A slide show sent them back to 1975.
That was the last time this group of men was together: muttonchop sideburns, suede jackets and all.
The old transparencies and reunion dinner at San Francisco’s Concordia Club Wednesday brought out 40 men to catch up (“Same house, different wife”), kibbitz (the expression alter koker was thrown around liberally) and reminisce about the two weeks in Israel 21 years ago that changed their lives.
“It’s exciting to see everyone again,” said investor Phillip Schaefer of Belvedere. “This was a stand-up delegation. Now I’m just happy they can still stand up.” On a roll, he later added, “Before, we were building bridges; now some of us are wearing them.”
The 1975 trip, called the Advance 60 Mission, changed not only the 60 men who participated, but also the face of Jewish fund-raising in America. Organized by Rabbi Brian Lurie, it was the first subsidized trip to Israel sponsored by a Jewish federation in this country. Now, such missions are routine.
Wayne Feinstein, current executive vice president of the S.F.-based Jewish Federation was one of the original 60. He joked that he was just a “young pup” when he left for Israel with the mission back in 1975.
“It was a marvelous building block for our Jewish community,” he told the group.
Before leaving for Israel, each man was asked to personally solicit 20 people for the 1975 fund-raising campaign of the federation, which was than called the Jewish Welfare Fund. The men collected over $800,000 from their targeted donors, which was a 200 percent increase over the same donors’ 1974 contributions.
No women were invited because “it was 1975. That was what we did in 1975,” according to Kenneth Colvin, who helped organize both the trip and the reunion.
Now there are both coed and women-only missions, designed to foster leadership among both genders.
The mission’s legacy has been to inspire Jewish leaders, said Colvin. The money they raised has been spent, but the leaders are still sprinkled throughout almost every Jewish organization in the Bay Area.
Two-thirds of the men are still active in the Jewish community, sitting on boards at the Jewish Home for the Aged, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee and numerous other local agencies and synagogues.
After 26 visits to the Holy Land, Colvin told the group, “my love for Israel goes on. You were just a wonderful group of men. From deep in my heart, I thank you for being there and here.”
Sitting on the floor of a packed, darkened room, consultant Ron Berman watched the slides, which were accompanied by the sounds of Israeli and American music that was popular at the time — the group on a tank, the group on a kibbutz, the group among soldiers and ancient ruins.
“I didn’t sleep for eight days,” Berman remembered. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”
Seeing his former travelmates brought up memories for Marin physician Martin Carr as well.
Just two years after the bloody Yom Kippur War, the Jewish state “seemed on the edge,” Carr said. “We felt a tremendous need to help Israel.”
The delegates of the first federation-subsidized mission experienced the country’s tension first-hand, a lesson they said has inspired them to maintain local involvement with Jewish causes.
The lesson took hold. Jewish communities throughout the country learned that the profound effect on these 60 American Jews — after seeing Israel’s physical and political landscapes up close — could be replicated.