Two San Francisco congregations that share the same address — Or Shalom Jewish Community and Beth Israel Judea — are co-hosting a talk by a rabbi who lives and works in Paris.
Rabbi Tom Cohen will discuss the increased anxiety about Jewish life in France in his talk “Being Jewish in Paris Now.” He will remark on how things have gone since the deadly January attacks at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, as well as make observations about the general upsurge in anti-Semitism in Europe.
Originally from Oregon, Cohen in 1993 founded Kehilat Gesher, a congregation JTA once called “an oasis for English-speaking Jews in Paris.” He still leads the congregation, which is located in the Marais, the historically Jewish 17th arrondissement; his wife, Rabbi Pauline Bebe, leads another congregation.
Cohen’s free talk is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 16 at Or Shalom and Beth Israel Judea, 625 Brotherhood Way, S.F. For information, call (415) 469-5564 or email [email protected].
Meanwhile, on the same date, French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy speaks at the JCC of San Francisco in Lehrhaus Judaica’s four-session class “Freedom & Anxiety: The Jews of Modern France.” The class began on June 9. For more information, visit www.jccsf.org or www.lehrhaus.org.