Reuth USA names executive director
Reuth USA has announced the appointment of speaker and author Anita Jacobs as its executive director. Jacobs brings over 20 years of executive non-profit and corporate experience to Reuth.
For 70 years, Reuth has provided high quality treatment and a warm and caring home to Israelis in need: the elderly, accident and terror victims, wounded war veterans, the handicapped and chronically ill of all ages. It was founded in Israel in 1937 to answer the needs of Jews escaping the Nazi terror.
Paula Barth, a German immigrant herself, began with a modest program of distributing food and clothing to the poor of Europe.
In the United States, Reuth USA was founded nearly 50 years ago. Its assignment is to be the American friends fundraising arm of Reuth Israel, and with Jacobs’ leadership will initiate a capital growth campaign (www.reuth.org).
Jacobs, who lives in Teaneck, N.J., recently has served as the president of the National Center for Effective Speaking. She also was the director of national campaign training for United Jewish Appeal and a director of the Jewish National Fund of Greater New York. She was a recipient of the Melton Foundation Senior Educator Fellowship at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, during which time she authored the book, “Portraits in Passion: Vision and Values of American-Israeli Women.”
Yiddish film screening includes discussion
Miguel Pendás, creative director of the San Francisco Film Society, will be on hand for a post-film discussion after the screening of the 1940 Yiddish classic “American Matchmaker” on Thursday, May 22 at the JCC of the East Bay in Berkeley.
In the English-subtitled film, Leo Fuchs plays an elegant and eligible bachelor who can never seem to close the marriage deal. The film, an art deco, romantic comedy about male ambivalence and Jewish assimilation, was the last Yiddish movie directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.
After this film, Ulmer went onto a prolific career in Hollywood, highlighted by the groundbreaking “Detour.”
The movie is preceded by the 15-minute short “I Want to Be A Boarder,” a 1937 Yiddish comedy with English subtitles also starring Fuchs.
Part of the JCC’s “CineMingle” series of unique, hard-to-find features, this film showcase begins at 7:30 p.m. and costs $6 for members, $8 for others. The event is at the JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut St. For more information, visit www.jcceastbay. org/jcc/arts_culture_film.htm, call (510) 848-0237 or email [email protected].