Loving Bob’s challah
Thank you for Hardly Strictly Bagels’ article about Grand Bakery’s 15th anniversary (“Grand Bakery has made quite a mark in its 15 years,” Feb. 14). So nice to see Bob Jaffe highlighted in the J. Like many families in the East Bay, Grand Bakery has been a part of many of our family celebrations. When my husband and I got married, we had a Grand Bakery challah at each table. One of the most memorable family Hanukkah celebrations when my grandparents were still alive was when Bob made us a 4-pound challah. Everyone was blown away! We wouldn’t think of getting challah from anywhere else for Rosh Hashanah. No doubt when our daughter has her bat mitzvah in eight years, the challah will come from Grand Bakery.
Thank you Bob for being a part of our family’s history! Grand Bakery is a true Bay Area treasure.
Kimberlee MacVicar | Alameda
PJCC serves North Peninsula
A letter in the Feb. 28 edition alluded to the lack of Jewish-learning opportunities offered on the North Peninsula, and the difficulty that older adults encounter trying to attend classes elsewhere in the Bay Area (“North Peninsula wants Lehrhaus”). The Peninsula Jewish Community Center in Foster City offers ongoing Jewish education classes every week, as well as monthly lectures on subjects that range from Israel to Jewish mysticism. In addition to our numerous Jewish enrichment programs, we also offer approximately 25 general-interest programs each month. Visitors will find something every day of the week; no- or low-cost lectures, groups and clubs, as well as fee-based classes and day trips. Many of these programs meet frequently, so participants can build relationships while learning something new.
For older adults who no longer drive, our award-winning Get Up & Go service provides low-cost transportation to twice-monthly social programs at the PJCC, as well as shared ride service for medical and personal appointments within San Mateo County. We welcome J. readers to visit the PJCC and discover our Jewish wellness and learning communities.
Rabbi Lavey Derby, Director of Jewish Life
Jane Skinner, Adult Program Manager
Peninsula Jewish Community Center, Foster City
Millennials’ quest nothing new
I read with amusement your article “Panel sheds light on why millennials avoid synagogues” (Feb. 28).
When I moved to the Bay Area in 1980, we baby boomers were engaged in a similar quest for a Judaism that was more intimate and alive. The Jewish Renewal movement was in full flower; the Aquarian Minyan was in its heyday, Kehilla Community Synagogue was just getting off the ground, every Friday night people were meeting in each other’s homes in informal havurot to eat, pray and welcome Shabbat. It was an exciting time, bursting with creativity and connectedness.
And then we baby boomers started having children, and the children needed schools. We got older and needed more stability. Our “synagogues-without walls” morphed into synagogues with walls, and with the walls came institutions and dues. Life’s inevitable cycle of expansion and contraction.
But our revitalizing efforts had an impact, as will those of this generation. It will be interesting to see how millennials navigate the journey.
Malka Weitman | Berkeley
Community needs more openness
With reference to the recent article about Open Hillel (“Cal alums’ letter calls for an ‘open’ Berkeley Hillel,” Feb. 28) and Jewish institutional refusal to host speakers who are critical of Israel and supportive of BDS, such censorship has for years been the rule in the Bay Area under Jewish Community Federation funding guidelines. That means that the Jewish community, alone among Bay Area communities, may not hear within their own centers of discourse such towering Jewish intellectuals, artists and academics as Tony Kushner, Noam Chomsky, Eve Ensler, Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, many rabbis, Israeli Prize laureates and former high-ranking Israel officials, who all support some aspect of BDS.
This shutout of competing perspectives about Israel-Palestine reflects a hasbara agenda to create a monolithic, fearful, uncritical Jewish community in the U.S that must abandon its once glorious place as a center for vibrant discourse and debate.
As we see with the Open Hillel movement, the “big tent” must either become more inclusive, or there will be, and there already is, an exodus of Jews, particularly the young, to spaces where critical thinking, including about Israel, is not only allowed but cherished.
Carol Sanders | Berkeley
Let’s be realistic
Would a black student group invite David Duke to opine his racial theories? Why not? Don’t you believe in diversity? For Jewish groups to invite and entertain Jew haters and Israel bashers is beyond comprehension. Critics yes; anti-Zionists no. There can be no compromise. None.
Mike Levine | Moraga
Israel in the Gardens will be missed
I am sorry to see the Israel in the Gardens take a hiatus this year. It has always been a wonderful celebration for the whole Bay Area Jewish community to come together and show off our diversity and vitality. Where else is there such a public show of support for Israel and to things Jewish that is open to all at no cost? It is hard to describe the fantastic spirit at past events, even when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
Jeff Rosenberg | San Francisco
Bibi isn’t the problem
The only problem with J Street’s and Danny Yatom’s version of peace and a call for “two states for two peoples before it is too late” (“Former Mossad head tells S.F. crowd: two states before it’s too late,” March 7) is that the Palestinians do not want two states, unless two states includes the return of 5 million Palestinian descendants to Israel. This is not peace — it is an invasion by Arabs who for generations have been raised on a steady diet of Jew-hatred.
Right of return would mark the end of the Jewish state, and result in the realization of the Palestinian dream, their own country from the Jordan River to the sea, sans Jews. What drives the conflict is not Palestinian hunger for statehood, but a deep-rooted rejection of Jewish statehood. For nearly 70 years, the Palestinians are still unwilling to acknowledge Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. As laudable as J Street and Yatom’s motives might be, their make-believe narrative that the absence of peace is Netanyahu’s fault reflects fantasy, naivety and delusion.
Dr. Barry Gustin | Berkeley
JVP is anti-Israel
Uriel Heilman’s article “Hosting Israel Critics? Jewish institutions damned if they do, damned if they don’t” (Feb. 28) totally mischaracterizes Jewish Voice for Peace.
The JVP (which really should be called “Jewish Voice for Palestinians”) is not just “allied” with the BDS movement — it supports that movement, which was begun by the Palestinian organization International Solidarity Movement, and is still supported by that organization, wholeheartedly. And JVP is not neutral on whether or not Israel has a right to exist. By their support of the BDS movement, which seeks to delegitimize Israel entirely, they are against Israel’s right to exist. Indeed, in demonstrations at the Israeli consulate and elsewhere, JVP members stand side by side with Palestinians calling for “Palestine to be free, from the river to the sea” — that is, Israel should cease to exist and the entire area should become Palestinian.
JVP definitely takes a position on whether Israel has a right to exist — it is against Israel’s existence!
Joel Ackerman | Richmond
Non-Jewish members a challenge for Orthodox, too
The article concerning the participation of non-Jews in synagogue services (“Bimah (be)longing: Conservative shuls debate role of non-Jewish members,” March 7) seemed to say that in Orthodox congregations this cannot even be considered. I humbly take exception to that.
The recent interest of non-Jews in becoming “part of our tribe” in a variety of ways is a most interesting challenge that God has given us in this free and open society. This is not the first time in our 4,000-year history when such an opportunity has arisen. Judaism based upon halacha has responded over the centuries in many creative and humane ways. Orthodoxy, in my opinion as an Orthodox rabbi, will be up to this test.
Do not “write us out” of the equation. Consider us as the senior partner in all discussions.
Rabbi Simcha Green | Berkeley