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Dear Abby to Deliver Keynote Speech at the 2008 Power of One
On April 8, 2008 the Women’s Alliance of the Jewish Community Federation (JCF) will host its annual gala: the Power of One. The Power of One is a memorable evening attended by over 1,000 Jewish women who are leaders in the community. The program name is inspired by the life and work of Donna Grazia, who while exiled in Turkey during the seventeenth century, wrote about how the power of one woman can affect positive change. We invite you to join in creating positive change in our community by attending the Power of One 2008, to be held at the San Francisco Hilton.
Keynote speaker for this year's Power of One gala is world famous columnist Dear Abby. Dear Abby is the most popular newspaper columnist in the world. Her wisdom and advice is featured in more than 1,400 newspapers and read by millions daily. Dear Abby has long been a symbol of trust, compassion and straightforward honesty for a worldwide readership.
“I was raised to appreciate the importance of giving back to the community, of ‘healing the world.’ It’s something I learned from my mother.” Her mother, Abigail Van Buren, originally created the syndicated column in 1956, and the mother and daughter team collaborated for decades. After her mother’s retirement, Dear Abby took on her mother’s work and famous pen name.
The Power of One also features the Judith Chapman Award recipient, honored by the Judith Chapman Women’s Leadership Fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. The award recognizes a woman who exemplifies significant leadership in the Jewish community, serves as a role model and values her Jewish identity and the importance of tzedakah in her life.
Joelle Steefel is this year's Judith Chapman Award recipient. It is a special honor for her to be this year’s awardee as the two women were childhood friends and worked together cultivating Jewish community leadership. Joelle is a gracious, wise, nurturing and modest leader. Leadership of all ages looks to her respectfully as a thoughtful and caring visionary. To quote one of her nominators, “Joelle Steefel demonstrates tzedakah by serving the Jewish community selflessly and with a sense of direction and purpose.”
The Power of One has become one of the most memorable and popular events hosted by the Jewish Community Federation’s Women’s Alliance. Please reserve your seat now, space is limited.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Registration and Reception: 5:00 p.m.
Dinner and Program: 6:00 p.m.
The Hilton Hotel, 333 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco (map)
$90 couvert
Attendees are required to make a minimum individual gift of $365 to the
Federation’s 2008 Annual Campaign, payable by December 31, 2008.
RSVP online at www.sfjcf.org/go/power
Please call 415.512.6297 with any questions. |
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Parenting Matters: A New Outreach Program for Parents of Young Children
“Parents of young children have the ability to transform not only their family by the choices they make but also the future of the Jewish people.”
-- Director of the Commission on Continuity and Education
at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston
We all want our children to grow up to be good citizens of the world. But where do we begin? Parenting Matters: Jewish Wisdom for Mindful Parenting, the first community outreach program of the JCF Early Childhood Education Initiative, helps to answer that question for interfaith and unaffiliated Jewish families in the first five years of their children’s lives. This interactive eight-week discussion series combines study of Jewish texts and contemporary parenting issues. The goal is to engage parents in Jewish and interfaith families, in our pilot communities of Marin and Berkeley, in meaningful Jewish learning to inspire them to become active in the Jewish community through synagogue affiliation, Jewish pre-school, JCC membership and Jewish day school.
The Parenting Matters discussions will offer parents a path of discovery through topics such as creating sacred moments with children, the quest for personal and family spirituality and the pursuit of personal meaning. Parents will also have opportunities to build community with an informal Shabbat dinner and a family potluck at the culmination of the series.
Meet Our Scholar
Parenting Matters will be taught by Rabbi Menachem Creditor who has special knowledge and sensitivity for outreach and parenting. He is an educator, musician, and activist, and serves as rabbi of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley. He is the author of The Tisch, an email commentary on Torah and Spirituality, and the founder of Shefa: The Jewish Activists’ Network. Rabbi Creditor has been a teacher of Ikkarim: Jewish Values and the Journey of Jewish Parenting, a successful parenting discussion group in the Boston area. He is also the father of three young children. To learn more about Rabbi Creditor, please visit www.shefanetwork.org/TheTisch.htm
Program Information and Dates
- Our Parenting Matters discussion groups will be held at two sites:
Begins Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 7:30 p.m. - 8:50 p.m.
Osher Marin JCC, 200 N. San Pedro Rd., San Rafael (map)
Begins Monday, April 7, 2008, 9:20 a.m. - 10:50 a.m.
Congregation Netivot Shalom, 1316 University Ave., Berkeley (map)
- We have engaged local community agencies to co-sponsor and support the success of Parenting Matters such as Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, Osher Marin Jewish Community Center and the JCC of the East Bay
- The program is generously underwritten by the Koret Foundation and the Interfaith Outreach Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund
More information about Parenting Matters is available on our webpage or by contacting Vivien Braly at vivienb@sfjcf.org |
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Campaign Update with the Traegers: We’ve met the Challenge!
The Jewish Community Federation is dedicated to providing critical assistance to those in need, to preserve Jewish learning and culture, and to sustain a flourishing Jewish people both locally and abroad.
All this is made possible through your generous support. That is why we are delighted to share with you the exciting results of our efforts toward growth and positive change. Our community rose to the occasion and took full advantage of the special opportunity presented by the Nancy and Stephen Grand Challenge Grant. With new gifts, recovered lapsed gifts and increases, the million dollar grant has been met!
In addition, our changes in the campaign’s focus and structure have put us well ahead of last year. We have currently raised $19.2 million, compared to $16.4 million at the same time last year. This is includes $1.8 million additional dollars raised, as well as the $1 million from the Challenge Grant. We can’t thank you enough for making this happen!
Your gift makes possible all of the vital services that ensure the well-being of the elderly and those at risk, as well as all the educational and cultural opportunities that guarantee our Jewish community a thriving, brilliant future. And now, it goes even farther.
Thank you again for the meaningful difference you make in our Jewish community. We look forward to seeing you at the Power of One! We wish you a joyful and hearty Purim!
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Purim: When You Can Throw a Sponge at the Rabbi's Face
By Jim Keen
(This story has been reprinted with permission from www.interfaithfamily.com)
As a Christian dad helping to raise a Jewish family, I've always been fascinated by the holiday of Purim. With everyone dressing up in costumes, the holiday has seemed to me to be a kind of springtime Halloween. However, instead of honoring ghosts, goblins, and other such things, Purim celebrates the Jewish people's ability to live on during a time when they could have been wiped out. My wife and I feel that this is an accessible, kid-friendly holiday that our whole family can enjoy. Plus, with all of the costumes, goodies to eat, and the carnival atmosphere, what's not to like?
Purim is considered a relatively minor Jewish holiday, but you'd never know it from the celebration at our synagogue. All of the kids, many adults, and even Rabbi Levy dress up in costume. It is traditional to look like a character from the Scroll (megillah) of Esther, which contains the Purim story. But many people stray from this custom, and it is not uncommon to see congregants dressed as bees, Martians, or Disney princesses. In the past, Rabbi Levy has read the megillah dressed as a cowboy, leprechaun, and other wild characters. Once, when he and I both showed up as pirates, he immediately challenged me to a swordfight.
With everyone in crazy costumes, you can imagine how long it takes for the crowd to settle down to hear the reading of the Purim story. My daughters Gabby and Molly, who are both in elementary school, are giddy with excitement. Even though they've heard the megillah many times before, we feel that they can learn something new each year. Not only does the megillah tell a tale of good triumphing over evil, but it's also a story of an interfaith couple: the Persian king, Ahashuerus, and his Jewish wife, Esther. In this case, the king and queen avoid the whole "how will we raise the kids?" issue for a while as Esther doesn't reveal that she is Jewish until she needs to risk doing so to save her people. When she finally does tell the king that she is Jewish, it's in the nick of time. The prime minister, Haman, had a plan to kill all of the Jews. But when he learns that his own wife is Jewish, Ahashuerus squelches the plan and instead does away with Haman.
While Purim sends positive messages to our children, we also like it because it is a perfect holiday for my Christian side of the family to see that there is more to Judaism than Hanukkah. Since it is a temple-based holiday, it's a great opportunity for our daughters to show their Christian grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins where they go to religious school and Hebrew school. Every Christmas, my daughters see their cousins perform their pageant at church, so I know that they are excited to showcase one of their own holidays on their own turf.
With the carnival that follows the megillah reading, Purim is a nice time for our whole family to mingle with other congregants and the rabbi in a festive atmosphere. My mom loves this holiday because she enjoys seeing Gabby and Molly so involved in the reading of the Purim story. She also likes the novelty of it all. "At church, we have get-togethers for some things, but Purim is unique," she tells me. "Bible stories rarely get told with such enthusiasm. Telling the story in this manner helps me remember it," she says laughing. In addition, my mom gets a kick out of wondering what Rabbi Levy will dress up as every year. "He's such a fun person to be around."
At the carnival in the social hall Gabby, Molly, and their Christian cousins play games. One of the kids' favorites is throwing wet sponges at the rabbi, who peers his face through a cutout drawing of evil Haman. After soaking Rabbi Levy, it's off to fish for Tootsie Rolls and lollipops.
As if this celebration didn't have enough sugar, we blissfully nosh (snack) on the traditional pastries called hamantashen. These triangular-shaped treats have a filling of sweet poppy seeds, apricots, or prunes. I'm sure that they are not an integral part of any diet plan. However, someone always twists my arm, and I end up eating about fifteen of them. My nieces have their fair share, too.
By the end of the evening, the kids and I are enjoying a grand sugar buzz, soon to be followed by a carb coma. The sacrifice is worth it, though---even if I did lose the swordfight. Just wait until next year; I'll be first in line with my wet sponge. Yes, Purim is a favorite with our entire family.
Jim Keen is the author of the book Inside Intermarriage: A Christian Partner's Perspective on Raising a Jewish Family (URJ Press). He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and two daughters.
This story, reprinted from www.interfaithfamily.com, appeared in the March 2008 Bridges, the Federation’s free monthly e-newsletter for interfaith families. Bridges is published under the auspices of the Interfaith Outreach Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund to reach out to the Bay Area’s intermarried/intercultural population identified by our Jewish Community Study. Some 53 percent of new marriages in the Bay Area are interfaith according to the study. Bridges began in 1991 as a printed newsletter – one of the first in the country – issued three times a year, and became an online monthly newsletter in fall 2006. For a free subscription, please send your email address to bridges@sfjcf.org.
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Washington 15: Making It Matter
By Sharon Goldstein
In such a monumental election year as this, there is definitely a feeling that young adults as individuals can make a difference. And thanks to UJC's Young Leadership Conference in Washington, DC, many of us are steps closer to doing that.
Amidst the wash of too much caffeine, not enough sleep, endless games of Jewish geography and the buzz of 1000+ motivated, successful, predominantly single people in one place, the members of our Federation delegation tackled the challenge posed by UJC's Washington 15: how do we “Make it Matter”?
San Francisco's delegation this year was 40 strong, the largest in the state and third largest for the conference. Many of the attendees are newly involved in the Jewish Federation and this was a great opportunity for us to learn more about the organization and meet other like-minded individuals.
Ari Fleisher shared his belief with the delegates that the democratic support for Israel is eroding, while Former Ambassador to Egypt Daniel Kutzer took pains to explain that all three candidates (and specifically his, Barack Obama) are equally pro-Israel. Speaker Pelosi and Senator Boxer’s staff members confirmed that citizen lobbying is a key factor by which legislation gets their attention.
We were inspired by examples of other individuals who have made a significant impact on the lives of others, like Jonathan Greenblatt of Ethos Water (now owned by Starbucks), whose corporations supports social good; and Jenna Bush, whose time and efforts at UNICEF have given a voice to the thousands of children in the Caribbean living with AIDS. Numerous others spoke on progress being made on programs locally, nationally and in Israel.
In addition to celebrating these noteworthy accomplishments, we engaged in serious dialogue about what the culture of individualism means for the Jewish community and for Jewish institutions such as the Federation. The ever broadening spectrum of Jewish identity – as a culture, a belief system, and a community -- creates unique challenges. While young Jews are engaging culturally, which is a good thing, they are not turning to Jewish institutions to make it matter.
Therefore, our community challenge becomes: how do we engage young Jews in the community’s institutions while honoring their need for individual expression to ensure that both the community and the institutions remain strong? To do so, we will need to change how we reach out, motivate, and involve the next generation. As the current generation of Jewish leaders, we will need to answer this important succession issue and begin laying the foundation for the future.
As one speaker quipped on our final morning: “Some people make it happen, some people watch it happen and some people ask what just happened?” As the last three days demonstrated, there’s no right path to making an impact, the important thing is that we apply what we learned to the challenge to act, to engage and to inspire others to “Make it Matter.”
Sharon Goldstein is an active volunteer on the YAD Board, serving as the Women’s Alliance liaison, and was a first-timer at Washington 15.
Young Adults Division (YAD) is grateful to the Stanley S. Langendorf Jewish Fund, a restricted fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund, and the Laura and Gary Lauder Philanthropic Fund, which provided 20 subsidies for this year's Washington 15 participants.
The Washington trip is one of two major YAD trips in 2008. The other is the Young Leadership Division Summer Israel Mission, June 30-July 9. This ten-day trip to Israel is an annual event that 500 young adults from around the U.S. enjoy. Geared as an introductory excursion to Israel, it features visits to several beneficiaries of Federation in addition to the typical tourist sites. It is a powerful learning experience in that it shows our youngest donors where Federation dollars go. YAD in San Francisco sends a delegation of 15-20 and provides partial subsidies to first-time participants. For more information, please contact YAD at yad@sfjcf.org
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Other Events
Saturday, March 22, 2008 - Sunday, March 30, 2008
Eight Bay Area venues!
The Jewish Music Festival is a multi-cultural fête that challenges notions of any modern-day Jewish ghetto, where traditional meets experimental, sacred meets secular, and Jewish meets the world. Festival organizers consciously cross wires between time and place, making connections across Bay Area communities and from local to global scenes. More...
Thursday, March 27, 2008, 6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Menlo Circus Club, 190 Park Lane, Atherton (map)
Stir things up on the Peninsula with a Networking Mixer! More...
Thursday, March 27, 2008, 7:30 p.m.
BJE Jewish Community Library, 1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco (map)
San Francisco writer and teacher Leo Litwak, recipient of the 2008 Anne and Robert Cowan Writers' Award, will be honored for a lifetime of achievement. This prestigious award is given to writers who have made an exceptional impact in the Bay Area through their uniquely Jewish perspective.
Leo Litwak will be speaking in conversation with BJE Library Director Jonathan Schwartz. More...
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 8:00 p.m.
Perbacco Ristorante + Bar, 230 California St., San Francisco (map)
Please join us at the stylish Northern Italian Perbacco Ristorante for the fourth night of Passover! More...
Sunday, April 27, 2008 - Monday, April 28 2008
Various venues
Israel's master novelist Abraham B. Yehoshua astonishes readers with his masterly, unexpected turns in story lines and his ability to get under the skin and into the soul of Israel today. At once profoundly serious and highly entertaining, Yehoshua has been awarded the Israel Prize, the Koret Jewish Book Award and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize. More...
Wednesday, April 30 – Thursday, May 8, 2008
Israel
Join the Business Leadership Council of the Jewish Community Federation on an exclusive community trip to Israel led by the Israel Center. Land-only packages are still available. More... |
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