

SUNDAY | January 26

“ISRAEL: WHAT HAS CHANGED SINCE OCT. 7”—Director of international programs for StandWithUs Israel Charlotte Korchak discusses the wars with Hamas and Hezbollah, attacks from and against Iran, the effects on Israelis and Palestinians and the impact on the Middle East and the Abraham Accords. Followed by Q&A. Presented by Beth Am’s Jewish and Israel Advocacy Committee, Congregation Beth Ami’s Israel Committee, Congregation Beth Jacob, Congregation Kol Emeth, Jewish Silicon Valley and Z3 Project. Online. 10-11:30 a.m. Free, advance registration required. tinyurl.com/israel-change

“LIVING HISTORY: A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR’S STORY”—Bay Area Auschwitz survivor Luba Grungras, 100, shares her story for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Livestream option. At Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, 290 Dolores St., S.F. 2 p.m. Free, registration required. tinyurl.com/living-history

“JEWISH APPROACHES TO END OF LIFE”—Rabbi Me’irah Iliinsky discusses taharah, the Jewish ritual of preparing a body after death. With artist Karen Benioff Friedman sharing her Chevra Kadisha artwork. Also Feb. 9. At Or Shalom Jewish Community, 333 Cortland Ave., S.F. 2-4 p.m. $18-$180, sliding scale. tinyurl.com/end-life

“BETWEEN THE BRIDGE AND THE BARRICADE”—History professor Iris Idelson-Shein discusses how translations of non-Jewish texts into Jewish languages impacted Jewish culture, literature and history in early modern Europe. Presented by Jewish Community Library. Online. 11 a.m. Free. tinyurl. com/between-bridge

MONDAY | January 27

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST

REMEMBRANCE DAY S.F.—With participation from the Israeli, German, Austrian, Italian and Ukrainian Consulates. Presented by Menorah Center, StandWithUs, SF-based Moishe Houses, JewBilee, Malka Productions, Value Culture, SF Bad Jews and SF Jewish Young Adult Network. At San Francisco location provided with RSVP. 7-8:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/sf-ihrd

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST

REMEMBRANCE DAY SAN JOSE—

Press conference by San Jose City Councilmember David Cohen to announce the City Hall display of the CHAIM (California Holocaust Awareness and Action Interactive Museum) exhibit. Speakers include elected officials and Holocaust survivors. Presented by JCRC Bay Area, Jewish Silicon Valley and Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley. At San Jose City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose. 3-4 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/sj-holocaust

“A SERIES OF MIRACLES”—Local survivor provides testimony detailing how he lived through the Holocaust, hidden by a family friend when his parents were deported to Auschwitz. Presented by JFCS Holocaust Center, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Consulates General of Germany, Israel and Portugal, JCRC Bay Area and StandWithUs. Online. 12 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ survivor-george

TUESDAY | January 28

“TWEENS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIPS: NAVIGATING VOLATILE EMOTIONS”— JFCS workshop for parents to learn about what is happening physiologically and emotionally during their tweens’ middle-school years and how to stay connected while

they increase their independence and autonomy. Online. 7-8:30 p.m. $45. tinyurl.com/tweens-friends “LAUNDERING ANTISEMITISM”—

Marc Dollinger, Jewish studies professor at San Francisco State University, discusses identity, politics, ethnic studies and the university. Part of the 42nd annual Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series at Sonoma State University. At Stevenson Hall 1301, SSU, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. 4-5:15 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/42-genocide-series

THURSDAY | January 30

“SPINOZA’S SIDDUR: CONFRONTING GOD WITH WILDFIRES, EARTHQUAKES AND OTHER TRAGEDIES OF NATURE”—Rabbi Moshe Levin traces the development of the traditional siddur and its attempts to justify “acts of God,” as well as divine silence in the face of evil such as the Holocaust. Livestream option. At Congregation Ner Tamid, 1250 Quintara St., S.F. 10-11:30 a.m. Free. tinyurl.com/spinozas-siddur

UNFOLDING THE LEGACY OF “THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK”—Author Thomas Sparr discusses research for his book about “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Followed by reception. Presented by Taube Center for Jewish Studies. At CCSRE Boardroom, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 360, Stanford. 4:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/unfolding-frank

“SOCIAL CONNECTION AS MEDICINE”—UCSF geriatrician Dr. Carla Perissinotto discusses how relationships and community engagement affect the health outcomes of elderly individuals. Co-sponsored by the Institute on Aging. At San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living, 302 Silver Ave., S.F. 6-7:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ social-medicine

“HELPING KIDS WITH FRIENDSHIPS”—JFCS workshop for parents to learn about the social skills children need to develop lasting friendships, including how boys and girls can differ in their social development. Online. 1-2 p.m. $30. tinyurl.com/helping-kids-friends

SUNDAY | February 2

“JEWBILEE”—Addison-Penzak JCC’s annual symposium, with the theme “Powering Creativity.” Keynote conversation with Jewish Studio Project co-founder Rabbi Adina Allen and J. editor-in-chief Chanan Tigay. With breakout sessions and Kids Jewbilee for grades K-7. At JCC, 14855 Oka Road, Los Gatos. 10 a.m.-2:45 p.m. $45, Kids Jewbilee is free. tinyurl.com/ jewbilee-25

MONDAY | February 3

“OUR OWN STORIES: AUTHORS ON JEWISH LIFE IN THE MUSLIM WORLD”—Jewish authors Almog Behar, Ruby Namdar and Ayelet Tsabari and scholar Angy Cohen discuss their families’ experiences of Jewish life in the Muslim world. Presented by the Magnes in conjunction with the “In Plain Sight” exhibit. Online. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/own-stories

TUESDAY | February 4

“THE POWER OF WORDS”—J Leaders Forum featuring Abigail Pogrebin, author of “It Takes Two to Torah” and “My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew” and Gillian Perry, founder and longtime executive director of the Anne Frank Trust UK and author of “The Legacy of Anne Frank.” Online. 2 p.m. Free. jleaders.org/programs/ forum

“POLITICS, VIOLENCE, MEMORY”— Jeff Kopstein, political science professor and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UC Irvine,

discusses the new social science of the Holocaust. Part of the 42nd annual Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series at Sonoma State University. At Stevenson Hall 1301, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. 4-5:15 p.m. Free. tinyurl. com/42-genocide-series

THURSDAY | February 6

“CREATING COMMUNITIES THROUGH STORYTELLING”—Allegra Goodman, Stanford alum and award-winning author, explores how Jewish identities are fashioned and reflected in American Jewish fiction. Presented by Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the English Department at Stanford. At CCSRE Boardroom, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 360, Stanford. 4:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/creating-community

SOULFULL GATHERING—Jewish LearningWorks presents a day of learning featuring keynote speaker Lisa Miller, an expert on the neuroscience of spirituality, exploring how Jewish education is essential to the development of resilience. With kosher lunch, workshops and experiential opportunities. At David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley. 9 a.m.-2 p.m. $118. tinyurl.com/soulfull-gathering

MONDAY | February 10

“TEACHING A DARK CHAPTER”— Daniela Weiner shares insights about history books and the Holocaust in Italy and Germany from her new book. In conversation with Jewish studies professor Ari Y. Kelman. Presented by Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the English Department at Stanford. At CCSRE Conference room, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 360, Stanford. 4 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ dark-chapter

THURSDAY | January 30

“OCTOBER H8TE”—Documentary about the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, on social media and on the streets of America after Oct. 7, 2023. With discussion with director Wendy Sachs and editor Nimrod Erez. At JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. 7-9 p.m. $20. tinyurl.com/october-h8te

SATURDAY | February 1

“BLIND SPOT: A CALL TO ACTION REGARDING CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM”— Documentary sheds light on the experiences of Jewish students and families navigating antisemitic harassment and incidents on college campuses. Followed by Q&A. At Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. 6 p.m. $12.51. tinyurl.com/blind-spot-film

FRIDAY | February 7

“SHOSHANA”—Film about the violent struggles of Jews and Palestinian Arabs for dominance under the British Mandate in 1930s Palestine. Part of the Mostly British Film Festival. At the Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F. 7:30 p.m. $20, members and seniors $17.50. tinyurl.com/shoshana-film

MUSIC

THURSDAY | February 6

ORKA CEREMONIAL CONCERT—Participatory performance led by singer Orka, with sacred vocal ceremony and journey of transformation through the power of voice. At Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. 7:30-9 p.m. $33.85. tinyurl.com/orka-concert

ON STAGE

SATURDAY | January 25

“I’M NOT A COMEDIAN… I’M LENNY BRUCE”—One-man show starring Ronnie Marmo as the “politically incorrect” Jewish stand-up comic who shattered boundaries and discussed taboo topics. For ages 16 and up. With post-show discussion. At Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. 7-9 p.m. $50. tinyurl.com/lenny-bruce-play

“TRAVELER’S PRAYER”—L.A.-based The Braid presents true travel stories performed by professional actors that explore the Jewish people’s place in the world. At Congregation Kol Emeth, 4175

Manuela Ave., Palo Alto. 7:30 p.m. Also Jan. 26 at Congregation Shir Hadash, 20 Cherry Blossom Lane, Los Gatos. 2 p.m. $20-$45. thebraid.org/bayarea

SUNDAY | January 26

“WHAT DO I DO WITH ALL THIS HERITAGE?”—The Braid, the Brandeis School of SF and Jewish Community High School of the Bay present performance where actors share real-life stories exploring Asian-Jewish identity and culture. Followed by Q&A. At Jewish Community High School, 1835 Ellis St., S.F. 5 p.m. reception, 6 p.m. show. $10 adults, free for students. tinyurl.com/brandeis-heritage

‘Baggage from BaghDAD’

Valerie David performs a play about her father and his family who were forced to flee from religious persecution during the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad, and their struggle to transcend their harrowing past and build a new home in America. Followed by panel discussion with David. Presented by Wornick Jewish Day School.

7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12 at North Peninsula Lent Chabad Center, San Mateo. Pre-show refreshments at 6:30 p.m. $54; proceeds benefit Wornick’s Annual Chai Excellence Fund. tinyurl.com/baggage-play

Because we all need some joy

“The Joy of Jewish Music and Dance” is a five-part monthly workshop where participants can learn multiethnic music and dance techniques from teachers and performers in the field, including Ilya Shneyveys, Sarah Myerson. Mike Perlmutter and Jonathan Kipp of Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band. Each session is followed by a dance party and informal music jam. Through May. Presented by JCC East Bay and KlezCalifornia.

1-4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26 at JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley. Series $180; drop-in class $18-$54 sliding scale. tinyurl.com/joy-25

Jonathan Kipp (left) and Mike Perlmutter of Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band perform at Saul’s Restaurant in Berkeley. (AARON LEVY-WOLINS/J. STAFF)

KIDS & FAMILY

SUNDAY | January 26

OFJCC PRESCHOOL OPEN HOUSE— Tour classrooms and meet teachers and other families. At Oshman Family JCC Leslie Family Preschool, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Free. preschool. paloaltojcc.org

SUNDAY | February 2

PENINSULA NEWBORN PLAYGROUP— Workshop led by Jewish Baby Network Director Carol Booth and early childhood psychologist Sabrina Kaschmitter for parents of babies ages 0-9 months on ways to connect with your baby through interactive Jewish rituals and everyday play while sharing the “joys and oys” of being a new parent. With complimentary baby gift bag. At Parents Place, 200 Channing Ave., Palo Alto. 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. $18 suggested donation. tinyurl.com/baby-group

SUNDAY | February 9

“BIRTHDAY OF THE TREES”—Jewish Baby Network holiday event for families with children ages 0-36 months to celebrate Tu Bishvat. Bring a blanket. At Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, 100 John F Kennedy Drive, S.F. 10 a.m.11:30 a.m. Free. tinyurl.com/sf-trees

“OAKLAND BIRTHDAY OF THE TREES”—Jewish Baby Network holiday event for families with children ages 0-36 months to

celebrate Tu Bishvat with music, dancing, puppets and tree-related crafts and activities. Bring a blanket. At Temple Beth Abraham, 327 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ oakland-trees

TU BISHVAT CONCERT AND NATURE EXPERIENCE—Jewish Baby Network and Congregation Kol Emeth present nature-themed event with singing, dancing, outdoor play, parsley planting activity and natural snacks. At Kol Emeth, 4175 Manuela Ave., Palo Alto. 3:30-5 p.m. $18 suggested donation. tinyurl.com/nature-concert

WEDNESDAY | February 12

“TU BISHVAT: OUTSIDE IN”—Holiday event with live trees, handson crafts, Jewish wisdom and rituals, fruit and nuts for snacks, nature-inspired art and a treehouse-themed book nook filled with stories about trees, nature and the changing of the seasons. At JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. 3-5:30 p.m. Free. tinyurl.com/ outside-in-tree

TU BISHVAT FAMILY CELEBRATION— Hands-on, interactive holiday experience with crafts, tree planting ceremony, singing, activity stations inspired by the Seven Sacred Species and treats. At Urban Adamah, 1151 Sixth St., Berkeley. 5-6:15 p.m. $9-$36, sliding scale. tinyurl.com/tu-bishvat-fam

HOLIDAYS & SPIRITUAL

FRIDAY | January 31

“THE QUEEN’S TABLE”—Chochmat HaLev presents a modern take on the Hasidic tisch with Melila Hellner Eshed and Daniel Matt, two leading scholars of Jewish mysticism, discussing the Zohar. Event will also include sacred chanting, wordless nigguns and food and drink. At Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St., Berkeley. 8-11 p.m. $360 for tisch and dinner, $180 for tisch. tinyurl.com/queens-table

WEDNESDAY | February 12

TU BISHVAT SEDER—Urban Adamah presents its annual seder with the Seven Sacred Species, farm-crafted liquor, seven-course menu made with local seasonal ingredients and entertainment. At Urban Adamah, 1151 Sixth St., Berkeley. 6-9 p.m. $54-$118, sliding scale. tinyurl.com/tu-bishvat-seder

BENEFITS & SOCIAL EVENTS

SATURDAY | January 25

POLTAVA/ODESSA TRIVIA NIGHT—

Fundraiser hosted by Congregation Beth Am to support virtual psychotherapy sessions for members of its sister synagogues in Ukraine who are impacted by the ongoing war. With prizes for winning teams. At Beth Am, 26790 Arastradero Road, Los Altos Hills. 7:30-10 p.m. $30 per person, register by Jan. 23. tinyurl. com/odessa-trivia

SATURDAY | February 1

“SKI IN THE TREES”—Tahoe Jewish Community presents Tu Bishvat learning, celebration and ski adventure. With breakfast, lunch

TAKE ACTION

ONGOING

THE GIVING KITCHEN—Seeking volunteers to cook meals for those in need at Chabad’s kosher community kitchen. At Chabad of SF, 496 Natoma St., S.F. Times vary. Registration required. tinyurl.com/ giving-kitchen

CLOTHING DRIVE—Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is collecting blankets, jackets, and new or lightly used clothing and socks to be distributed to the homeless by the Gubbio Project. At Sha’ar Zahav, 290 Dolores St., S.F. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. shaarzahav.org

and Havdalah. At Diamond Peak Ski Resort, 1210 Ski Way, Incline Village, Nevada. 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. $50 lift tickets for members of TJC congregations, $65 for general public. Email alicia@tbytahoe.org

SATURDAY | February 8

SHABBAT SHIRAH CONCERT AND GALA—Honoring Cantors Henry Greenberg and David Morgenstern (z”l) with Yiddish and show tunes by Cantor Sharon Bernstein. Happy hour, catered dinner, dancing to tunes of Jon Frank Jazz Trio. Silent auction included with ticket. At Am Tikvah, 625 Brotherhood Way, S.F. 5-10 p.m. $100. tinyurl.com/am-tikvah-gala

ONGOING

“IN PLAIN SIGHT: JEWISH ARTS AND LIVES IN THE MUSLIM WORLD”—Exhibit showcasing Jewish objects originating from Muslim lands that reflect cultural affinities and common threads between the cultures. Through May 15. At the Magnes, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley. magnes.berkeley.edu

THURSDAY | February 13

“SOUND JOURNEY: NOURISH YOUR ROOTS”—JCCSF presents soundscape meditation using chimes, crystal singing bowls and gongs to clear mind and body, promote relaxation and release tension using the Logos Method. Bring mat, blanket and pillow. At JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. 6:30-8 p.m. JCC members $30, public $35. tinyurl. com/feb-sound-bath

SATURDAY | February 15

“IN CELEBRATION OF TREES”—Experiential hands-on half-day program in honor of Tu Bishvat exploring the interrelationships of trees, humanity, the unseen world and a Jewish approach to ethical harvesting. With guided walk. Presented by Maggid Jonathan Furst and Fork in The Path. Berkeley location provided with registration. $40-$100 sliding scale, portion of fee benefits nonprofits supporting Indigenous rights. tinyurl.com/ celebration-trees

“The Last Stage,” shot in 1947-1948 at Auschwitz, was directed by and starred former camp prisoners.

‘Aftermath:

How Filmmakers Responded to the Holocaust’

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year commemorates the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied troops, documentary filmmaker Peter Stein discusses the dramatic films that were made in the immediate aftermath of World War II and how they helped to shape perceptions and understanding of the Holocaust.

7-8:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27 at JCCSF, 3200 California St. Free. tinyurl.com/aftermath-films

Valerie David in “Baggage From BaghDAD”

This Ethiopian Israeli held in Gaza deserves to be at head of the line

BEZA ABEBE | GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

Dr. Beza Abebe is an Ethiopian Israeli human rights advocate dedicated to advancing the rights of marginalized communities, particularly the Ethiopian Israeli community. She lives in Oakland.

As the world breathes a collective sigh of relief over the cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, with the first three hostages released on Jan. 19, I find myself unable to fully join in the celebration. For over a year, global attention has been focused on the hostages taken by Hamas during their heinous attack on Oct. 7. However, my thoughts keep circling back to an Israeli citizen whose plight preceded this tragic chapter nearly a decade ago and who has been ignored until now.

Avera Mengistu, an Ethiopian Israeli man with mental health challenges, crossed into Gaza in 2014. His name, his story and his humanity have been largely overlooked by the international community — and even within Israel itself. For years, his family has lived in agony, their pain amplified by a sense of invisibility.

The announcement of the agreement should have marked a moment of long-overdue justice for Avera Mengistu and his family. Even though his name is on the list of 33 hostages scheduled to be released in the first phase of the cease-fire agreement, he should have been among the first to come home. In fact, he should have been freed long ago.

He has been in captivity for 10 long years. Has he never been a priority because of his mental disability? His identity as an Ethiopian Israeli? Or the sheer length of his captivity, as though a decade in darkness somehow made his suffering less urgent?

These are questions that haunt me, as they speak to a broader societal failure to see Avera Mengistu as a full human being with inherent dignity, worthy of compassion and action.

As a fellow Ethiopian Israeli, I find this moment bittersweet. The anticipation of his impending release is tinged with the pain of feeling overlooked, undervalued and marginalized for so many years. This is not just about one man; it’s about the values we uphold as a society. Whom do we prioritize? Whose lives do we deem worthy of urgent action?

I pray that this deal will be finalized peacefully and that every hostage will come home to their families. I pray for Avera Mengistu. I pray for Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin Arab Israeli and another long-held captive in Gaza who was seized in 2015. His name is on the phase one list as well. I pray for all those who have been forgotten in the shadows of geopolitics.

As we celebrate the return of the hostages, let us commit to ensuring that no one is left to feel as though their life matters less. For all those still waiting, may we never forget, may we never repeat the mistakes of the past, and may we build a future that honors every human life. n

The opinions expressed are the writer’s and do not represent the views of any professional role, organization or group with which she is affiliated.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Tarnishing a legacy

As much as I was outraged by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund’s grant to the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (“Anti-Zionist org gets $100K grant as Walter and Elise Haas Fund changes direction,” Dec. 16), I was mostly deeply saddened. This fund, and the vast family it derives from, have been a pillar of our community for decades. They have funded and sustained many of the organizations around the Jewish community that we cherish.

I want to believe that the staff and board of the fund are unaware of the hatred that AROC has spewed over the years (well framed in a Jan. 9 letter by Doug Kahn), but there is too detailed a public record of their statements and actions for that to be possible. I hope the board will consider a non-hateful organization to support in accomplishing their goals in the future.

DANNY GROSSMAN | SAN FRANCISCO CEO, JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION, 2015-2021

Alameda treasurer doesn’t understand Henry Levy and I share a similar life history, as we are both about the same age and were impressed early on by the same stories and books about Israel.

Unfortunately, Henry’s affinity for numbers does not extend to his understanding of human nature, true history and the worldwide pogrom targeting Israel and the Jewish people. (“I’m a Jewish elected official. Here’s why I divested our county from Caterpillar,” Jan. 10) The only thing getting in the way of an equitable solution to the Middle East quandary is — and has always been — Arab and Palestinian intransigence when it comes to honest compromise and cooperation. Anyone who believes that Palestinian Arabs even want to live in harmony with the Jewish people is naive at best. (I’d like to remind Levy that the Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the elimination or enslavement — their wording — of the Jewish people worldwide.)

And those Palestinian homes that are bulldozed? Typically, they are the family homes of terrorists who are encouraged to murder Jews with financial incentives offered by the Palestinian Authority itself. Does Levy really believe that the bulk of the money provided to the Bank of Palestine will be used to help fund women-run businesses? I don’t think so, if current history has taught us anything. It’s kind of like saying that all relief aid going to Gaza is actually delivered to

PICTURE THIS: The “In Memoriam” plaque from the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center survived the Eaton Fire, but the names of the dead were burned away. The temple’s buildings almost entirely burned to the ground on Jan. 7, though the Torahs were saved. (COURTESY LAURENCE HARRIS)

Alameda County’s divestment undermines trust and fairness

ITAMAR LANDAU & KEN BRAVMANN | GUEST CONTRIBUTORS

Alameda County Treasurer Henry Levy’s Jan. 10 op-ed purported to explain his rationale for divesting $32 million held in Caterpillar bonds. However, his justification — rooted more in personal identity and activist influence than objective criteria — raises troubling questions.

An ethical investment policy requires consistency, transparency and universal standards. Levy’s decision to single out Caterpillar meets none of these metrics. Indeed, his choice appears to be less about principled governance and more about selectively targeting Israel in ways that undermine trust, fairness and ethical consistency.

Why was Caterpillar chosen for divestment, while other companies remain unexamined? Without clear guidelines, divestment risks becoming a political tool, wielded selectively.

Levy’s announcement about the divestment was made on Dec. 10 in front of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, at the very meeting where he was tasked with drafting an ethical investment policy. Yet it is exactly this policy that would set the criteria for divestment.

Rather than respecting this process, Levy preempted it by announcing the Caterpillar divestment. This raises a critical question: Did Levy act prematurely, fearing that no policy he could craft would justify such a decision?

Ethical governance demands accountability and due process. Alameda County deserves a policy that spells out clear criteria for ethical investment, ensuring decisions are grounded in public interest, not individual discretion. By circumventing this process, Levy undermined both the policy-making process and public trust.

Levy’s op-ed defending his decision focuses less on concrete evidence of harm caused by Caterpillar and more on his own personal journey and conflicting emotions. His framing makes it clear that the choice was driven by his personal struggles with his Jewish identity and relationship to Israel, struggles that he admits sharpened during the war that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.

those civilians truly in need. You can now be sure that some of our tax dollars in Berkeley and Oakland will be going to support terrorist activities that do a lot worse than tearing down a house.

So congratulations! Your progressive idealism is doing just the opposite of what you intend. Support for BDS and any of its related activities is a vote for antisemitism worldwide.

JEFF MORGAN | BERKELEY

Other Alameda Co. investments?

Henry Levy’s explanation of why he divested Alameda County from Caterpillar corporate bonds features a vivid description of the awful things the Israeli government is now doing. I’m not going to disagree with that.

His way of criticizing Israel’s behavior is to act against a corporation making a wide range of products, some of which are used by the Israeli military.

Levy fails to mention whether he has carefully examined the rest of Alameda County’s portfolio to make sure it contains no other company that supports governmental bad behavior. So, presumably, the portfolio does not include any company making telecommunications equipment, or that relies on oil, or that involves manufacturing or extractive processes involving minors, or that supplies clothing or food to repressive regimes or violent militaries.

While the majority of American Jews have become more connected to Israel and Jewish tradition since Oct. 7, it is well documented that others have instead grown more alienated. Levy’s personal process reflects a serious and complex one unfolding in the larger American Jewish community. The proper place for this process to unfold is in J., for example, not in the balance books of Alameda County.

Public officials are entrusted with making decisions based on the needs and values of the communities they serve — not their personal narratives. Alameda County deserves better.

Levy proudly connects his choice to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, an effort with leaders who oppose the very existence of the State of Israel.

Levy seems to be unaware that demonizing Israel has real-world consequences. Since Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Jewish hate crimes and incidents have surged, including in Alameda County. By aligning with BDS, Levy has amplified local divisions.

Ethical investing should unite communities around

Presumably his now-pristine portfolio has been cleansed, for example, of all companies contributing to China’s genocide against Tibet or the Uyghurs.

If he hasn’t done that, he has simply singled out Israel for moral condemnation — a powerful and shameful antisemitic approach the rest of the world uses while ignoring the massive violence of regimes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan. It takes enormous self-delusion for Mr. Levy to label his behavior as reflecting “Jewish values.” Hypocrisy is not a Jewish value.

MARTY KLEIN | PALO ALTO

Dubious investment ethics

In Alameda County treasurer Henry Levy’s Jan. 10 opinion piece, he explains that he sold $32 million of Caterpillar bonds because the company produced militarized bulldozers for the Israel Defense Forces, which were used to destroy private homes in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no indication as to why any particular homes were destroyed.

Levy does not explain whether the bonds were sold at a profit or loss.

He does not indicate whether the proceeds of the sales were invested in other securities that provided the county as good or better return than the Caterpillar bonds.

He does not indicate whether he or his staff have made

shared values, not embolden movements that spread hate and exacerbate tensions. This is why we’re calling on Levy to craft an ethical investment policy that requires divestment decisions be affirmed by broad consensus. The policy should require a supermajority of the board voting in favor, and it should target U.S. enemies, not allies.

At the same Board of Supervisors meeting, Levy stated that Alameda County’s ethical investment policy should focus on positive guidelines — emphasizing what should be invested in — rather than “negative screening” or targeting specific companies for divestment. We wholeheartedly agree.

Levy himself said that divestment is not primarily a tool for impacting finances, but rather for impacting social norms. The treasurer is entrusted with the financial well-being of Alameda County, not with setting our social norms. Such decisions should instead be made by the Board of Supervisors.

Divesting from Caterpillar bonds may be framed as ethical, but its roots in selective activism, personal motivations and alignment with divisive movements like BDS tell a different story. Ethical investing is a noble goal, but it must be guided by fairness, consistency and transparency — not by ad-hoc decisions that undermine trust and fuel division.

If Alameda County is to pursue an ethical investment strategy, it must do so with a clear, objective policy that reflects the needs and values of its diverse community. Anything less risks reducing ethical governance to a tool for personal agendas and political pressure.

“As a fiduciary, I must be extremely careful to stay within public policies,” Levy wrote in his op-ed. “I also need to be careful not to impose my own values.” Unfortunately, he has done just that. n

The views expressed on the opinion pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.

detailed investigations into individual business transactions of other issuers of Alameda County-held securities to ascertain compliance with principles of social justice.

He admits that he remains dubious of the ability of divestment to bring substantive change. If so, what is the point of divestment?

My wife and I own a home in Alameda County for which we pay property taxes through Mr. Levy’s office. We cannot decline to pay these taxes just because we don’t agree with the county’s divestment policies.

THEODORE BRESLER | FREMONT

Don’t erase us, we’re Jews too

J.’s Dec. 12 coverage of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors vote to create an ethical investment policy (“Alameda County policy will advance BDS, opponents say”) quoted several Jews continued on page 32

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

J. welcomes letters of no more than 300 words. Submissions are subject to editing. See guidelines and form at jweekly.com/letters, or email to letters@jweekly. com.

Itamar Landau is co-chair of Jewish Coalition of Berkeley.

Ken Bravmann is co-chair of Oakland Jewish Alliance.

‘Such a Match!’ podcast A passion project hosted by a hopeless romantic

EMMA GOSS | J. STAFF

When Héber and I got engaged in May 2023, everyone we knew asked me to tell the story of how he proposed. And I loved telling it. It never got old for me, reliving the whirlwind of emotions on that most exciting and joyful day.

Over the course of our engagement, though, I had no idea I would continue repeating the story dozens of times, sounding to myself like a broken record in the telling — sometimes in public, with perfect strangers listening in — even though people seemed eager to hear me recount the most romantic moment of my life.

But that’s only the second most-requested story I tell about our relationship. “How did you two meet?” has remained No. 1 on my top-stories chart for the nearly five years we’ve been a couple.

I got this question once at a young adult Jewish community event. A friend sitting with Héber, who was a few tables away and out of earshot, turned to him and said, “I can tell from the smile on Emma’s face right now that she’s telling the story of how you two met.” I smile now, because the story is all true, it happened to me, and I still want to pinch myself to be sure it isn’t all a dream.

As much as I like telling our story, I feel the same enthusiasm for hearing how other couples ended up together. There’s a sense of luck and randomness, fate or destiny, that makes these stories irresistible. And when it’s a Jewish love story, all the better.

Last year, in the throes of planning our wedding, I read

LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

Janet Silver Ghent’s memoir, “Love Atop a Keyboard,” and chuckled at the endearing, humorous and serendipitous way she met her husband through the Jewish Bulletin (forerunner of J.). I had never heard of the paper’s personal ads section, called “Such a Match,” until I read Janet’s story about writing her own ad in January 1999 that led her to Allen, her beshert.

Later, when I typed “Such a Match” into the search bar of the J. archives, I discovered a treasure trove of past ads, and was curious to find out who else had found their “match” this way.

That’s how the idea for J.’s first original podcast, “Such a Match!” came to be. I soon got to work, looking for couples to interview. Through lots of archival research and wordof-mouth, I discovered there were many couples who met through the original “Such a Match” and are still happily married. Now, some 30 years later, they’re sharing their love stories with me.

The first episode of “Such a Match!” debuted Jan. 21, a month before Héber and I will marry under the chuppah. Eventually, we will release a bonus podcast episode telling the story of how we met. Until then, no spoilers! n

Emma Goss is a staff writer at J. You can listen to each episode of “Such a Match!” on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Sign up to receive emails with links to each new podcast at jweekly.com/ podcast, and follow J. on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky for updates, behind-the-scenes content and opportunities to share your own love stories.

continued from page 31

who gave public comment against the resolution, but failed to represent the many more who spoke in favor of it. The article quoted a JCRC representative who claimed, “If you wonder why there’s so few Jews and Israelis in this meeting in person, it’s because of this kind of hate and intimidation tactics that are constantly being used against us.” As he said this, dozens of Jewish attendees stood up and waved our arms to counter this notion.

A huge portion of those supporting this ethical investment policy are ourselves Jews, standing against violence and with our Palestinian siblings for the sanctity of every life.

Many of those who gave public comments cited their descent from Holocaust survivors and their Jewish identity as core motivators for opposing the horrific and disproportionate violence the Israeli state has leveled against Gaza. I am a proud Jew with a deep relationship to my heritage, who believes in justice and dignity for all. The cited comment from that JCRC speaker appeared aimed to erase Jews like myself.

Further, J.’s article implied that the county resolution is unfairly skewed against Israel.

The focus on the current atrocities in Gaza stems from the absolute urgency of the need to stop the killings and reach a cease-fire immediately.

YAEL

PLATT | BERKELEY

I relate to Levy’s grappling

Thank you to Henry Levy for making the courageous decision to sell Alameda County’s shares in Caterpillar, and thank you to J. for publishing his op-ed (“I’m a Jewish elected official. Here’s why I divested our county from Caterpillar,” Jan. 10).

I first became an anti-war activist in 2003 in the lead-up to the war in Iraq as a student at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. While it was Iraq that got my attention, I quickly learned from other activists about similarities between the U.S. war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

As a Jewish person raised in a Zionist community, I can relate to Mr. Levy’s grappling with the contradiction between Jewish values and Israeli policy.

In March 2003, the same month the war in Iraq started, Rachel Corrie, a student activist just a few years older than I was, was run over by a Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza while trying to protect a Palestinian home. And now, more than 20 years later, I’m relieved and proud to live in a community that’s divested from Caterpillar.

STEVIE SCHWARTZ | BERKELEY

A leap toward justice

I commend Alameda County treasurer Henry Levy for his ethics. I wish we saw more of his kind of Judaism. Given a choice, I will always choose a “leap of action” toward social justice. Thank

you, treasurer Levy, for giving us that choice. Today I am a proud resident of Alameda County.

Ethical investing matters

I want to express my deep gratitude to treasurer Henry Levy and J. for the recent op-ed explaining Alameda County’s divestment from Caterpillar. As a Jewish person committed to justice, I applaud Levy’s courageous decision and the county’s broader step toward adopting a human rights-focused investment policy.

Jewish tradition teaches us to pursue tikkun olam — repairing the world — and to stand in solidarity with those facing oppression.

Caterpillar’s role in human rights violations, particularly through its involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and communities, cannot align with these values. By choosing divestment, Levy honors our shared ethical obligations while demonstrating leadership grounded in compassion and accountability.

Amid inevitable criticism, I hope Levy will find encouragement in the growing support for divestment and human rights advocacy. Many of us stand with you in calling for investments that reflect Jewish values of dignity, justice and equality for all.

NICK KLINE | SAN FRANCISCO

EMILY KATZ | BERKELEY

Emma Goss and Héber Cruz Berber shortly after getting engaged. (COURTESY)

Culture

ARTS | TECH | IDEAS

‘Eye-opening’ Holocaust films were created in late 1940s

FILM | DAVID A.M. WILENSKY | J. STAFF

At age 12 or 13, documentary filmmaker Peter Stein saw a Holocaust film for the first time — the bleak 1956 documentary “Night and Fog” — during religious school at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

“What an intense, intense, beautiful but just shattering film that was, particularly for impressionable kids,” Stein, now 65, recently told J. As the son of a World War II refugee, he was acutely aware of his personal connection to the subject matter.

On Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day will mark 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. That evening, Stein will discuss and show clips from films about the Holocaust made between 1944 and 1949 that offer answers to the questions: What did the world understand about the Holocaust during and after the war? How did survivors process their pain?

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

J.: Why has “Night and Fog” stuck with you all these years?

Peter Stein: It’s a beautiful film. Directed by the French filmmaker Alain Resnais, “Night and Fog” is the first film to make what I would call an artistic argument for the inexpressible horror of what happened to Jews in the Holocaust. It’s weird to say that it’s an artistic expression, but it does try to grapple in film imagery with the unspeakable. When I was the executive director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, I watched, sometimes gladly and

“Every time you thought that every Holocaust story had been told in film, there’d be another way to tell a story.”

Peter Stein, filmmaker

resilience of the human spirit, but at some point you start to see all the tropes.

Is it possible to identify a definitive “first” Holocaust film?

sometimes with great pain, many stories of the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. Stories were used, mined, re-mined, exploited — sometimes beautifully rendered. Every time you thought that every Holocaust story had been told in film, there’d be another way to tell a story. And many of those are very earnest attempts to grapple with the depths that human depravity can sink to or the

No, not really. I’m going to show little clips of a film made before the end of the war in 1944, an American propaganda film made in Hollywood called “None Shall Escape.” It’s set in the near future and it imagines, in a prescient way, that the war is over and the war criminals, the perpetrators of Nazi atrocities, are being held to account in an international tribunal, a kind of Nuremberg trial setting — and the war is not even over yet!

Even though it has a very particular, patriotic point of view, it doesn’t shy away from showing some of what had begun to come across through news wires and newsreels as to the persecution that Jews faced. So already in 1944, films are being made that directly address the persecution of Jews and the war crimes.

What are one or two early Holocaust films you wish more people would see?

There’s a really fascinating one called “Long Is the Road.” It’s in German, Yiddish and Polish. That was made in 1948. It mainly tracks one family, some of whom survive, some of whom don’t, from persecution in Poland to the displaced persons camps just after the war — and it’s making the case for Jews needing a homeland of their own. So it has a very Zionist perspective.

One that was new to me from this research, that is currently my favorite, is called “Border Street.” It’s made in 1948 by a Jewish Polish filmmaker named Aleksander Ford. It’s remarkable for being focused on Jewish resistance and survival in the Warsaw Ghetto, and made in the shadow of

the ruins of the ghetto. This film was really eye-opening to me.

The other utter revelation to me is a recently restored film called “The Last Stage,” made by a woman, a Polish filmmaker named Wanda Jakubowska, who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner. She survived, and two years later, comes back and makes a film about women prisoners and underground resistance within Auschwitz. And she makes it on the grounds of Auschwitz with former prisoners as some of her cast. It’s just jaw-dropping. She’s coming back to the scene of the crime and telling it in almost unwatchably brutal detail.

The reason I’m doing this talk at JCCSF for International Holocaust Remembrance Day is that I’m just so fascinated by this period in the immediate aftermath of Holocaust. People don’t even really get what has happened in their midst, and yet they’re already finding the need to start telling narrative stories about it. What did those first drafts of the narrative look like? How did they shape the tropes we see now, 80 years later, in Holocaust storytelling — or how were they dismissed?

I’m excited to show folks some of the imagery that was being created in the first couple of years after the war and to talk about how we can look back on that now with some admiration, as well as some critique, as to how the material was handled by these filmmakers. n

“Aftermath: How Filmmakers Responded to the Holocaust” 7-8:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at JCCSF, 3200 California St., San Francisco. Free, registration required. Presented in partnership with JFCS Holocaust Center and Jewish Film Institute. tinyurl. com/holocaust-aftermath

“Night and Fog,” 1956. (Screenshot via YouTube)

“The Last Stage,” 1948. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Israeli health-tech startups pitch innovation in S.F.

STARTUPS | NIVA ASHKENAZI | J. STAFF

Just before Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli health-tech startup Emet Surgical was poised to sign an agreement with an Israeli investment company for $3 million.

“Of course, on Oct. 8, I got an email saying, ‘The money’s not coming,’” said founder and CEO Bob Witkow.

But that didn’t stop Emet Surgical, which is developing high-tech tools to help surgeons identify cancerous tissue. On Jan. 13, Witkow was among representatives from 16 healthtech startups based in Israel that convened in downtown San Francisco to pitch and network as part of the 43rd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

“The Israeli industry — they are resilient,” said Omer Fein, head of the Israel Economic Mission to the West Coast, which has hosted the startup showcase at the conference since 2016.

The government group seeks to give an international edge to Israeli companies involved in every industry, including other high-tech fields such as cybersecurity, software development and artificial intelligence.

“People are coming quietly and telling you, ‘ We support you.’”

Tsvi Shmilovich Co-founder of EZMEMS

“I like to say we cover ‘from cyber to tahini,’” Fein said. “There’s a lot of interest to be part of the ecosystem here on the West Coast.”

The Jan. 13 event featured companies from nearly every conceivable realm of the health-tech sector, including Bluespine, an AI platform trained to detect medical overbilling, and Zida, a therapy device that helps treat incontinence.

It’s been a difficult few years for Israel’s health-tech sector.

According to data aggregated by Startup Nation Central, the total annual funding of Israeli health-tech startups fell to $1.6 billion in 2023, down from $3.1 billion in 2022. The ongoing war following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre has only further harmed the investment landscape, dropping the total funding to $1.2 billion in 2024.

“Uncertainty causes people with money to keep their hands in their pockets, protecting their money… An investor

is risk-averse to begin with,” Witkow told J.

In addition, anti-Zionist activist groups have renewed their demand for economic isolation of Israel. Yet startups have still found support worldwide, albeit in more subtle ways at times.

Tsvi Shmilovich, co-founder of EZMEMS, which makes cost-effective high-tech sensors, told J. about his team’s recent visit to Europe.

“People are coming quietly and telling you, ‘We are with you, we support you, we love Israel.’ But they sort of look to the side to see that no one is listening,” he said. “This is what we feel, especially in Europe. We feel there is a big support… just that these people, usually, they are not loud, they are quiet.”

Though investment in Israel’s health-tech startup scene has wobbled, there is still room for optimism.

Chaim Friedland, partner at the Tel Aviv-based Gornitzky law firm, has traveled from Israel for the past four years to attend the startup showcase at the J.P. Morgan conference. From his work in assisting Israeli companies with international business transactions, Friedland said he knows that investors can see past the politics to the strengths of Israeli innovation.

“In 2024, our firm did a large number of cross-border transactions, in some cases with investors who, for the first time, invested in Israel with no Jewish connection… just because it was a good investment,” Friedland told J. “These are good companies. It makes business sense to invest.” n

‘Stick Season’ singer Noah Kahan to headline BottleRock

MUSIC | MAYA MIRSKY | J. STAFF

If you’re into music that makes grown men cry, you’ve definitely heard of Noah Kahan.

The New England singer-songwriter is coming to Northern California as a headliner at this year’s BottleRock Napa Valley festival, which announced its lineup on Monday. Kahan is one of three top acts performing at the popular three-day music festival this spring. Also headlining the May 23-25 festival are Justin Timberlake and the Bay Area’s own Green Day. Tickets went on sale Jan. 14 and are expected to sell out well before the event.

The 28-year-old Kahan, who makes emotionally vulnerable music that’s been

described as “nostalgic” and “folksy,” has emphasized how his Jewish roots are part of his artistic sensibility, as he told Billboard in 2024.

“Growing up half Jewish and having this face on me … it has kind of been a big part of my identity,” he said. “I’m not going into a song [saying], ‘Let’s get this one extra Jew-y.’ But I think it plays into the cultural aspect of [my music] — into the humor. And down to my diet. Like, I got the acid reflux stomach, just like my dad.”

Kahan grew up in Vermont and New Hampshire. His biggest hit, “Stick Season,” references the leafless bushes that dominate

the landscape before and after the winter snows in New England. He first found fame on social media in 2017 and has since seen huge success, selling out large venues for his 2024 tour, including two nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, as well as appearing on Saturday Night Live.

BottleRock was founded in 2013 and has become a regular part of the large-festival circuit. The name refers to the area’s famous wines, which are showcased at the festival, along with local stars in the gourmet food scene. The festival generally sells out within days. Last year, around 120,000 people attended. n

(From left) Brett Super of the Israel Economic Mission to the West Coast; Vivian Wahl, founder of VW2PointO; and mission head Omer Fein at the startup showcase. (AARON LEVY-WOLINS/J. STAFF)

Noah Kahan performing in Edmonton, Canada, March 29, 2024. (WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

‘Miri’s Moving Day’ unpacks Chinese-Jewish identity

BOOKS | NIVA ASHKENAZI | J. STAFF

“Can I be both Chinese and Jewish?” wasn’t something Stephanie Wildman ever expected to hear from her grandson. After her initial surprise, though, came a realization.

“He’s not the only child like that,” the San Francisco resident told J. “Kids need to see themselves in books, so they understand they can be [both].”

Inspired by her grandson, whose mother is Jewish and father is Chinese American, Wildman reached out to Adam Ryan Chang, a former student she met while teaching at the University of Hawaii’s law school in 2010.

Thus was born “Miri’s Moving Day,” a slice-of-life children’s book about a Chinese Jewish girl who relies on her grandparents to guide her through a major event in her life: moving across town with her parents.

Featuring vibrant, charming illustrations

to life during celebrations of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which begins this year on Jan. 29.

Chang characterizes Miri’s relationship to her dual identity as “sure-footed,” which he attributes to the healthy cultural curiosity and exchange modeled by the adults in the book.

Wildman and Chang started co-writing the book in 2022, and Kar-Ben Publishing released it in November. Tablet magazine included “Miri” on its list of best Jewish children’s books in 2024 and the San Francisco Chronicle added it to a

“Kids need to see themselves in books.”

by Dream Chen, the book is as much about Miri as it is a testament to the relationship between her grandfathers: her Chinese “yeh-yeh” and Jewish “zayde.”

“You have the story within the story,” said Chang, who lives in Daly City. “How did these grandfathers have their own friendship? It lets the mind wonder and question and imagine, but that’s the beauty of it.”

To help alleviate her stress about the move, each grandfather gives Miri a gift from the other’s culture: from yeh-yeh, a mezuzah, and from zayde, a pair of miniature guardian lions, much like the massive ones that come

holiday gift list.

Wildman, a professor emerita at Santa Clara Law School, wanted to be a writer ever since she was young, but due to her self-described “risk averseness,” that desire remained a dream until she retired in 2017 at age 69. She finally took the leap in 2018 and signed up for a children’s book writing class through the Writing Salon. Seven years later, “Miri’s Moving Day” is her fifth published children’s book.

Both children of immigrants, Wildman and Chang each recognized the role of grandparents when they crafted their story

about a mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity family.

“There are so many families, particularly from immigrant backgrounds, where you have to lean on generational support,” Chang said, “so that kids and grandkids can thrive and flourish, and pursue whatever that American dream is.”

Wildman, 75, was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family, with a Romanian mother and a father of Austrian heritage, but her family soon moved to Southern California. She grew up between the Melrose and Fairfax neighborhoods of Los Angeles alongside her extended family, including aunts and uncles and, most importantly, grandparents.

Because her mother didn’t drive, her grandfather would chauffeur her around the city while her father was at work, a memory she still holds dear and channeled in her contributions to the book.

Chang, 38, was born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. His father was from southern China and mother from Burma, but he was raised primarily by his grandparents. His first language was Cantonese.

Though Chang and Wildman have collaborated previously on articles and presentations related to critical race theory and the relationship between gender and the law, this was their first joint creative-writing venture.

“I never thought I was going to be a children’s book writer,” Chang said. “As [Wildman] said ‘yes’ to me so many times, it was without a doubt that I would say ‘yes’ to join her on this journey of children’s book writing.… I’ve never taken that teacher hat off of Stephanie.”

Over the years, Wildman said, she has also learned much from her creative partner. Chang, who identifies as queer, is executive director of Oasis Legal Services, a nonprofit

public-interest law firm that provides legal services to low-income LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. The organization has helped more than 2,700 queer and transgender immigrants, according to its website.

“He does embody the Jewish value of tikkun olam in his work,” Wildman said. “He is really a shining light out there and changing the world.”

Throughout the writing process, both Chang and Wildman were able to share aspects of their own cultures and experiences with each other and then infuse those into Miri’s story.

Chang, for example, became a father in 2017 when he and his former partner adopted their daughter, Annaliese, now 9. Chang sees many similarities between the experiences of his daughter and Miri, particularly in how they relate to the diverse cultural makeup of their families.

Annaliese is a “full-fledged Latina: She’s Guatemalan, Mexican, Puerto Rican,” said Chang. As he co-wrote the book, he would think about how she has grappled with her own questions about culture with Chang’s Chinese-Burmese heritage and her other father’s Taiwanese background. “She grew up with our food, our language — she speaks Mandarin fluently,” Chang said.

The back portion of the book features detailed authors’ notes and a glossary explaining the distinct cultural artifacts and terms mentioned in the story.

“I find it’s really precious for us to be friends across all these lines of difference,” Wildman said. n

“Miri’s Moving Day” by Adam Ryan Chang and Stephanie Wildman. Illustrated by Dream Chen. Ages 4 to 8. (24 pages, Kar-Ben Publishing) tinyurl.com/miris-day

Stephanie Wildman, co-author

Stephanie Wildman and Adam Ryan Chang (RUSSELL JEW)

J. Life

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

‘Who am I?’ Moses’ humility serves as a model for us all

TORAH | RABBI NILES ELLIOT GOLDSTEIN Vaera

Exodus 6:2-9:35

In last week’s Torah portion, Shemot, God appears to Moses through a burning bush on Mount Horeb, and the future leader of the people of Israel is filled with a sense of awe and humility. Moses immediately takes off his sandals and listens intently to what God has to say.

God has marked well the plight of the Israelites in Egypt and has heeded their outcry.

God is mindful of their sufferings. God will rescue them from their bondage and bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey — but God needs a human surrogate.

God says to Moses: “Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)

Can you imagine what an enormous ego trip this must have been for a simple shepherd, a man plucked from obscurity to lead his people, in almost messianic fashion, from slavery to freedom?

Who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance for such glory and accolade?

Rather than eagerly accepting his special election and privileged status, Moses instead questions God’s decision: “Who am I,” he asks, “that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)

Moses’ response is not unheard of in the Hebrew Bible. The prophet Jonah, who we read about every year on Yom Kippur afternoon, also resists the Divine call to lead, as does the prophet Jeremiah.

But there is a key difference. Whereas Jonah and Jeremiah resist the call because they don’t want to bear the burden and feeling of isolation that comes with being a prophetic leader, Moses expresses doubt about his own worthiness.

When called by God, Moses doesn’t question the order. He questions himself.

In this week’s parasha, Vaera, God answers Moses’s question — “Who am I?” — and, in doing so, God also addresses his resistance, but in an indirect way.

ever led their people to the very entrance of the Promised Land.

Forty years later, at the conclusion of the Torah, the text makes it clear that Moses was held in special regard by God, unique among the many and varied characters in Scripture: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses — whom the Lord singled out, face to face [panim-el-panim].... ” (Deuteronomy 34:10)

While we don’t know exactly what it meant for Moses to know God “face to face,” we can infer that it involved a unique level of intimacy that no one else in the Hebrew Bible ever reached. The Biblical patriarchs, for

We don’t know exactly what it meant for Moses to know God ‘face to face.’

example, might have experienced God, spoken to God and interrelated with God, but not one of them ever encountered God’s true essence, God’s personhood.

In a term that the Jewish theologian Martin Buber would most likely have used, only Moses had an “I-Thou” relationship with the Almighty.

When Moses resists the Divine call and asks God “Who am I?” in the famous scene at the burning bush, he expresses a heartfelt and deep humility that serves as a model for all of us who strive for moral and spiritual rectitude.

God then explains to Moses how this theophany, this profound moment of revelation, is qualitatively different from God’s earlier appearances to and relationships with the patriarchs: None of them knew God’s personal name; none of them interacted with God in such close partnership; none of them

The Torah portion begins: “God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Eternal. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by my name, YHVH.’” (Exodus 6:2-3)

And when God answers him in this week’s Torah portion, God implies that it is only someone of such humble character that is worthy of the mantle of leadership, strong enough to liberate the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and enlightened and evolved to a degree that make an intimate and ultimately successful partnership with God possible. It is a model of moral and spiritual maturity that all of us should try to emulate now, in our own time. n

Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom of Napa Valley.

“Moses Adores God in the Burning Bush” by James Tissot, ca. 1896-1902

Do your part to save the planet with this creamy barley risotto

NOSH MICAH SIVA

Tu Bishvat, or new year for the trees, is a lesser known holiday among many Jews. (It starts this year on Feb. 12.) I did not celebrate it growing up in a secular community, but as I have formed my own connection to Judaism as an adult, it’s quickly become one of my favorites — not only for its themes around nature, but also for its connection to vegetarianism.

Tu Bishvat’s roots are as an agricultural festival marking the start of the spring season. For those passionate about a healthy planet and world, it can be a Jewish Earth Day, a time to advocate for the restoration of our planet. It is a day perfectly spent out in nature, going for a hike, preparing and planning your springtime garden, and enjoying foods known as the Seven Species or Shivat Haminim, sacred fruits and grains grown in Israel.

Funnily enough, many of these crops grow and thrive in the California climate. e Seven Species are wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates, all items you are likely to find at your local farmers market.

As a nature and earth-based holiday, it is perfectly aligned with a plant-based diet.

As a vegetarian Jewish chef, I’d be remiss if I didn’t use it as an opportunity to celebrate with a vegan menu that highlights the flavors and symbolism of these fruits and grains, native to both Israel and California.

A plant-based diet can help to reduce environmental impact in a few ways, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with animal agriculture, to conserving water. More important, it’s thought to be one of the leading solutions to slowing and halting climate change.

Over the past year of promoting my vegetarian Jewish cookbook, “Nosh,” I’ve seen that people are eager to reduce their meat intake, whether it be for health or environmental reasons. I o en discuss its merits, and the benefits of following a plant-forward diet where the plants take center stage. ose who still eat meat can enjoy smaller portions, treating them as a side dish rather than the main a raction. is notion of plant-forward eating is a new way to approach a climate-friendly diet, removing many of the hurdles of a fully fledged vegan diet. is hearty, vegan dish celebrates two of the seven species, barley and olives. Barley lends a chewy bite, similar to the al dente texture of arborio rice. In the absence of creamy cheese, I like to use a mixture of tahini, miso and nutritional yeast for a rich, almost cheesy flavor that pairs perfectly with the nu y barley for an irresistibly creamy dish. Fresh fennel adds a hint of sweetness, while earthy mushrooms provide both protein and umami flavor to this vegan riso o. So, what are you waiting for? Tu Bishvat is the perfect excuse to ditch (or reduce!) the meat and try your hand at a satisfying, plant-based recipe, and you can enjoy the rest of the white wine while you’re at it. Chag sameach!

VEGAN FENNEL MUSHROOM BARLEY RISOTTO

Serves 4

Total time: 1 hour

6 cups vegetable broth

¼ cup tahini

4 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

3 small shallots, finely chopped

6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 head fennel, finely chopped

12 oz. assorted fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 cup pearl barley

½ tsp. dried thyme

1 bay leaf

½ cup dry white wine

¼ tsp. Aleppo chili flakes

1 Tbs. nutritional yeast

1 tsp. miso paste

Zest of 1 lemon

In a medium saucepan, heat the vegetable broth over medium heat. Once simmering, add the tahini, and whisk to combine. Keep on low heat.

In a large saucepan, heat 3 Tbs. olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until they begin to so en. Add the fennel and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove half of the vegetable mixture and set aside.

Add the barley, thyme and bay leaf and remaining 1 Tbs. olive oil. Cook for 1 minute to lightly toast the barley.

Add the wine and cook until absorbed, about 4 minutes.

Add one ladle of the warmed broth and tahini mixture, stirring frequently to combine, until almost all of the broth has been absorbed. Be careful not to boil the liquid. Continue adding the broth, one ladle at a time, stirring and le ing the broth absorb into the barley between each ladleful, until the barley is al dente. If you need more liquid, you can add warm water to finish cooking. Remove the bay leaf.

Add the Aleppo chili flakes, nutritional yeast, miso and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish with thyme. ■

Micah Siva is a registered dietitian, trained chef and cookbook author. She develops modern Jewish recipes inspired by her grandmother, with a plant-forward twist. NoshWithMicah.com

Vegan Fennel Mushroom Barley Risotto makes a perfect Tu Bishvat meal. (MICAH SIVA)

Foraging led this mushroom enthusiast to

THE ORGANIC EPICURE ALIX WALL

By her own admission, Carrie Staller is obsessed with mushrooms.

“They’re beautiful, mysterious and delicious,” she said. “You get embodied when you’re in the hunting mindset, and it can be so exciting and rewarding. You get a shot of dopamine when you find one. It can almost put you in an altered state.”

Staller, 45, of Berkeley, is the founder of Fork in the Path, an educational organization that leads workshops on foraging for food. While mushrooms are her own personal favorite, there are also events on harvesting wild foods like seaweed and acorns and dyeing with mushrooms.

Coming up on Feb. 15, Fork in the Path has a Jewish mystical offering in honor of Tu Bishvat, the new year of the trees, in Berkeley’s Tilden Park. Staller will collaborate with Jonathan Furst on a guided walk to offer “a celebration of the interrelationships of trees, humanity, fungi and the unseen world. Learn how blessings, angels and a Jewish approach to ethical harvesting can deepen our connection to the natural world as we amble through the forest.”

The East Bay park system doesn’t allow foraging, so it will not be included in the Tu Bishvat event. Fork in the Path’s mushroom foraging workshops take place further afield, in places like Salt Point State Park and Mendocino.

Mushrooms have a mycorrhizal relationship with trees, Staller explained, which means in the underground networks where mushrooms grow, they have a symbiotic relationship with nearby tree roots, sharing nutrients and perhaps information. Mushrooms also can be saprobic, which means they help organic matter decompose and become food for living organisms around them.

“To hunt for common mushrooms like chanterelle, porcini or morels, one must know what their tree partner is,” she said.

Staller grew up in Milwaukee, attending Jewish day school. Her foraging was limited to the raspberry patch in her backyard, she said. She had drifted away from Judaism as a young adult, but her drumming at a Hanukkah party was noticed by someone looking for a drummer for Shabbat services. Now she’s the percussionist in three different bands familiar in Jewish circles and has found a home in the earth-based communities of Wilderness Torah and Urban Adamah.

She traces her interest in mushrooms to a lecture she attended by Paul Stamets, a prominent mycologist. From there she went on to participate in a retreat where foraging for mushrooms was the focus. That shifted her interest into a passion.

“After that, my whole life changed,” she said. “I started spending all my free time in the forest and lurking in online mushroom groups. It was not like a slow descent, but rather falling off a cliff into deep curiosity.” Foraging can be addicting, she warns.

Staller has had to be creative in how she earns a living after being diagnosed with long Covid. She still is experiencing many symptoms and needs a lot of downtime, though she said wearing a nicotine patch has reduced some of her brain fog.

She introduced her company, Fork in the Path, last year. It is so named because foraging created a fork in her own life path, she said.

“My hope is that it will create some small transformation for others,” she said. “Some people begin to feel such a deep sense of being compelled to hunt and gather, and such a

deep longing to connect more deeply with nature and their food, that it really transforms their life.”

Upcoming events include a Jan. 31 talk by mycologist Christian Schwarz on the aromas of fungi, and a Feb. 1 edible and medicinal plant walk in Berkeley. Staller hopes to grow the company and offer more workshops; 14 instructors are currently on the company’s website at forkinthepath.org.

Staller said she vets people carefully to ensure they “have deep respect of the land, and an understanding of how to harvest sustainability,” as well as respect for the Indigenous peoples who tended the land before. Fork in the Path donates a percentage from each program to Native American causes.

While foraging is the central focus of her endeavor, Staller also appreciates how the workshops help foster connection among the people who take them.

“It’s very powerful to go into the forest, look for food, find it, cook it and eat it together. There’s something very primal and ancestral and forgotten about that.”

“There’s this whole hunter-gatherer chapter of humanity that’s been forgotten in this modern world, but when we return to that and do it together, we’re claiming the birthright of being human,” she said. “It’s very powerful to go into the forest, look for food, find it, cook it and eat it together. There’s something very primal and ancestral and forgotten about that, as not a lot of people know how to do it.”

Alix Wall is a contributing editor to J. She is also the founder of the Illuminoshi: The Not-So-Secret Society of Bay Area Jewish Food Professionals.

Fork in the Path founder Carrie Staller

Carrie Staller holds liver boletes mushrooms while foraging. (SITA DAVIS)

Boletus Edulis, or porcini, are highly prized mushrooms popular in many cuisines. (MARIA KOSTICK)

‘Fork in the Path’

SMALL BITES

Nicolas and Clare Abrams locked up Ethel’s Delicatessen on Dec. 22 for what they thought was a holiday break, giving themselves and their sta some well-deserved time o during the holidays.

When it came time to reopen the Petaluma eatery in early January, the couple made a di erent decision. On Jan. 10, their social media accounts reported they would not be reopening at all.

“Choosing to close a business is an almost impossible decision,” they wrote. “But one that we needed to make.”

“I wish it were di erent,” Nicolas Abrams told J.

While the Covid era saw a spate of new Jewish delis open in the North Bay — including Loveski in Napa and Larkspur, Drewish in Healdsburg and, very recently, Bubbala’s in San Anselmo — Ethel’s is the first of them to close.

I first reported on Ethel’s Bagels in June 2020. It started as a bagel and schmear operation by delivery and then moved to farmers markets. In 2023, Abrams decided to go all in and opened Ethel’s as a Delicatessen, o ering pastrami, babka and other Jewish favorites. e business continued selling at a few farmers markets as well.

“We had a lot of momentum, but we needed a little more time to get our feet on the ground.”

Nicolas Abrams on Ethel’s closing

“Maybe we should have just opened a bagel shop, but we thought a deli is more creative and exciting,” Abrams said. “We did a great product, and people loved everything that we made. (Numerous comments on Ethel’s social media accounts confirm this; in a competitive and discerning marketplace, some considered their bagels to be the best in the North Bay.)

“We couldn’t make our rugelach quickly enough, but many of the deli items are very labor intensive,” he said.

For much of the 18 or so months they were open, they hoped the numbers would add up, but in the end that was not the case. Abrams cited the high cost of construction, including remodeling the Petaluma space, as well as the high cost of food.

“We had a lot of momentum, but we needed a li le more time to get our feet on the ground,” he said.

ey have considered doing wholesale and haven’t ruled it out entirely, but for now they’re taking time o to figure out what’s next.

Also in late December, Daily Driver, a multiple-outlet bagel maker in San Francisco known for making its own cream cheese and churning its own bu er, closed all its locations a er six years in business. I first wrote about it in June 2019. Its Instagram account said simply “the model isn’t working.”

e bagel outfit’s flagship store in the Dogpatch neighborhood will reopen soon under new ownership. ■

REUBENESQUE

Matisse, Monet, Mark ’n Mike’s... Art comes in many forms, and once you taste the Reuben from Mark ’n Mike’s you’ll agree this is one of them.

Piled high with pastrami, swiss, sauerkraut and MnM dressing on twice-baked rye bread, then griddled to perfection. Enjoy it indoors, on the patio, or to go — or at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market on Saturdays till 2pm.

Reservations at onemarket.com

See menus with all of your best-loved New York style deli items, along with other One Market favorites, at onemarket.com.

VALENTINE’S DAY DINNER AT ONE MARKET

Romance your Valentine with a special dinner on Friday, February 14. Whet your appetite with a walk along the Embarcadero, then enjoy Chef Mark Dommen’s specially crafted menu that will have you swooning from start to finish. See menu and reserve at onemarket.com.

Pastrami at Ethel’s was made from Wagyu beef, cured in an original spice blend, with house-made pickles. (ALIX WALL)

Introducing “Such a Match!,” J.’s first original podcast!

In each episode of “Such a Match!,” host Emma Goss tells the story of a couple who met through the singles ads we ran in our paper in past decades. The first episode, “When Two Jewish Moms Play Matchmaker,” is now available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Listen to “Such a Match!” on Spotify and Apple — or sign up to be notified of each new episode at jweekly.com/podcast

Issue date: Feb. 7

&

date: Feb. 7 Reserve ad space by Jan. 28

Reserve ad space by Jan. 28 Arts, Culture & Judaica

Issue date: Feb. 21

Reserve ad space by Feb. 11

Home & Garden

Issue date: Feb. 21

Reserve ad space by Feb. 11

Mira Shelub, 102, was a partisan, Yiddish scholar, storyteller and traveler

continued from page 15

the end of the morning, they were in love.”

Life in the forest was not easy. Partisans were subject to hunger, cold and death, especially when carrying out guerrilla missions. Nonye decided to break o from the Russian partisans and lead a group of Jewish fighters. He and Mira said that the Russians, though allies, were as antisemitic as the Germans.

While Nonye fought one mission a er another, Mira carried the ammunition into active combat zones.

“ ey remained an inseparable couple,” said Mark Shelub, Mira’s younger son. “She was always with him during this entire time.”

In August 1944, the Soviet army liberated their area. Mira’s mother had been killed in a police raid, and her father fell ill and died shortly a er liberation, but all of the siblings survived.

Mira and Nonye le the forest where they had lived for two years and started toward his family home in Novogrudok. On the way, se led in their campsite for the night, they began to profess their love to one another.

“ e moon was her rabbi, the stars were their witnesses, and they pledged to one another that they would never part and

remain each other's life companion, essentially an oath of marriage to become each other's husband and wife,” said Irwin Shelub. Mira and Nonye tied strings around each other’s fingers in place of wedding rings.

When they arrived in Novogrudok, they discovered the Jewish community wiped out and the remaining population hostile and unwelcoming. Nonye was soon recruited by

decided to immigrate to America. Nonye’s uncle in San Francisco sponsored them, and they arrived at Ellis Island in January 1949 with 9-month old Yitzchak (Irwin) in their arms.

Mira and Nonye Szelubski became Mira and Norman Shelub. A er a time in New York, they moved to San Francisco, where they raised three children and operated

“She was persistently optimistic. She lived life to the fullest.”

Elaine Shelub, Mira’s daughter

was instrumental in the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, sharing her story through lectures and Holocaust education. Fi een years ago, she recorded her testimony for the USC Shoah Foundation archive.

“She became, in the Jewish community, kind of a celebrity,” said Mark Shelub. “Everybody knew who she was because she was the featured speaker when it came to discussing the Jewish partisan resistance movement.”

Mira was also known for her warmth, charm and spirit, her family said. She traveled extensively and took high school students throughout Poland and Israel.

the Zionist Betar Movement to fight with Jewish forces in British Mandate Palestine. Using false documents, the couple gained passage across Poland and Czechoslovakia to the American zone in Austria, from which they planned to complete their journey to Palestine.

In 1945, Mira and Nonye ended up in a displaced persons camp, where Mira documented survivor testimonies as a translator and transcriptionist. e stories she recorded are preserved at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

A er four years in D.P. camps, they ulti

several businesses through the years, .

A er Norman’s death in 1977, Mira became a student at San Francisco State University, finally fulfilling her lifelong dream of completing her higher education. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Eastern European history, followed by a master’s in counseling. She taught Yiddish at S.F. State in the 1980s, taught at the now-defunct Hebrew Academy in San Francisco for years and worked for Jewish Family and Children’s Services counseling Russian immigrants until she was 96.

In 2000, Mira began participating and

“She was persistently optimistic, always kept on going,” recalled Elaine Shelub. “She lived life to the fullest.”

Mira frequently concluded events by singing the Jewish partisan hymn, translated from Yiddish as “Never Say at You Are Going the Last Way.” It inspired the title of her autobiography, co-authored with historian Fred Rosenbaum.

Mira is survived by son Mark, daughter Elaine, son Irwin and wife Cheryl; grandsons Aaron and partner Lucy, and Nathan and wife Ivy; and great-grandchildren Daniel, Ron, Emery, Abigail and Benjamin. ■

GALIT FRANCO Daughter of Daliah Ortega and Yehuda Franco, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco.

YEROHAM FRANCO Son of Daliah Ortega and Yehuda Franco, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco.

ELI LEWIS Child of Sharon and Akiva Lewis, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.

SCOTT

of

ELLA WICKMAN

of Andi

and

RADMAN Son

Amanda

Dan Radman, brother of Julie Radman, Saturday, Jan. 18, at Congregation Beth Emek in Pleasanton.

Daughter

and Charles Wickman, Saturday, Feb. 1, at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.

STAV ABEL SHOR Son of Hilla and Asaf Abel Shor, brother of Ravid Abel Shor, grandson of Savyona and Mordechai Abel of Berkeley and Nurit and Arie Shor of Sunnyvale, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley.

NATHAN DOVBISH Son of Natalie Kaniel and Mike Dovbish, Saturday, Jan. 18, at Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael.

MAYA LOWENSTEIN Daughter of Inbar Telem and Martin Lowenstein, Thursday, Jan. 2, at Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael.

SIDNEY MORDECAI BENIN Son of Melissa Greer Rosenstein and David Joshua Benin, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael.

ZACHARY SKY WALLACE Son of Serena and Ken Wallace, Saturday, Jan. 25, at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills.

JORDAN ISSAC GOLDSMITH Son of Mor Tzadik and Joel Goldsmith, Saturday, Jan. 11, at Temple Sinai in Oakland.

OBITUARIES

AARON STANLEY MELINGER

Aaron Stanley Melinger, 30 years old, passed away from cancer on Dec. 6, 2024.

He’s survived by his parents, Dan and Paula Volansky Melinger. Aaron participated in various special needs programs in Santa Clara public schools. When he was younger, he participated in swim classes, horseback riding with NCEFT in Woodside, family camp at Camp Newman, and sleepaway camp at Via West. He was involved in Friendship Circle for special needs Sunday school and summer day camp.

Together with his parents, Aaron enjoyed travel, including over a dozen cruises. His favorite was Disney’s Alaska Cruise, where he loved to ride the White Pass and Yukon Route train in Skagway. His favorite rides at Disneyland were Space Mountain, the Disneyland Railroad and the Mark Twain steamboat. Aaron loved his trips to Great America and riding CalTrain. He also enjoyed walks on pedestrian bridges over highways to watch cars underneath him. He loved music and always had his iPhone with him for listening to his collection of 500 songs. With the help of life coaches from Hope Services, he had many years of volunteer jobs at Goodwill Industries and the food pantry at St. Justin in Santa Clara.

He was laid to rest in a private ceremony at Salem Memorial Park in Colma. Donations in his memory may be made to Hope Services (hopeservices.org) or Friendship Circle (bayareafc.org).

Sinai Memorial Chapel | 415.921.3636

JANICE CAROL BERZIN FINGERUT

Nov. 23, 1935–Dec. 9, 2024

Janice Carol Fingerut, born on Nov. 23, 1935, in San Francisco, California, passed away peacefully in her sleep on Dec. 9, 2024.

The only child of Margaret Moskovitz Berzin and Samuel Berzin. In July of 1956, she married Gerald Stanley Fingerut, and together they began their life in Oakland. Gerald preceded her in death. Janice was a devoted wife and mother who dedicated herself to raising her two children, Ilene Fingerut Mino and William Jay Fingerut. Those who knew Janice will remember her as a kind-hearted individual who worked tirelessly to make a positive impact with her children, neighbors, and her community.

Donations may be made to SOS Meals on Wheels at 2235 Polvorosa Ave., Suite 260, San Leandro, CA 94577 or to Social Justice Projects at Congregation Emanu El, 1495 Ford St., Redlands, CA 92373. May her memory be a blessing and bring comfort to all who were touched by her kindness and generosity.

ETHEL SIMON RESS

July 31, 1922–Jan. 12, 2025

Ethel was born and raised in Oakland, Calif.

The daughter of Emma and Harry B. Simon, and sister to Melvin, Albert and Sarah Simon. Ethel graduated from University High School and Merritt Business School. Ethel then became a proud civil servant at the U.S. Naval Depot in Oakland during WWII. During the war she met her sailor, Elvin L. Ress.

They married in 1946 and she retired from the Navy in 1950 to move to San Jose, Calif. They were proud parents to Arlene (Bill), Arnold (Leslie) and Shelly (Arnie). Ethel was a much-loved grandma to Joshua, Emily, Mikhail, Daniel, Levi and Lili. She was adored by her great-grandchildren and many cousins, nieces and nephews. Ethel was predeceased by Elvin, Arlene, her parents, siblings and son-in-law Arnie.

During her long life, Ethel became a business partner to Elvin. They owned Red Front Surplus from 1962 until 1993. She was an excellent bookkeeper and did what was necessary to keep the store running. She was also an enthusiastic Mom and homemaker. Ethel loved to travel and practice her Judaism and was very active in the City of Hope.

Life wasn’t always easy for Ethel. She endured losing her father when she was age 8 and losing her hearing in her 20s. She persevered, making many friends, being active with her family and community and enjoying her home in San Jose.

Our matriarch got her wish to die at home in her own bed. In the end, Ethel was cared for by her granddaughter Lili and her “adopted family” and help, Esther and Loviana. We are thankful for all Ethel brought to our lives. Donations in her memory can be made to City of Hope, Duarte, CA or Temple Emanu-El, San Jose, CA.

MARLENE B. SCHERER

May 15, 1932–Jan. 8, 2025

Born in Oakland, CA, to Louis and Frances Goldman and raised in San Francisco in the Mission District.

Marlene passed peacefully at the age of 92 in her home of 57 years in Novato.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 67 years, Max, and is survived by her children Susan (Dennis), Evelyn (Steve) and Arnold (Christina); grandchildren Michael (Ashlynn), Lawrence (Jessica), Raina and Nina; her great-grandchildren, Lily, Nolan and Arthur; and her brother Manny (Diane). She will be remembered by her friends and family for her amazing parties, baking (especially challah, knishes and cookies) and her quick wit!

Stefi Rudolph, wife of the late Albert Rudolph, passed away on Dec. 12, 2024, at the age of 96. She is survived by her loving and devoted family of three children, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Stefi was a Holocaust survivor born in Berlin, Germany. Stefi, her sister Ilse, and parents Egon and Alice left Germany by ship in June 1939 headed to San Francisco via New York –just in time before the German ports closed. Family and being a thankful American were always foremost. Donations in Stefi’s memory can be made to Hebrew Free Loan.

FRANK KUSHIN

March 14, 1934–Dec. 27, 2024

Frank Kushin was born in London, England, on March 14, 1934, to Rachel and Alfred Aaron Kushin. He died on Dec. 27, 2024. As a child he was sent to the countryside to avoid the Blitz. After his sister married an American GI, the family moved to the States. Both these events

had a profound impact on his life.

Frank graduated from Brooklyn College and obtained a master’s in social work from Columbia University and soon moved to California, where he worked as a community organizer under a Ford Foundation grant. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and taught in Italy for two years, taking his bride, Norma Galliana, with him. When they returned home they moved back to New York, where he obtained his Ph.D. He again returned to Berkeley and taught at San Jose State University, while also becoming Director of Adult Services and subsequently Director of Cultural Arts at the Palo Alto JCC.

Frank is survived by two daughters, Diana Kushin and Danielle Walker, whom he loved, as well as a wonderful granddaughter and three terrific grandsons. Four years after Norma’s untimely death, he married Ellen Spielman, who also has a master’s in social work and public health. They were very well suited and had great times together. She survives him. Frank tried to make this a better world. He loved people. He was a good man.

If you wish to honor Frank, please feel free to donate to Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City or a charity of your choice.

STEFI RUTH RUDOLPH

From the J. Archives

A list of names, a hunt for family, as the ’30s bore down

MAYA MIRSKY | J. STAFF

“Salomon, Moritz and Isado Davisohn, who came to America about 1850, or any of their descendants; William Baker, born in Zabize, Poland, who once operated a detective agency; Arthur Goldschmidt, born in Hamburg, supposed to have lived here since 1924; and Aaron Harris, who changed his name from Heimann to Harris.”

The pages of our newspaper were usually full of the everyday stuff of Jewish life, from stern editorials to chatty local news to candlelighting times. But during certain periods, you could find — almost weekly — lists of names with minor clues as to their whereabouts.

So who were these people?

During the 1930s, Jews in Europe were desperate to get out and sought aid — legal and otherwise — from relatives who had already immigrated to America. But they often had scanty and out-of-date information. So organizations like the National Council of Jewish Women and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society regularly published names of American Jews in Jewish newspapers like ours, seeking new information.

These names tell a heart-rending tale of desperation.

“Jews of Austria, Germany, and Italy continue to send pleas to American organizations that can aid them in locating relatives here,” we wrote in 1939, when Europe was already deep in the throes of the hate and antisemitism unleashed by the Nazis.

“Carl Baruch, who resides in Berlin, is seeking the children of Moses Baruch, who formerly owned a cleaning and dyeing firm in San Francisco. From Berlin comes another appeal, that of Benno Schmal, who desires to emigrate from Germany. He is looking for the children here of his deceased father’s aunt, nee Buschke, who married a Mr. Edelman in San Francisco

“Jews of Austria, Germany, and Italy continue to send pleas.”

From a 1939 article

and who since has passed away.”

Jews in Europe already knew the situation was becoming more dire by the day, even if they could not envision the horrors that were to come.

In 1931, we carried this report: “Jews who were walking through the Kurfuerstendam on Rosh Hashonah eve suddenly found themselves surrounded by hundreds of screaming hooligans, who, shouting ‘The Jews have betrayed you; wake up, Germany!’ used fists and weapons to attack anybody who by his appearance looked to be a Jew.

country have mysteriously disappeared without leaving a trace,” we wrote in 1934. “A preliminary investigation has failed to reveal what happened to them, and their relatives are convinced that they were victims of the Nazi terror. Most of the missing Jews are either from Munich, where the storm troop rebellion was drowned in blood, or Silesia, where serious anti-Jewish outbreaks occurred during the crisis.”

“There could be no question of the nature of the assault, that this was not meant to be an ordinary anti-Jewish outrage of the sort quite ‘popular’ since the advent of the Hitler party, but a serious pogrom, which would have resulted in many casualties if the police had not dispersed the Hitlerites in quick order.”

The situation only got worse.

“Disappearance: Since the beginning of the violent domestic strife in Germany, scores of Jews in various parts of the

More people were trying to leave, but it was very difficult to get to the United States, where they might find safety and security. Besides a raft of documents, immigrants needed sponsors, preferably close relatives. The sponsors had to guarantee that the immigrant wouldn’t be a burden on the U.S.

“The poignant story of broken families, of kin seeking kin, has been brought to light here once more,” we wrote in 1937 in a short text titled “Distressed Jews Seek Kin Across Land and Oceans.”

Tragically, as we now know, most did not get out. But there were some “happy” endings.

“A few lines of type, published by Emanu-EI and The Jewish Journal, have proved responsible for bringing an unhappy German family to San Francisco and giving them a chance to begin life anew,” we wrote in 1938.

“Some weeks ago the San Francisco Section, National Council of Jewish Women, received a letter from Germany in which one Isaac Wertheimer, living in Breslau, was seeking relatives in San Francisco. He asked the whereabouts of his only known kin here, Mrs. Rachel Levy, from whom he wanted an affidavit that would enable him to migrate.”

Like many others, her name was published in our paper.

“The item brought Mrs. Levy hurrying to Council offices. She promptly signed the necessary papers and her family has just arrived in San Francisco.”

Some Jews did make it out. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, by September 1939 approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and 117,000 had fled Austria. Of these, some 95,000 immigrated to the United States, 60,000 to British Mandate Palestine, 40,000 to Great Britain, and about 75,000 to Central and South America.

There are no more mentions of Isaac Wertheimer in our pages, but we hope he lived a long and prosperous life in his adopted country as we remember those who did not. n

A 1948 ad in

publication. (J. ARCHIVES)

A 1938 headline showing how desperation had spread across Europe. (J. ARCHIVES)

Don’t miss Among Neighbors, winner of the prestigious Envision Award from the Jewish Film Institute and directed by Bay Area filmmaker Yoav Potash. Executive produced by Anita Friedman, this gripping tale of Jewish and Polish neighbors torn apart by WWII is a heart-pounding mystery with urgent political relevance.

jewish film institute

jewish film institute