A note from our LGBT Alliance Director, Lisa Finkelstein

The Jewish community shows incredible support for the LGBT Alliance. Below is a segment of an email written by the Federation’s LGBT Alliance Director, Lisa Finkelstein yesterday, the day after joyous celebrations began at City Hall honoring newly legally married LGBT couples.

As many of you have seen in the news, yesterday was an incredible day for California, for couples, for families, for marriage equality and for civil rights, but what I am most delighted about is the community collaboration that we built demonstrating a united Jewish presence in support of social justice.

Collectively, the LGBT Alliance, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Jewish Mosaic, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, Jewish Community Relations Council and Congregation Emanu- El celebrated together outside of SF City Hall under one Chuppah, under one banner, with klezmer music, dancing, multiple Rabbi’s and a kosher cake. We were the only united nonprofit, organized cultural or religious voice representing our support for our community in a major visual way.

Amber Weiss and Sharon Papo who are active in the LGBT Jewish community walked out of City Hall and headed directly for our Chuppah. Once there, they smashed a wine glass and with their parents we all sang, danced and ate cake. Sharon whispered to me while being photographed by at least a dozen networks, magazines and newspapers that it means the world to them “that the Jewish community is here.” A handful of other Jewish couples said those same words to me today.

Thank you for giving me the space and the opportunity to serve and organize our Jewish community in a meaningful and socially relevant way.

Click here to view more photos!

Synagogue Initiative Symposium at Beth Sholom

Karen Bluestone from the JCF describes the exciting Synagogue Initiative that occurred at the new temple Beth Sholom. Here is her email reprinted below.

Last night at Beth Sholom’s new beautiful synagogue, approximately 160 representatives of Bay Area synagogue and JCF leadership gathered to discuss “the creation of a lasting partnership to enrich and enliven Jewish life in our community.” Barry Shrage, the CEO of the Boston federation (Combined Jewish Philanthropies) was our keynote speaker. He was brilliant, irreverent, and provocative. It was a terrific launch of the Synagogue Initiative, now referred to as the Synagogue/Federation Partnership!

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Rabbi Marv Goodman and Chair, Deborah Mintz. Marv has been a patient and skillful bridge-builder. This event was the culmination of more than a year’s work, engaging synagogue and JCF leadership in conversations about how we might work together. Deborah has been a significant force behind all of this. Without her passion, and leadership for this cause, I do not believe we could ever have gotten to this point. Amy Morgenstern, who served as our professional consultant on this project, created a process and event format that facilitated real learning and relationship-building.

Former JCF CEO Brian Lurie commented at one point at our table, “The Federation and synagogues are coming to the table in good faith to work out misunderstandings and move forward in a productive way. This has never happened before in this community. It’s really exciting!”

Chip Edelsberg from the Jim Joseph Foundation commented today, “It was a terrific launch. Your entire team should be very proud!”

Rabbi Micah Hyman told me, “This kind of dialogue is just what we’ve been asking for!”

The convening of this terrific group of professional and lay leaders was, in and of itself, an act of good faith that led most participants to indicate to us that they have trust in this partnership moving forward!

Jewish Jeopardy game livens up federation meeting

On June 5, the JCF hosted its annual meeting with a twist–Jewish Jeopardy! The event was written up in the j. by staff writer Dan Pine. Here is the article reposted below.

There were no “potent potables” until the wine bar opened afterward, but the crowd at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco found the game of Jewish Jeopardy categorically delightful.

The game –– complete with giant-screen Jeopardy board and tuxedoed Alex Trebek impersonator –– took place at the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s annual meeting June 5.

Ostensibly, the meeting had serious business on the agenda. Outgoing federation president John Pritzker passed the baton to new president James Koshland. Incoming CEO Daniel Sokatch said hello, and retiring Jewish Community Endowment Fund Director Phyllis Cook said goodbye.

From left to right: James Koshland, Daniel Sokatch and John Pritzker

In between calling for votes to approve new board members and handing out awards of excellence, organizers staged the Jeopardy game, played by 12 Jewish community leaders. The categories and “answers” boasted local Jewish themes –– with a few nutty exceptions.

It all made for more than a few big laughs.

Dan Leemon

The players were divided into three teams: the Menorahs, the Mezuzahs and the Matzahs. Host and faux-Trebek Dan Leemon let out his inner Henny Youngman as he kept things moving with a ready joke (“The Menorahs are on fire!”).

During player introductions, Bureau of Jewish Education Director David Waksberg quipped, “If I get it wrong, my name is Bob Sherman,” referring to his predecessor.

Other players included Ed Cushman (Hebrew Free Loan Association), Rabbi Doug Kahn (Jewish Community Relations Council), Ezzy Schusterman (Friendship Circle), Deborah Pinsky (Peninsula Jewish Community Center), Leslie Kane (Holocaust Center of Northern California), Rabbi Stacy Friedman (Congregation Rodef Sholom), Rabbi Eric Weiss (Bay Area Healing Center), David Rubinstein (Hillel of Sonoma), Nurit Robinson (Menorah Park) and Rabbi Avraham Schochet (South Peninsula Hebrew Day School).

Leemon reminded players to answer in the form of a question. With the game underway, player and JCCSF Executive Director Sandee Blechman promptly (and unapologetically) failed to do so.

In the category of “Caring for the Vulnerable,” Weiss rang in quickly. The jeopardy “answer” was “Federation funding for this organization helps support weekend retreats for bereaved families.” Weiss knew the correct response was the organization he heads: the Bay Area Healing Center. When he was told he was incorrect, the rabbi shouted, “But that’s us!” (For the record, he was right.)

Responding to the answer, “Only about a quarter of Jewish children receive Jewish education after this event,” Friedman rang in with: “What is the bris?”

Once the laughter died down, Leemon responded, “Can you blame them?” (Correct response: “What is the bar or bat mitzvah?”)

In the category “Famous Feds,” the $300 “answer” was “This famous fed was said to prefer floral print frocks and silky underwear.”

No one knew the correct response: Who was former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover?

For the final Jeopardy round, the category was “Jewish Movies.” Contestants listened to a musical theme and had to determine the film from which it came.

Then, Ernest Gold’s dramatic “Exodus” theme filled Kanbar Hall. The Matzahs and the Menorahs were by then battling it out for the victory (sadly, the Mezuzahs were left hanging).

The first-place prize of free ads in j. was tantalizingly close.

The Matzahs correctly chose “Exodus” (adding in Magic Marker, “Can someone explain why Eva Marie Saint was in the movie?”). The other two teams also got the right answer. But there can only be one winner in Jeopardy, and on this night, it was the Menorahs.

Tough break for the Matzahs.

Diversity, good vibes bloom at Israel in the Gardens

The j. recently published a story on this month’s Israel in the Gardens celebration, which attracted over 20,000 attendees! Below is a reprint of the article, courtesy of the j. The story was written by correspondent Jennifer Wadsworth. All photos posted below were taken by yours truly, Joy Powers.

The term “melting pot” is usually used to describe the diversity of the United States, but on June 1, it also applied to the annual Israel in the Gardens festival in San Francisco.

People of many different nationalities and backgrounds — along with a wide cross-section of Jews speaking various languages — came together at Yerba Buena Gardens to celebrate Israel’s 60th year as a sovereign nation.

The annual festival, according to organizers, attracted upward of 20,000 attendees, vendors and performers — and protesters.

Performances, exhibits and a vendor marketplace demonstrated the unity and strength of the Jewish community, both locally and worldwide, said

organizer Ronit Jacobs of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, the event’s host organization.

“This is the Israel we all know about but is so rarely portrayed,” Jacobs noted. “On its 60th birthday, we have so much pride in what this little nation has done.”

Celebrations in other cities were taking place as Israel in the Gardens kicked off at the verdant spot off Mission Street.

Like the celebrations across the globe, those gathered at Yerba Buena Gardens witnessed the ceremonial release of 60 doves — one for every year of the state’s existence — in a show of good will and visual prayer for peace.

Comedienne Kira Soltanovich, born in the Soviet Union and raised by immigrant parents in San Francisco, emceed the event and kept the crowd entertained with her wisecracks and self-deprecating humor.

A fashion show featuring the work of student designers elicited applause and cheers from thousands of onlookers on the lawn.

Music headliners included Israeli rock and folk, and there were even reggae dancers. And, no, the music did not stop when the fair ended; people simply continued dancing in the park.

“The energy is just incredible,” Jonaya Black, 13, said of the entertainment. “It really just shows the bond people can have over art, food, culture and family. We’re all family here.”

Susan and David Buki drove from Sacramento to attend. “I love the music, the booths, everything,” Susan said. “I just enjoy the environment.”

For her husband, an Israeli immigrant who has lived in the United States for 40 years, the diversity of the event was not only profound, but it also made for some interesting conversations.

“We find people to disagree with here,” he said.

Which is not such a bad thing, Susan countered.

“It makes for some stimulating exchanges,” she said with a laugh.

On the opposite side of Mission Street, police barricades cordoned off vocal protesters, who held up Palestinian flags and shouted disparaging remarks to the celebratory crowd across the boulevard.

“It’s a calm crowd,” said officer David Kenner of the San Francisco Police Department, who was assigned to the event. “We haven’t had any trouble this year.”

Some protesters came early to Yerba Buena Gardens and stamped “Zionism is racism” on the surrounding sidewalks.

The Bukis, meanwhile, were put off by a group stationed near the Gardens’ entrances, proffering “Jews for Jesus” pamphlets to the visitors.

“It makes me upset,” Susan said. “But it’s to be expected.”

For most of the people who gathered, the day was a way to reflect on the decades of accomplishment Israel.

Overwhelmingly, the pride of nationhood of heritage and shared struggles was expressed in conversation, art and familial camaraderie, several attendees noted.

“The protests don’t faze me,” said Jeremy Solly, a San Francisco native and Orthodox Jew who attended with his 5-year-old daughter, Sylvie. “I’m just here to celebrate my religion, my heritage and my culture. It means a lot to me to be here today.”

Organizer Jacobs agreed.

“The event was amazing,” she said the following day. “There was an emotional high during the entire day. [We were] all feeling as one around the beauty and life of our community. It was just amazing.”

All the photos above and more are available for viewing and purchase at the JCF’s photo gallery. Click here to see them.

Celebrate the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s New Home

The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) will open its new Daniel Libeskind-designed building in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, June 8, 2008. The 63,000-square-foot facility will provide a home for dynamic exhibitions and programs that explore contemporary perspectives on Jewish culture, history, art, and ideas.

The Jewish Community Federation is proud to have played a role in supporting the Contemporary Jewish Museum by providing significant funds through both the Federation’s Annual Campaign and Endowment Fund. The Federation’s support began with the founding of the Museum in 1984 and continues to the present day, including a recent $1 million Endowment Fund grant toward the construction of the Museum’s new home and support of its diverse programs.

Visitors who attend opening day (Click here to reserve your FREE ticket) will have the opportunity to enjoy lively music performances, family-friendly hands-on activities, and will be able to view the museum’s new exhibitions:

• In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis
• From the New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig
• John Zorn Presents the Aleph-bet Sound Project

Those eager for a sneak peak are invited to attend DAWN, an ALL-night cultural arts festival and celebration of the Jewish holiday Shavuot taking place at the CJM the night before the opening. Both the Federation’s Young Adults Division and Israel Center TZAVTA division are community partners of this event.

To learn more about the museum and the DAWN celebration, please visit www.thecjm.org and www.dawn2008.org

From dusk to DAWN

This Saturday night, the place to be for cultural and shavuot celebrations is at DAWN, an all-night arts festival with films, music, discussions, dancing, and more.

Highlights include headliner and pop sensation Dengue Fever, a conversation with international bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer, and the critically acclaimed documentary Sons of Sakhnin United.

Attendees will also get the first peak at the new Contemporary Jewish Museum, which officially opens this Sunday.

The Federation’s Young Adults Division and Israel Center TZAVTA Division are proud community partners of this event.

Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission Street, San Francisco Doors open at 8:00 p.m. $15 at the door http://www.dawn2008.org/

Last chance to register for the JCF Annual Meeting

This Thursday, June 5, our agencies, staff, donors, volunteers, and the public will come together for the 98th Annual Meeting. As always, we will be honoring those who have enriched our community. We will also be electing our new board, introducing our new CEO, and unveiling a new surprise.

If attending, please be sure to RSVP. The event is free, but seating is limited.

Come celebrate at Israel in the Gardens

For 60, Israel is looking quite spry these days. The economy is booming. Tourism is way up. And though security threats and internal divisions remain, Israel deserves all the plaudits pouring in on this milestone anniversary.

Now it’s the Bay Area’s turn to throw a birthday party for Israel.

The annual Israel in the Gardens daylong bash is coming up on Sunday, June 1. All we can say is: Run, don’t walk, to Yerba Buena Gardens this Sunday.

All the usual spectacle will be back: World-class entertainment, delicious food, fine Israeli goods for sale, engaging activities for all ages — young children, teens and adults.

Also, as always, representatives from key Bay Area Jewish communal agencies, synagogues and federations will be on hand, meeting and shmoozing with the people they serve.

As for the entertainment, this year organizers landed some big names, including the internationally acclaimed Idan Raichel Project and singer Neshama Carlebach.

Raichel blends Ethiopian, Arab and other ethnic strains with a solid rock base. Carlebach, daughter of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, has carried on her father’s tradition, singing sacred Jewish music in a popular idiom.

By now an Israel in the Gardens tradition, the ever-popular fashion show will feature clothing by up-and-coming Israeli designers. Nearly 60 models include leading figures in the local Jewish community strutting their stuff down the runway.

Designs by Orly Rosenbaum

Across the way at the Metreon, look for Israeli films, children’s posters and a first-ever cake auction fundraiser.

But the most important part of the line-up at Israel in the Gardens is you.

We don’t need to remind our readers that those who would harm Israel never rest. Their propaganda offensive never ceases. For them, the destruction of Israel remains an obsession, and unfortunately they have too many allies around the world.

But every year, on this day, the Bay Area Jewish community has an opportunity to turn out in huge numbers –– around 20,000 on average –– to wave the Israeli flag, to sing, dance and shout out our love of Israel.

Every year we have this chance to stand up to the Israel bashers, the doubters and naysayers, and show our unwavering support for the Jewish state.

Every year we can make this very joyous, very public stand.

But it only works if you are there to be counted. So please set aside Sunday, June 1, and come to the Gardens. The falafel tastes great, the weather is always perfect and you couldn’t have a better time anywhere else.

We’ll see you there. Please stop by the j. booth and say “Shalom.”

- Op-ed reprinted from the j.

Federation and Facebook

Did you catch the article in this week’s j. on our Diller Teen Fellowship using Facebook to communicate with each other and connect with their peers in Israel?

They aren’t the only ones at the Federation who have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.

For this weekend’s festivities, we posted two event invites on Facebook, one for Israel in the Gardens, and one for the After Party. As of now, our Gardens event has 785+ confirmed guests! Of course, you are more than welcome to join us as well: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16340291419

Our Young Adults Division and LGBT Alliance have also taken advantage of the Facebook groups, with 478 and 95 members respectively.

Israel in the Gardens: What’s a birthday without cake? True confections to be auctioned off

“Let them eat cake” is not a phrase that preceded a pleasant moment in history. John Dellar would like to take it a little further though. Not only does he hope the general population will eat cake, he intends to make them pay top dollar for it.

Dellar is the organizer of the Israel in the Gardens cake auction. He asked 15 Bay Area chefs to tax their imaginations and craft elaborate
— and, needless to say, delicious — birthday cakes.

This is a bit of a change for Dellar, who chairs the homeless shelter food program Hamotzi at “Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. But the money raised from the cake silent auction also goes to a good cause: Operation Atzmaut, which aids Ethiopian Israelis living in Sderot.

During the June 1 celebration, the cakes will be available for public viewing (and bidding) at the Metreon, on the second floor near the Action Theatre. Yet what we will see remains a mystery — two participating chefs told j. they are still bandying about ideas.

“I’m thinking of a getting a Star of David raised out of the cake on an angle with a rainbow coming out of it. I might use chocolate cake just because it’s something sturdy. And for frosting, I think I’ll use butter cream and cover some of it with fondant,” a pliable sugar dough, said Mica Talmor-Gott of Savoy Catering in Oakland.

Well, at least that’s the preliminary plan for Talmor-Gott, who hails from Qiryat Bialak, between Haifa and Acco. And, one must admit, that would be an elaborate cake — but not nearly as elaborate as some of Talmor-Gott’s other confections.

For a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art soiree marking the 100th birthday of Ansel Adams, Talmor-Gott recreated one of the photographer’s signature shots of Yosemite. A creek flowed between two cake mountains, with chunks of chocolate serving as boulders and meringue standing in for the snow-capped peaks. And the plates Talmor-Gott used to serve the cake? That’s right, big slabs of redwood.

Mary Sperber from San Francisco’s Town’s End restaurant is still brainstorming a theme that would “unite San Francisco and Israel,” but she hasn’t gotten anything down in frosting yet.

Sperber leans toward round cakes rather than rectangular — “I think they’re prettier” — and will use only natural colors and flavors. This is an obstacle when creating sweets that resemble other objects, though she has crafted a cake in the shape of an office building for a local law firm.

Sperber — who lists her most unusual cake experience as creating a multitiered wedding cake and shipping it, in parts, to Japan — will likely garnish her Israel cake with fresh fruits, greenery or herbs. An orange cake would be fitting — particularly Jaffa oranges — and Sperber has cooked with Israeli tomatoes (“There is such a thing as a tomato cake — but would that be too weird?”).

None of the chefs contacted by j. wanted to create a cake in the shape of Israel, however: “What borders would I put on?” queried Talmor-Gott. “That’s a political question.”

- Reprinted from the j.