Jewish Community News

News: October 2006

Matisyahu: from white suburban teenager to Chassidic reggae star

Matthew Miller, a self-described “white suburban teenager,” grew up in White Plains, New York, to Reconstructionist Jewish parents. He describes his teenage years as being filled with drugs and treif, (non-kosher food) and listening to hip-hop and reggae.

Today, Matthew Miller is Matisyahu Miller, an observant Chassidic Jew and top-selling artist on the Sony-BMG label. He performs across the country to Jews and non-Jews alike. His most popular song, “King Without a Crown,” made it to number seven in the Billboard charts. More

Yavneh Day School celebrates 25 years

When five-year-old Judith Dickman, accompanied by her mother Eleanor, walked into her first day of kindergarten in August of 1981, she and her mom had first-day jitters. In this case however, it was not only the first day of kindergarten for mother and daughter, but the very first day of Yavneh Day School, the South Peninsula’s first non-Orthodox Jewish Day School. More

Jewish Studies at SJSU hires new coordinator

Dr. Vicki Harrison has been hired as the new Jewish Studies Coordinator at San Jose State University, but she is not new to SJSU or to work within the Jewish community. With a PhD in English from Rutgers University, she began her teaching career in the English department at U.C. Santa Barbara, where she was a professor for nine years, teaching and directing PhD dissertations in American, women’s and Jewish literatures. More

San Jose Jewish Film Festival begins on Wednesday, Oct. 18

The 15th Annual San Jose Jewish Film Festival will begin on Wednesday, October 18. All films will be shown at the Camera 12 Cinema, at the corner of Paseo de San Antonio and S. Second Street in San Jose. For more information visit www.sjjff.org. More

APJCC Book and Holiday Festival
December 3 - 7 at Levy Campus

Just in time for the holidays, the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center is hosting a Book and Holiday Festival from Dec. 3 through Dec.7, at the APJCC, 14855 Oka Rd., Los Gatos. The festival store will be open daily with a broad selection of books and gifts for sale.

Several authors will introduce their books during the week, beginning on Dec. 3 at 11:30 a.m. with Ted Merwin presenting his book “In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age.” Merwin’s work explores the rise to prominence of Jews from vaudeville to Broadway comedies to other performing arts during the Jazz Age of the 1920’s. More

Congregation Emeth hires new rabbi

South County’s Congregation Emeth has welcomed its new spiritual leader, Debbie Israel. A third-year rabbinic student at the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) in Los Angeles, Israel brings years of experience as a Jewish educator and synagogue volunteer leader.

Before moving to the area, Israel served as president of her 500-member synagogue, Congregation Brith Shalom, in Houston, Texas. She also acted as Regional Director of Jewish Women International, and was the co-publisher, managing editor and writer of Noah’s Ark, an international newspaper for Jewish children with more than a million readers. More

Rabbi Pressman celebrates 25 years with Congregation Beth David

Rabbi Daniel Pressman sifts through a bulging file folder in search of an early photograph of himself for the newspaper. “This one isn’t that old,” he rejects. “Here’s one,” he offers, handing over a young photograph of himself.

The photograph shows a young Rabbi Daniel Pressman in 1986, six years after his 1981 start at Congregation Beth David. Wearing large-framed, 1970s glasses, with black hair, Pressman holds a “Resolution” presented to him by an adult b’nai mitzvah class. Reading off the names of those in the class, Pressman makes note of where each person is now. “Oh this person moved, and this person died, but this person and this person and this person are still here.” He finishes reading down the list, softly commenting on each person’s whereabouts. More

Living in the cracks

The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is an agency which works to repair and enhance the relationship of the Jewish community with the greater community in which our lives are led. To illustrate our goals, I would like to share this worthwhile legend: More

150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud,
a Jew of profound impact

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud. After being blocked from progressing in his career as a neurologist because he was a Jew, Freud authored the first draft of “Psychoanalysis,” which continues to be rewritten today. Freud stands as a seminal thinker who opened doors.

His method was to observe, integrate ideas from others, then theorize, then observe again and modify or add to theory. In his consulting room, Freud could not study the human mind with laboratory controls, yet he dedicatedly sought to be as objective as he could. More