There are free services around the bay and I’ll start posting them now.

Jewish Gateways High Holiday Services
No experience necessary, free and open to the public. Services are primarily in English. We look forward to welcoming you, your family, and your friends.

Date: Rosh Hashanah/New Year Services are on the evening of Wed., Sept. 8, and morning of Th., Sept. 9. Family Services on Sept. 9.
Yom Kippur/Day of Atonement Services are on the evening of Fri., Sept. 17, and day of Sat., Sept. 18. Family Services on Sept. 18.
Place: Jewish Community Center of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut Street, Berkeley
Services are free and RSVP is requested. Donations are welcome.
For information and to RSVP, or contact Rabbi Bridget at 510-559-8140 or rabbibridget@jewishgateways.org for more info.

High Holidays Services in Los Altos
Rabbi Marder says, “Our High Holy Day services are open to the community.”

There is no cost for the Young Family services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (1:30 p.m.) – these are for parents with young children; and no cost for the Yizkor and Concluding services on Yom Kippur (5:00 p.m.).

There is a cost for our tickets for other services, but if there is financial need we are happy to provide tickets for whatever people can afford (or for free, if they cannot afford to pay). People can be in touch with the Executive Director, Debbie Coutant, or with Rabbi Janet Marder.

www.betham.org

High Holidays with Canfei Nefesh – Soul Wings
Joyous, Spiritual, Musical, Mystical and Deeply Felt
Rabbi Sara Shendelman and Rabbi Steven Fisdel
South Berkeley Community Church 1802 Fairview Berkeley 94702

Rosh Hashana Sept 8th at 7 pm
Sept 9th at 10 am

Yom Kippur Sept 17th at 7 pm
Sept 18th at 10 am

Pot luck lunch after RH Morning Services. Break Fast after Yom Kippur
Tashlich following Rosh Hashana Morning Services.
Services are free of charge.
Donations to cover expenses, very much appreciated.
email: canfeinefesh@gmail.com please rsvp
mail checks to: 1743 Oregon Berkeley, CA 94703 made out to JACS
please visit our website http://canfeinefesh.bravehost.com
Childcare will be provided–please reserve
Volunteers needed
Wheelchair accessible

Free Family Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Services
We encourage you to take your children to the excellent family services led by Rabbis Aron and Levenberg, Cantor Felder-Levy, and Early Childhood Center Director, Robin Adelman, on Rosh HaShanah.
Both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur family services will be held at 3:30 pm and will be at Congregation Shir Hadash.
These services, geared to children ages 2-6 and their families, are free and open to the public, so please feel welcome to bring your friends.

Rosh Hashanah
Date: Thursday, September 9

Yom Kippur
Date: Sat. Sept. 18

Time: 3:30pm for both services
Place: Shir Hadash, 20 Cherry Blossom Ln., Los Gatos
www.shirhadash.org

Wednesdays, October 6 – October 27
7:30 – 9:00 pm
Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St., Berkeley
Cost: $80/couple for four sessions; $60/couple for Beth El members

Marin Brandeis Hillel Day School
180 No. San Pedro Rd., San Rafael
Monday, Oct. 11 at 7 to 8:30pm
Marin BHDS offers this program free to the community.
For information call Dawn at 510-845-6420 x11.

Crispy Latkes

Food alone doesn’t make a family meal or holiday complete. You have to put more into the day. Recipes and rituals come together to build memories and strenghen family bonds.

Let’s get together to make latkes & a delicious Israeli vegetarian meal and discuss the ways to use food to build relationships and memories.

Sunday, Nov. 14 at 2pm to 3:30pm
Beth Am, 26790 Arastradero Rd., Los Altos
Cost: $25
For more information call Dawn at 510-845-6420 x11.

I’m going to invite you to think about “being” Jewish and what that means. Either you or your partner is Jewish. You may be raising your kids Jewish. “Being” Jewish holds questions about identity and action and how they intersect.

Being Jewish is both entirely effortless and requiring of work to make anything of it. It’s like being born with a high IQ. You can walk through life a genius, but if you never learn to read, write or do math, if you never put your brains to any task, then your intelligence is wasted. If you are born a Jew, then that identity belongs to you effortlessly. (If you convert to Judaism, you create your own door into Judaism.) Now what to do with it?

Let’s take a familiar Jewish practice, kashrut (eating kosher food). If all you know is, don’t eat pork, then it seems pointless and stupid. If you learn more you find it is a dietary system. You control what you eat, you think about what you put in your mouth before you put food in there. What? Another form of Weight Watchers? Some foods are not eaten at all – yup, sounds like a diet. Some foods are not eaten together, yes, I’ve seen those diets too. You bless the food and thank some cosmic force for providing it. Hm, I’m not sure I believe in that cosmic force so why say thank you to it?

These are all beginner’s concepts. Let’s go deeper.

The concept of kavanah (intention) is working here. Rather than stuff food in your face, think before you eat. Have intention. I am going to eat what is good for me, I am valuing this, the only body I will occupy in this lifetime, I want to keep it healthy and able to sustain my spirit/consciousness.

I want to be grateful that, unlike the majority of the planet’s occupants, I have sufficient and delicious nutrition. I am grateful that someone else stooped in the fields to pick this. I won’t rush through food that they gave sweaty hours to harvest. Nor will I undervalue the fact that an animal died in order for me to eat this steak.

What if each time you ate you gave 30 seconds to thinking about how you are nourishing yourself and how that plays into the world around you?

Have you ever thought about meditating? It’s scientifically proven to do loads of good things for you. What if kashrut is an ancient way of creating a meditative moment? Sure, many people aren’t thinking of it that way. But who said you had to do things their way?

I didn’t make this stuff up. Talk to modern practitioners of kashrut and you’ll learn even more about connecting body, soul, and actions.
To get the most out of being Jewish takes effort – learning, practice (as in doing it over and over again until you’ve got it right for you) and it doesn’t hurt to have some fellow explorers (just like those gym buddies who suggest you take spinning with them).

If you’re going to BE Jewish, make it work for you.

EVENTS
The Outdoor Sanctuary (San Rafael)
Torah on the Trails (San Rafael)
Book Club (San Rafael)
Chocolate Chip Challah! (El Cerrito)
Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story film (Berkeley)
A Film Unfinished film (Berkeley)
Let’s go to the Movies: Saviors in the Night (Berkeley)
Bagels and Blocks (Walnut Creek)
Bagels and Babies (San Francisco)

The Outdoor Sanctuary
Shabbat in Nature
Does being in nature make you feel connected to something bigger? Come and celebrate Shabbat outdoors this summer at China Camp State Park. We will be there at 5:30 pm and services will begin at 6 pm. All you need to do is bring your blanket, some lawn chairs, a picnic dinner, your readiness to participate, and a dessert to share. We’ll bring the challah.

Directions: We will be picnicking and praying at China Camp Village, just down the road from Rodef Sholom (4.6 miles), on the upper grass meadow adjacent to the parking lot and above the water. There will be a small fee for parking.

Date: Friday, July 16, Aug. 20
Time: 6pm
Place: China Camp State Park
Sponsored by Congregation Rodef Sholom, 170 North San Pedro Rd., San Rafael
For more information call the synagogue at 415- 479-3447
www.rodefsholom.org

Torah on the Trails
Join Cantor David Margules for some soul-lifting Torah and a short hike, weather permitting. Please meet punctually in the Rodef Sholom parking lot.

Date: Saturday, July 17
Time: 8:30am
Place: Rodef Sholom, 170 North San Pedro Road San Rafael
For more information call the synagogue at (415) 479-3441

Book Club
The Women of Rodef Sholom’s book club will be discussing The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson at the next gathering.

Date: Wednesday, July 21
Time: 7:15 pm
Place: Osher Marin JCC, Lefferts Community Library (2nd floor), 200 North San Pedro Road, San Rafael
For more information about joining this dynamic club, contact wrs@rodefsholom.org.

Chocolate Chip Challah!
Join other families with young children to make and take home your own decorated bread, a yummy Jewish treat. We’ll also enjoy puppets, stories, and songs. You’ll take home your challah, the recipe, plus ideas about how to make Shabbat — the Jewish Sabbath — a special time for your family.
Open to all children age 0-5 years and their grown-ups.
Our gathering will be led by beloved early childhood specialist Mimi Greisman and Rabbi Bridget Wynne.
Feel free to invite friends who might be interested!

Date: Sunday, July 25
Time: 10:30am-12:00pm
Place: Jewish Gateways, 409 Liberty St., El Cerrito
For more information call 510-559-8140
www.jewishgateways.org

Temple Sinai of Oakland is co-presenting two films at the SF Jewish Film Festival.
Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, this film celebrates the contributions of Jewish major leaguers and the special meaning baseball has had in the lives of American Jews. More than a film about sports, it is a story of immigration, assimilation, bigotry and the shattering of stereotypes.

Date: Sunday, August 1 at 2:15pm
Place: Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley

AND
A Film Unfinished
Filmmaker Yael Hersonski discovers that the Warsaw Ghetto footage that we’ve seen in countless documentaries was actually staged by the Nazis using the actual Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto as “actors.” This film is a rigorous and profound documentary that simultaneously exposes the perversity of Nazi image-making, honors its victims and pays tribute to the resiliency of the filmmaker’s own grandmother and the other survivors of the Ghetto.

Date: Sunday, August 1 at 4:15pm
Place: Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley

For ticket information, please contact the box office at 866-55-tickets or visit the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival online at www.sfjff.org.

Let’s go to the Movies: Saviors in the Night
Let’s go see “Saviors in the Night” at the SF Jewish Film Festival. Saviors is a true story about a German Catholic family who hid a Jewish family during the Holocaust.
Go online and buy your ticket at: www.sfjff.org
How about meeting at 5pm for a quick pizza around the corner from the theater? Email me if you want to join me for dinner before the film.

Date: August 7
Time: 7pm
Place: Roda Theater, Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison, Berkeley
Info: Contact me at 510-845-6420 x11 or email me at dawn@buildingjewishbridges.org

Bagels and Blocks
A Jewish Family Play Group with Sizzling Summer Fun!
Come join us as we explore, make crafts, sing and learn in a family environment.
Please bring towel and change of clothes for water play. The summer program designed for families with children 0-3 years. Siblings welcome! Bring a Friend!
Free and open to the community.
A light breakfast will be served at 10:15.

Date: Thursday, August 19
Time: 9:30-10:15am
Place: B’nai Shalom, Room 1, 74 Eckley Ln., Walnut Creek
For more information contact sarah@speigel.com or rabbijen@bshalom.org

Bagels and Babies
Join us for an opportunity for parents to interact with others while spending time with their little ones. We provide bagels, fruit and juice…there is some schmooze time, a circle time/discussion, and we always have a “guest” like one of our rabbis or it could be Andrea Alban, a children’s author.

Date: Friday, Aug. 20
Time: 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
Place: Congregation Emanu-El, Two Lake Street, San Francisco
For more information contact Leslie Ticktin at (415) 751-2541 x167 or LTicktin@emanuelsf.org

Temple Sinai, 2808 Summit St., Oakland
Oct. 17, 2010
1pm to 2:30pm
Free to Temple Sinai members; $7 for non-members. (No one turned away for lack of funds.)
For more information email Dawn at dawn@buildingjewishbridges.org or call 510-845-6420 x11

Taught by Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Are You Curious?
A Taste of Judaism has been around for more than ten years and literally tens of thousands of people have taken it. It is aimed at the adult learner who has little knowledge of Judaism, but a curious mind. The class covers the three pillars of Judaism:
Jewish spirituality — Jewish views of the divine
Jewish ethics — the source of the Jewish way of life, the teachings
Jewish community — the community that Jews create in every generation to sustain Jewish life.
The three session class is free but pre-registration is required.

Dates: Thursday evenings, Oct. 7, 14, 21
Place: Netivot Shalom, Berkeley
Call to register at 510-845-6420 x11.

Grandfather at play

Last week I talked about the things we will do for our children – essentially the power that our love for our children will teach us to do. On the other side of our lives are our parents. Parents too do more teaching than simply the words they speak – do your homework, don’t tease your sister, stand up straight, tell the truth, be respectful of your teachers. Parents demonstrate love, sacrifice, devotion. In doing so, we see how to be better people. We love and respect them; we hope to emulate them. In a healthy parent – adult child relationship each person understands the limits. The adult child must make their own decisions about child-rearing, religious observance, family balance. But after these decisions are made, and hopefully respected, we can have compassion for our parents sense of loss when our choices are not theirs. The grandchild who will not be raised in the same religion as the grandparent, the child who chooses to convert from their birth faith, the family that no longer spends certain holidays with the grandparents – these are painful and unexpected losses for our parents.

What can we do?
Remember to express love and respect.
“Mom, my love for you will never fade.”
“Dad, I hope to be a good a dad as you have been to me.”

Affirm what is good, sincere, decent, and honorable about your parents. Point out the things that they taught you and that you value.

“Grandma, I really and truly learned to stop and smell the roses from you. Remember when we walked past that big climbing rosebush in front of the hardware store and you said, smell this! I learned to value every bit of nature from you.”

Let them know that you carry a part of them in you. A hug, a kiss, a handwritten card, these all can ease a parent’s fear that they are losing you. In years to come you will be glad you took a moment to express your love.

EVENTS
Shabbat Unplugged (Oakland)
Evening Book Group (San Francisco)
Israeli Folk Dance (Palo Alto)
Fridays at the Midrahov (Street Fair) (Palo Alto)
Music Together (San Rafael)
Let’s go to the Movies: Saviors in the Night (Berkeley)

Shabbat Unplugged
These services will be accompanied by Rabbi’ Bloom’s guitar, a number of singers, and, occasionally, a few of the other instruments as well. Come prepared to sing and participate in a meaningful way. This service lasts approximately one hour and is held in the chapel. We will be outdoors in front of the chapel

Date: Friday, July 2
Time: 6:15pm
Place: Temple Beth Abraham, 327 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland
Info: (510) 832-0936
www.tbaoakland.org

Evening Book Group
Join the JCCSF Evening Book Group at any time, or drop in to discuss a book you enjoy. Contact Cecily Rogers at 292-1262 or email crogers@jccsf.org to join the mailing list or inquire about upcoming book selections.

July 20: A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick
August 17: Girl From Foreign, by Sadia Shepard
September 21: Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin

Dates: 3rd Tuesday of the month, July 20
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Place: San Francisco JCC, 3200 California St., San Francisco
Free
www.jccsf.org

Israeli Folk Dance
All ages and levels are invited to join in these fun and easy modern dances from Israel
Karina will introduce basic repertoire dances of different styles, and will show us some Israeli line dances.

Date: Thursday, July 22
Time: 6:30pm
Place: Jessica Lynn Saal Town Square, Palo Alto JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto
FREE
For more information contact Katie Chapin at 650-223-8622 or email her at kchapin@paloaltojcc.org

Fridays at the Midrahov (Street Fair)
Come out and enjoy an array of activities on the beautiful Saal Family Midrahov!
We’ve got falafel, pizza, and pastries, live music, the Israeli Scouts Caravan, an Israeli-style Kabbalat Shabbat and lots of artisans and vendors displaying and selling their wares such as Shakuf Design, Ceramics by Marcelle, Hartstring Jewelry and Studio 618.

Date: Friday, July 16
Time: 3 to 7pm
Place: ?
FREE
Contact Michelle Weintraub, 650-223-8692 or email michellew20@yahoo.com

Music Together
For children (birth – 5 years). A joyful musical experience for children with their parents or caregivers. Singing, dancing, and more.

Dates: Mondays, July 12 – August 16
Time: 10:30 – 11:15 am.
Place: Jewish Family & Children’s Services, A Parent’s Place, 600 Fifth Ave, San Rafael
Cost: $140 per child for six sessions; $93 per additional sibling. (Fees include a book and two CDs). Hurry! The class is filling fast.
Go here to register: http://www.parentsplaceonline.org/marin/classes/music-together-marin-birth-5-0
415-491-7959

Let’s go to the Movies: Saviors in the Night
Let’s go see “Saviors in the Night” at the SF Jewish Film Festival. Saviors is a true story about a German Catholic family who hid a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

Go online and buy your ticket at: www.sfjff.org

How about meeting at 5pm for a quick pizza around the corner from the theater? Email me if you want to join me for dinner before the film.

Date: August 7
Time: 7pm
Place: Roda Theater, Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison, Berkeley
Info: Contact me at 510-845-6420 x11 or email me at dawn@buildingjewishbridges.org

The 2010 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is underway! Come with me to see Saviors in the Night. Saviors is a true story about a German Catholic family who hid a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

Go online and buy your ticket at: www.sfjff.org

As usual I’d like to get together for a dinner of pizza before the film around the corner from the theater. Email me if you want to join me for dinner before the film. We always have a great time chatting.

Date: August 7
Time: 7pm
Place: Roda Theater, Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison, Berkeley
Info: Contact me at 510-845-6420 x11 or email me at dawn@buildingjewishbridges.org

So often we will do for our children things we don’t make the effort to do for ourselves, no matter how valuable. Recently I read a string of emails on the Berkeley Parents Network in response to a mother asking for help in building a community for her child. One mom replied that she has lived in the bay area 12 years and has made no ongoing friends since finishing college. She wisely says, “I think ideally community for children would extend naturally from a community that you join for reasons other than kids.”

Are you familiar with these stages of expectation?
As a new mom, won’t I meet & bond with other moms in a mom’s group?
At the preschool stage, surely here we’ll bond with other parents at the preschool.
Or school age, we’ll go to PTA meetings and make friends with the other parents.

But the years slip away and we may or may not make a circle of friends that form “a community.”

Community forms when people have a common goal, repeated interaction, and a commitment to be mutually sustaining. It takes time to bond. And it takes more, it takes that a common goal.

The advantage to being Jewish is that joining a JCC or a synagogue is not about your religious beliefs. You can believe or not in God, in the story of the bible, heaven, reincarnation, souls, global warming. To quote one rabbi, “Jews have one God… or fewer.” After that you’ll basically buying into the idea that people are better off together than apart.

A synagogue or JCC has the structure to sustain and nurture their existing community, you just get on board.

How? It still takes time and commitment because you are creating a relationship. You have to BE PRESENT – it could be attending Shabbat services, joining the Men’s baseball team, baking for the oneg (reception after services), singing in the choir, serving on a committee, taking a class. In the midst of these activities you will meet people, laugh, eat, sing, and develop a relationship. They will care for you because you care about them.

Summer is a great time to cruise the options. Call if you need help planning your exploration.