Jewish Community News

News: November 2007

Local Jew takes the helm at San Jose Mercury News
By Laura Ruth Rheinheimer

     Six weeks ago, Jeff Kiel put his belongings in a box and walked across the San Jose Mercury News building to his roomy new office.
     The reason for the short journey? The son of two Holocaust survivors had been named president and publisher of the Silicon Valley-based newspaper, which places him on top of the entire operation, from editorial to advertising.
      In addition to more space, a better view, and a fireplace, Kiel now has a laundry list of new duties, including making all top decisions for the Mercury News, and deciding which path the newspaper will follow in a drastically changing industry.
     A veteran in the newspaper industry, Kiel accepted the top position, succeeding George Riggs, after a lengthy career both at the Mercury News and The Miami Herald. Kiel worked since 1988 for Knight Ridder, which owned both newspapers before the company was broken up and sold off. Before that, he worked as a CPA for Ernst and Young.
      Kiel, 48,  grew up in southern Florida, where he attended college at the University of Miami. He made a home in a Miami suburb with his wife, Gayle, and two children, Ryan, 20, who attends Marshall College in West Virginia, and Alexa, 16, who is a junior at Los Gatos High School.
     When Kiel made the switch in 2002 from serving as president of finance and CFO for The Miami Herald to vice president of advertising for the Mercury News, he uprooted the family and headed to Los Gatos.
    “Moving a sixth grader and a tenth grader who were born and raised in an area is not an easy feat,” he says. He adds that his daughter, then 12 years old, was in the midst of her Bat Mitzvah training. But with the help of Rabbi Melanie Aron, she picked up where she had left off and completed her Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos, where the Kiels are members. 
    Kiel says the Jewish community has been welcoming, and the Shir Hadash community in particular. He notes that coming from a heavily Jewish area to the Bay Area was somewhat of a culture shock.
     In Florida, the family went to synagogue with lifelong friends. His wife previously served on the board of their Miami synagogue. The couple’s children were attending their friends’ B’nei Mitzvot “almost weekly.”
     “You have your lifelong friends, and more Jews there,” he says. “It was hard at the beginning.” But the family soon fell in love with the Bay Area, and has no plans to return to Florida.
      “A couple years ago when Knight Ridder was forced to put itself up for sale, I didn’t know what the future was going to hold,” he says, referring to the dissolution of the company that formerly owned the Mercury News and The Miami Herald. And so the Kiels held a family meeting, where they discussed a possible change on the horizon.
       “My daughter at the time was probably 15. She had been here three years, and by that point she was loving it,” he says. “So she said, ‘Dad, I just want you to know that if we have to move, you will have ruined my life.’”
    “That’s how much we like it here,” he jokes.
    Kiel said his childhood was affected by having two parents who lived through the Holocaust.
   “My parents were not the same as any other parents,” he says.
   “My family lived it,” he says, and adds that his family’s resilient history has a tremendous impact on his life. “That’s where my spirituality starts,” he says.
    “I feel like it’s within me, because I talk to my father and I know what my family’s been through.”
     Kiel’s father travels to high schools and speaks about his experience surviving the Holocaust. His mother, along with her mother and sisters, hid out in a basement in France during the war, and lost some of her siblings.
   Kiel grew up in a Conservative household, but when it was time to start his own family, he and his wife found Reform Judaism spoke to them more.
     “I think we understood [Reform
Judaism] more, and that’s what we like about Shir Hadash.”
     Kiel says that his enthusiasm about the Bay Area makes it easier to pour more passion into his new role. He describes the area as “less hectic,” and says he’s constantly in awe of all the big-name hi-tech companies in the Silicon Valley, and the ingenuity born here.
    Kiel recalls being invited to a round-table dinner hosted by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. In Miami, when someone tells you they’re a rocket scientist, it means that they’re just a really smart person, but this guy was really a rocket scientist. I thought, ‘what a neat place.’”

His family resounded his sentiments; Alexa found her place serving in leadership roles at Los Gatos High School. This year, she serves as dance commissioner, which she assures her father is an even more important role than last year’s sophomore treasurer. She recently completed her confirmation at Shir Hadash.