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May 2004
JCC comes tumbling down, Levy Family Campus to rise in its place
by Cecily Ruttenberg
More than 100 people gathered at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center in Los Gatos on April 1 to celebrate the tearing down of the old, and making way for the new.
The groundbreaking ceremony marked the official start of construction for the Gloria and Ken Levy Family Campus, a $22 million, 116,000 square-foot Jewish campus that will include a 500-seat theater, teen and senior centers, dairy cafe, fitness center and more.
The campus will act as home to the Jewish Federation of Greater San Jose, the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Service of Silicon Valley, the JCC Preschool and Yavneh Day School, a 600-student kindergarten-through-fifth-grade elementary school.
The campus is being funded solely by donations from the community. The center’s two largest donors, Gloria and Ken Levy and Eli Reinhard, spoke at the ceremony. Ken Levy, founder and chairman of the technology company KLA-Tencor, rode on “Godzilla” the excavator, while it tore down the first historic piece of the Oka Road property.
Homes of Vines & Roses tour May 20, 21, benefits APJCC
The Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center of Silicon Valley in Los Gatos will present a home and garden tour of four spectacular properties in Saratoga and Los Gatos. The homes will be showcased on May 20 and 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Wednesday evening, May 19, patrons of this fundraising event will be guests at a cocktail party featuring a performance by artists of the San Jose Opera Company.
The homes tour has been designed to showcase distinct properties with unique, sophisticated and stylized furnishings and accessories. The landscaping is varied, from formal gardens to a charming courtyard with a fresco.
Holocaust denier at San Jose State, few attend talk
By Cecily Ruttenberg
Bradley R. Smith, a self-proclaimed “Holocaust Revisionist,” — others say “Holocaust Denier” — spoke to a small group of students at San Jose State University early last month.
Turnout to the lecture was slim — 19 people — and most came as critics of the talk.
Still, local Jewish organizations were concerned.
“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech,” said Arlene Miller, director of Hillel of Silicon Valley. “I’m not sure what this falls under, but if it is hate speech, no, it shouldn’t be allowed.”
Janet Berg, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council for Silicon Valley, said she doesn’t think Smith holds much power, “I think most people are too smart to fall for his ludicrous claims, but his message is dangerous and trivializes the memory of 6 million Jews.”
Beth David Hebrew High students learn tikkun olam in hands-on class
by
Emily Isaacs
Emily Isaacs is a Beth David Hebrew High Student. She recounts a class she took last semester titled “Changing the World One Sandwich at a Time” taught by Bonnie Slavitt Moore and Marilyn Schilling.
During the course of the nine-week semester my classmates, Becky Pressman, Abigail Gavens, Talia Salzman, Stacey Newman, Lisa Parrish, Sarah Raider and I volunteered for such organizations as Career Closet, Casa Say, Canine Companions, Hatikvah House, the Lucille Packard Child Center, and the Bill Wilson Center. The two-hour class was structured so that we would learn about a particular mitzvah first hour and actually perform that mitzvah for a specific organization the second hour.
Jewish books for new city-university library
The new joint city-university Martin Luther King, Jr. Library has been selected as one of 60 public libraries nationwide to serve as a site for an I.B. Singer centennial celebration this summer, funded by The Library of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Singer centennial – to be held on Sunday, July 25 – is one of several initiatives of the Jewish Studies Program at San Jose State University that seek to make the library and the university important resources for the local Jewish community. Another is an ambitious campaign to purchase books and other materials of Jewish interest for the new joint library.
Santa Clara first county in CA to hold “Israeli Cultural Day”
In the midst of a worrisome rise of anti-Semitism in the United States related to the escalating violence in Israel, Santa Clara County has taken a pioneering step by becoming the first county in the state of California to hold an official “Israeli Cultural Day.”
On Tuesday, May 4, at 12 p.m., the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Jewish leaders and the general public will raise an Israeli flag, listen to a special program and enjoy Israeli food, music, culture and humor. The public is welcome.
The story of Henry Stone: Holocaust survivor
By
Adam Cole
Adam Cole interviewed Henry Stone as part of the “From Generation to Generation” class at Congregation Beth David Hebrew High.
Speaking to a Holocaust survivor is one of the most pleasurable things I have ever had the opportunity to do in my life. Now, pleasurable may not seem the appropriate word for listening to the atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II, but hearing a survivor’s story also gives me a hint of someone being helped by their fellow man in the worst of times, and that is something wonderful.
Henry Stone is inspirational. He is an engineer, like I aspire to be, and his story of survival is an amazing telling of love and respect for his fellow man at a time when that was scarce in the world. Stone started out in Munich, where he was born in 1922. His father had been a soldier during WWI, on the German side, and had gotten shot in the leg. This was to prove helpful during the Holocaust because people respected a man who had fought for the fatherland and sacrificed for his country. Even though he was a Jew, it helped a little — not enough, but a little.
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