JCRC builds bridges with our ethnic and faith community partners through dialogue, advocacy efforts and programming. The following events highlight these partnerships.
Ongoing Volunteer Opportunity
Ongoing Volunteer Opportunity at the Recession Relief Food Pantry
Every Wednesday
Volunteer shifts: 3:00 - 5:00 pm or 5:00 - 7:00 pm Temple UMC, San Francisco
JCRC, San Francisco State University, and Temple UMC have come together to serve food to over 400 families each week. Help combat the increase in need during these tough economic times. For more info contact Jessica Trubowitch at jtrubowitch@jcrc.org or 415.977.7409.
JCL 10th Anniversary
Jewish Coalition for Literacy's 10th Anniversary Celebration Fundraiser
Monday, September 20, 2010
5:30 pm Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California Street, San Francisco
For more info or to buy tickets: rrothman@jcrc.org/ 415.977.7430 x102
Save the date! Please join us as we celebrate JCL's 10th anniversary and JCL's dedicated volunteers who have inspired millions of public school children to read, one child at a time. Light hors oeuvres will be served and the theatrical company, Word for Word, will perform. For more info on the event or ticket sales please contact Roberta Rothman at rrothman@jcrc.org or 415.369.9978 x102.
Sharing the Harvest
An Interfaith Gathering Tuesday, September 28, 2010
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm Oshman Family Jewish Community Center
3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto
RSVP: kstiller@jcrc.org / 650.847.1715
Sukkot is a week-long fall festival. During this period, it is tradition to buildÑand eatÑin a Sukkah, a non-permanent outdoor hut, meant to recall the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. Sukkot was also once a holiday of agricultural thanksgiving, and this is celebrated with the holiday's other ritual items, the lulav and etrog. Sukkot is a time of reflecting upon priorities, the fragility and non-permanence of life, on welcoming strangers, and sharing the harvest with others.
Learn about the holiday of Sukkot, enjoy holiday desserts in the Sukkah, and engage with people of different faiths and learn what their tradition says about welcoming others and sharing the harvest with Rabbi Elisheva Salamo of Keddem Congregation, Shifu Jian Hu of the Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale, and Ismael Nass-Duce, Islamic Networks Group.
This event is free and open to the public, but please bring a canned or boxed food item to be donated to Jewish Family and Children's Services' food drive.
Sponsored by the JCRC, Keddem Congregation, and the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center.
The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
When They Come for Us, We'll be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
A Talk and Reading by Gal Beckerman
Thursday, November 4, 2010
7:00 pm BJE Jewish Community Library
1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco
For more info: ajgreen@bjesf.org / 415.567.3327 x703
At the end of World War II, three million Jews were trapped inside the Soviet Union. They lived a paradoxÑunwanted by a repressive Stalinist state, yet forbidden to leave. When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone is the inspiring story of their rescue.
Journalist Gal Beckerman draws on newly released Soviet government documents as well as hundreds of oral interviews he conducted with refuseniks, activists, and Congressional staffers. He shows not only how the movement led to a mass exodus in 1989, but also how it shaped the American Jewish community, giving it a renewed sense of spiritual purpose and teaching it to flex its political muscle.
Gal Beckerman is a reporter at The Forward. He was a longtime editor and staff writer at the Columbia Journalism Review and has also written for the New York Times Book Review, Jerusalem Post, and Utne Reader, among other publications.
This program is free and open to the public. The BJE Jewish Community Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco, between Scott and Pierce on the campus of the Jewish Community High School. There is free garage parking at the entrance on Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy.
This program is made possible, in part, by the Jewish Community Relations Council, and is co-sponsored by Kritzer/Ross Emigre Program at the JCCSF, RJeneration, a program of Jewish Family and Children's Services, and the Oshman Family JCC Russian Program.
Annual Events...
Multi-Cultural Passover Freedom Seder
JCRC and its partners host multi-cultural Passover Freedom commemorations around the Bay Area, bringing together diverse groups in celebration of our similar stories of freedom from bondage. At our seders, we share the story and customs of Passover and the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt with the broader community, and together commemorate freedom.
JCRC mobilizes Jewish community members each year to volunteer their time at PHC - an extraordinary city initiative providing dozens of health and human services to thousands of the city's homeless. Click here for more info.
San Francisco Pride
Each year, JCRC marches at the San Francisco Pride Parade to show our overwhelming support for LGBT rights and liberation. Past Pride events have included rainbow kippot making, breakfast, planning meetings, and marching in the parade. Our diverse contingent has been made up of Jewish families, Jewish community members and public officials, Jewish student groups, synagogues, and Jewish organizations.
For more information or to be involved in next year's Pride celebration please contact Margee Churchon at mchurchon@jcrc.org or 415.977.7419.
Juneteenth
Abrahamic Traditions brings together Muslim, Jewish and Christian faith leaders and community members to learn about shared valued and divergent viewpoints.
This ongoing series is presented by JCRC, Pacifica Institute, Interfaith Center at the Presidio, Islamic Society of San Francisco, San Francisco Interfaith Council, United Muslims of America, and the United Religions Initiative.
For more information, contact Abby Porth.
Jewish Coalition for Literacy's 10th Anniversary Celebration Fundraiser
Sharing the Harvest
When They Come for Us, We'll be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
JCRC and its partners host multi-cultural Passover Freedom commemorations around the Bay Area, bringing together diverse groups in celebration of our similar stories of freedom from bondage. At our seders, we share the story and customs of Passover and the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt with the broader community, and together commemorate freedom.
