Walking for a cause
Mara Langer, who lives in San Mateo, is in training for her fifth year of participation in the two-day Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.
A two-time survivor, Langer and her team, Girls Gone Wild for a Cure, will walk 26-plus miles on day one and 13 miles on day two to raise money to beat breast cancer. Last year she raised $10,000, and this year’s goal is $13,000.
The team is at 18 members and growing, and currently it includes Tracy Stettner, Kathy Williams and Tammy Martino. Writes Langer: “Tracy is our fearless team captain, Kathy sets our pace (she is fast!), and Tammy and I are the survivors that are lucky to have them supporting us.”
You can support Mara and the team at www.avonwalk.org (it’s easy to navigate to her name) or write to her at [email protected].
Film in progress
A work-in-progress showing of San Francisco filmmaker Sam Ball’s documentary “Joann Sfar Draws from Memory” is on tap in the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The subject of the film is a Jewish Algerian graphic novelist and filmmaker who has his own film, “Gainsbourg,” in this year’s festival. According to the publicity for Ball’s film: “We follow the artist [Sfar] into a whimsical universe where worlds collide exuberantly and the dead reach out to us from beyond the page.”
Excerpts of Ball’s film will screen at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, at the Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco, before a showing of “Gainsbourg.” Ball, who runs the S.F. Jewish Film Festival’s New Jewish Filmmakers Project, will be on hand for a discussion. Admission is free, but a ticket is required.
Remembering the Shoah
Sara Barmazel of Santa Rosa and Hannah Horowitz of Glen Ellen are co-winners of the annual Susy Raful Essay Contest. The two high school students read their winning essays on remembering the Holocaust to the audience at Sonoma County’s Yom HaShoah commemoration at the Friedman Center on April 11.
Santa Rosa residents Bob and Susy Raful (Susy is a survivor) sponsor the contest each year for Sonoma County Jewish high school students. The annual observance also featured a poignant reading by Santa Rosa’s Susanne Batzdorff of a story she wrote based on the memories of five survivors now living in Sonoma County.
Short shorts …
The Bay Area Jewish Healing Center is guest editing Zeek magazine. The issue “Reform for Healing” will launch on May 16 along with the BAJHC’s daylong conference at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, “The Art of Healing.” Tickets at www.cjmhealingconfer-ence.eventbrite.com … Menlo Park resident Dorothy Fadiman’s documentary “Shattering the Myth of Aging: Senior Games Celebrate Healthy Lifestyles, Competition and Community” had its West Coast premiere at the April 9 Bay Area Senior Games at Stanford University, reports Marsha Felton of San Francisco. Elaine Desser, who moved from Los Angeles to the Moldaw Family Residences in Palo Alto to be closer to her children, was among the attendees … ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) honored Mark Weinberg of San Francisco at the April 21 awards celebration in L.A. for co-writing the song “Come On Get Higher,” one of the most played pop songs of 2009, reports proud dad Matthew Weinberg … Sherie Koshover of the Jewish Home writes that Rabbi Martin Weiner, rabbi emeritus of Sherith Israel, is part of the May 1 celebration to honor the Home’s Rabbi Sheldon Marder.