Jewish Community News

News: June 2006

Building a Jewish high school from the ground up

Four years ago, 33 brave freshmen made local history when they walked into rented facilities at the Blackford School campus in Campbell as the first-ever class at Kehillah Jewish High School. This month, these same students will walk out the door of Kehillah’s new Palo Alto facilities as the first graduating class and will be moving onto colleges that include Dartmouth, Yale, NYU and all the U.Cs. The school’s founders feel they finally have some hard data to support their triumph. “We knew we were doing a great job. The families knew we were doing a great job. And now seeing that independent confirmation from so many colleges is very encouraging,” said founder Len Lehman. More

20-year-old Jewish Stanford student shows fighting for Darfur is not futile

Wearing faded jeans and a back pack hanging from one shoulder, Elissa Test, 20, looks like any other Stanford University student. The difference is that she spends most Friday and Saturday nights working to end the genocide in Darfur.

One of the founding members of Students Taking Action Now for Darfur (STAND), Test was a top event organizer for the April 30 Darfur rally in San Francisco that drew more than 3,000 people to a silent vigil on the Golden Gate Bridge and nearly 15,000 to Crissy Field. In order to organize this rally, Test says she had to give up playing alto saxophone in a school band, as well as her job at the Stanford Library and a previous volunteer position working with children of parents who have cancer. More

Interfaith Seder aims to educate Hispanic community about Jews

What do Mexican immigrants have in common with Old Testament Jews? Local Jews attempted to answer that question at an interfaith, bilingual Passover seder held in San Jose in April that attracted more than 200 people.

“The theme of Passover celebrates freedom and dignity for all peoples,” said Diane Fisher, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Silicon Valley (JCRCSV) who organized the event. More

Barbie-Jewish connection explored

What does Barbie have in common with the Jewish people? This poignant cultural question will be the subject of Women's Philanthropy’s next outreach event in May. On Monday, May 22 from 7 – 9 p.m. at the Levy Family Campus, Women's Philanthropy will screen the independent short film, “The Tribe,” as well as host its San Francisco-based filmmaker, Tiffany Shlain. More

SVYAD changes leadership

Three years ago, hundreds of young Jewish adults in the Silicon Valley had little organized opportunities to come together and schmooze. Today, three years after the December 2003 establishment of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley’s Young Adults Division, monthly cocktail hours follow weekend volunteer opportunities and winter ski trips. More

Even the youngest remember on Yom HaShoah

The high-pitched, cheerful chattering at Yavneh Day School petered out quickly on Monday, April 24, as the children sensed that this wasn’t their standard morning Tefilah. Six yellow candles stood on the table at the front of Yavneh’s multi-purpose room, “One for each million Jews killed in the Holocaust,” explained Mrs. Abramson, head of school. Her normally upbeat voice was subdued as she addressed the group of students, ranging from tiny kindergarteners to adult-sized sixth graders, on this difficult topic. While the details were kept deliberately vague, the children clearly understood the import. More

Orthodox conversion opening up to intermarried couples

When is an Orthodox conversion really kosher? How long should a prospective Jew have to study before being universally accepted as a convert? And how much should a rabbi charge to supervise the process?

No one has easy answers to these questions. In fact, until recently few Orthodox rabbis even were asking them, at least not in a public forum. And most, if not all, did not accept applicants with Jewish spouses.

Now the Orthodox community gradually is encouraging non-Jewish spouses to convert in accordance with halacha, or Jewish law. More

Boy with Autism wins essay contest

Jacob Artson is the son of Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the
Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

You have probably never met anyone like me. For most of my life, I was treated as a retarded person. I can’t speak or write, and therefore people assumed for the first seven years of my life that my cognitive abilities must be coextensive with my motor abilities – that is, virtually nonexistent. When I was seven years old, a speech therapist introduced me to typing and my life began anew. At first, I wondered often why I had to struggle so intensely to produce a simple communication that others take for granted, without even being aware of all the intricate interactions going on in their brains but not in mine. Later I began to wonder whether I had committed some awful sin for which I was being punished by not being able to speak or move my body like all the kids around me. More

Local love blooms on trip to Israel

When Beverly Friedman finds time, she cultivates colorful tulips in the front yard of the Sunnyvale home she shares with her husband Alan. The house is set at the end of a quiet dead-end street; the couple sits in the sun-stricken living room on a Tuesday afternoon.

Alan, 60, and Bev, 59, met thirteen years ago in the fall on a trip to Israel organized by Congregation Shir Hadash, led my Rabbi Melanie Aron. They waited ten years to bring their vows under the huppah.
Even though neither Bev nor Alan went on the trip looking for a partner, they were pleasantly surprised to find a companion in each other.

“I wanted to see the land of Israel,” said Alan, who lived in Fremont working as a clinical psychologist at the time. He chose the Shir Hadash group because there were more people from his age group and fewer couples. More