It’s an unwieldy name that will finally have to change.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma will soon take on another satellite office — in Oakland — and begin representing both sides of the bay for the first time.
What used to be the East Bay’s JCRC will now be a satellite of the S.F.-based regional office with the very long moniker. The name will change by spring and so will the reach of the agency, which specializes in education, intergroup relations and public policy issues.
“This will give us more influence with important people when we are lobbying on critical issues. We’ll represent more people in a greater area,” says Judith Chapman, president of the regional JCRC’s board.
According to the agency’s executive director, Rabbi Doug Kahn, the merger is a “three-year experiment, a marriage. After three years, we’ll see how well we’re living with each other in this arrangement.”
Until now, the East Bay JCRC has been run by the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay. Projects of the East Bay JCRC, under its former director, Rabbi Allen Bennett, have included organizing coalitions with Muslim and interfaith groups, dealing with sensitive issues affecting Jews and minorities and lobbying public schools to avoid scheduling the first day of their fall terms on Rosh Hashanah.
But in July, Bennett was handed a pink slip as part of East Bay federation cutbacks. The agency cited a flat annual campaign and outside funding cuts as contributors to the financial squeeze and subsequent dismissal of 25 percent of its staff, including Bennett.
A merger was originally discussed as a way to keep the JCRC afloat for less money.
According to Ami Nahshon, director of the East Bay federation, the new arrangement “will make no difference financially. The cost will be comparable.” The federation, he says, will allocate $75,000 annually to the regional JCRC, which is about 15 percent less than it cost to run the JCRC out of Oakland, according to Nahshon.
Still, he stresses that a regional configuration will be more effective in “providing the most effective community relations services we can.”
Bennett, who will serve this year as interim part-time rabbi at Alameda’s Temple Israel, has declined to comment on the situation.
Meanwhile, a search will begin after the High Holy Days for a new part-time director to work with part-time education specialist Riva Gambert, who has survived the JCRC’s transition.
The regional office will be in charge of hiring personnel in Oakland. When asked if Bennett will be rehired, Kahn responded, “I would not rule out anyone who has the qualifications to handle the complex areas of community relations.”
The board of the East Bay JCRC, headed by Rabbi Steven Chester of Oakland’s Temple Sinai, will meet Sept. 25 to officially enact the proposed merger.