Upcoming Events

San Francisco Bay Area

11th Annual Freedom Seder
March 27, 6:30pm
JCC in San Francisco, CA

Celebrate at the Be'chol Lashon table! Come represent Be'chol Lashon and educate the Jewish community about about the ethnic and racial diversity of the Jewish people. Participants are encouraged to contribute reflections about their personal experiences.

Led by Rabbi Yoel Kahn, Director, Taube Center for Jewish Life, JCCSF with particpation from Bay are faith and ethnic communities.

$20 in advance for full kosher meal. Half price for children under 12. RSVP to Esther Fishman, Esther@JewishResearch.org

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JIMENA's Mimouna Celebration
April 11, 7-9pm
Kehilla Jewish High School: 3900 Fabian Way in Palo Alto, CA

Be'chol Lashon, JIMENA and other Bay Area partners co-present, Mimouna.

The word Mimouna in Hebrew is linked to "emuna", faith. In Arabic, it means good fortune. This joyuous holiday celebration, is rich in Jewish Moroccan symbolism and customs.

Dessert, live music and dancing, featuring the Yuval Ron Ensemble.

$15 Adults, $10 Young Adults, $5 Children. For Tickets call JIMENA at (415) 977-7407

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Migvanim: Celebrating the Spectrum of the Jewish People
A Training Series on Diversity in Jewish Education
April 18, 6pm
Temple Sinai: 2808 Summit Street in Oakland, CA

Exploring Gender: Roles, Idenity and Gender Expression What does gender mean? How is gender idenitity formed? How does the Jewish community with its traditional gender roles create space for children to be who they are. All Jewish teachers and professionals are invited.

Dinner and workshop are free.

Please RSVP to Brunetta@oaklandsinai.org

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Community Updates

Mazel Tov to Rabbi Baruch Yehudah and Nesicha, who were blessed last month with a healthy baby boy named Achil-Kichaiyah Yehudah. Achil was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches of joy.

How to Build a Tabernacle
Dvar Torah by Rabbi Capers Shmuel Funnye

Hashem gave every Jew all of the material that we could ever need for the construction of that great inner Sanctuary that dwells in the Heart, Soul, Body and Mind of every Jew. All that left for us to do then, is to put these articles of faith together and make Terumah that is an Uplifting of our Beings to Hashem.

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Indian Jewish Congregation of USA Launches It's First Newsletter

There is a story in the Talmud of and old person, Honi, who was observed planting a carob tree. When asked if he really expected to live long enough to consume the fruits of his labor, he replied: "I was born into a world flourishing with ready pleasures. My ancestors planted for me, and now I plant for my children...".

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Yemen Government Relocates 45 Jews due to Religious Persecution
By Yoav Stern, February 27, 2007, Haaretz.com

Forty-five Jews in Yemen were transported on Sunday to the state capital of Sanaa after they were harassed by neighbors in their native town of Saada. The families traveled on a special flight arranged by the President of Yemen, Ali Abudullah Saleh. More Information

Iranian Jew Elected Beverly Hills Mayor
By Tom Tugend, March 13, 2007, Jerusalem Post

After a cliffhanger vote count, Jimmy Jamshid Delshad will claim two titles at his March 27 inauguration - mayor of Beverly Hills and top Iranian-born public official in the United States. The milestone is being celebrated not only by Delshad's compatriots in the golden ghetto of Beverly Hills, but also by the extended Iranian-Jewish community of 30,000 in the Los Angeles area. More Information

Ladino Class at Penn Tries to Resuscitate Dormant Language
By Rachel Silverman, February 1, 2007, Jewish Exponent

It sounds like Spanish at first, but listen harder. The six students in Daisy Braverman's class are speaking a mostly dormant language — Ladino.

Invented by Jews in Spain, the idiom — also known as Judeo-Spanish — infused Hebrew elements into Castilian Spanish. Like Yiddish, Ladino provided Jews a vocabulary for daily usage outside of Hebrew, which was reserved for the synagogue. And, also like Yiddish, Ladino was originally written in the Hebrew alphabet. More Information

Kirchner Promotes Chavez Meeting
By Staff Writer, February 22, 2007, JTA

Argentina's president said he wants to mend relations between Venezuela's president and its Jewish community. During a visit to Venezuela, Nestor Kirchner met Tuesday with Confederation of Israeli Venezuelan Association and World Jewish Congress leaders at the Puerto Ordaz presidential residency. More Information

French Jews Flock to Area
By Alfonso Chardy, March 11, 2007, MiamiHerald.com

Rod Kukurudz decided to uproot his family from a comfortable life in France to Surfside when his then 16-year-old daughter, Audrey, came home one night in 2005 — upset and fearful. "Dad," she told him, "now even if it's hot I have to wear a scarf to hide my Star of David," while riding the Paris Metro. More Information

Gali Girls Line of Dolls Celebrates Jewish History, Values
By Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Taking its cue from the wildly successful American Girl dolls and novels, a small company in New Jersey has been carving out its own niche — character dolls representing Jewish girls from different countries and centuries. More Information

Journey From a Chinese Orphanage to a Jewish Rite of Passage
By Andy Newman, March 8, 2007, NYTimes.com

Of the 613 laws in the Torah, the one that appears most often is the directive to welcome strangers. The girl once known as Fu Qian has been thinking about that a lot lately. Three weeks ago, she stood at the altar of her synagogue on the Upper West Side and gave a speech about it. More Information

For Kids of Intermarriage, Choices Are Complex
By Sue Fishkoff, March 8, 2007, JTA

Robin Margolis was in her 30s when she found out her late mother was Jewish. It was 1984 and she was cleaning out her mother's closet when she found a bag of old documents. The woman she knew as Marie Margolis was born Marie Levine. More Information

Mazel Tov: Mass Jewish Wedding in Havana
By Anthony Boadle, January 22, 2007, Reuters

Salomon Mitrani sat through his wedding ceremony. After all, at 84 years old he finds it hard to stand. By Cuban law, he has been married to his wife, Pilar, for 55 years, and they have eight grandchildren. But, in a ceremony last week, he was finally getting married under a Chuppah canopy according to Jewish custom. More Information

Thirst for Judaism Binds Group Together Across Border
By Roberto Loiederman, March 16, 2007, JewishJournal.com

When Mehlman told me he was going to visit a group of Mexicans practicing Judaism on their own — no rabbi, no shul — it sounded fascinating; I asked if I could come along. I wondered what had led these people — born into Catholic families — to follow Judaism. More than that, I wanted to see Judaism through their eyes. What do they feel when they say the prayers? What is the source of their faith? More Information

Black Jews of Suriname focus of UA Town/Gown Lecture
By Luise Betterton, January 26, 2007, JewishTuscon.org

Historian Natalie Zemon Davis will explore the contributions of free black Jews to the former South American Dutch colony of Suriname next month in the annual Town/Gown Lecture, sponsored by the division of late and medieval Reformation studies at the University of Arizona. The lecture, "Philosophes, Jews, and Africans in Colonial Suriname," will focus on the history of David Cohen Nassy, a descendant of a 17th-century Portuguese-Jewish plantation family. More Information

Hispanic Jewish Culture Explored in Film, on Stage, in Class
By Esther J. Cepeda, February 11, 2007, SunTimes.com

When most people think "Jewish culture," the word "Hispanic" probably doesn't spring to mind. But Judaism is the faith of nearly a million worshippers across Mexico and the rest of Latin America. And more references are cropping up in American pop culture. More Information

The Daughter of Q
By Gerri Miller, January & February 2007, American Jewish Life Magazine

You may recognize Rashida Jones from her starring turn in NBC's The Office or her half a dozen other acting gigs in TV and movies, but it's the role she was born into — the biracial Jewish daughter of music mogul Quincy Jones — that made her famous. More Information

The Maestro
By E.B. Solomont, January & February 2007, American Jewish Life Magazine

To hear Raymond Roker tell it, he is a man of varying roles: editor, artist, designer, East Coaster, West Coaster, son, black man, and Jew. The latter may be the least obvious, and it certainly raises eyebrows when he tells acquaintances the nature of my visit to the Soho House in Manhattan's Meatpacking district. More Information