J. captures four 2016 Rockower Awards
J. picked up four awards last week when the American Jewish Press Association announced recipients of its 2016 Rockower Awards.
J. correspondent Alix Wall won a first place David Frank Award for Excellence in Personality Profiles for her March 2015 cover story, “Daniel Boyarin — the Talmudist, Feminist, Anti-Zionist, Only-in-Berkeley Orthodox Jew.”
J. editor Sue Fishkoff won the second place Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Commentary for three columns: “Rabin’s Murder Marked Israel’s Loss of Innocence,” “If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem” and “And What Am I, Chopped Liver?”
J. senior writer Dan Pine won second place in the category of Arts Features for his January 2015 cover story, “A Lost World, On Canvas,” about Oakland resident Elizabeth Rynecki’s efforts to preserve the pre-Holocaust paintings by her great-grandfather, Moshe Rynecki.
Art director Cathleen Maclearie won second place in the category of Excellence in Graphic Design for three J. covers: the April 2015 Passover issue, the July 2015 story about the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the November 2015 Hanukkah issue.
‘Judaism Unbound’ podcast features leaders from The Kitchen
The “Judaism Unbound” podcast’s latest episode features a discussion with Rabbi Noa Kushner, founder of San Francisco-based startup congregation The Kitchen, and Yoav Schlesinger, the organization’s executive director.
The national podcast is a project of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future. It is co-hosted by institute president Dan Libenson and by Lex Rofes, the institute’s strategic initiatives coordinator. Each episode is a conversation with Jewish communal thinkers, leaders and innovators about their work and vision for the Jewish community.
Past episodes of “Judaism Unbound” have featured Moishe House CEO David Cygielman (formerly of Oakland) and feminist author Anita Diamant, who wrote the novel “The Red Tent” and founded the Boston mikvah Mayyim Hayyim. Each episode of the weekly podcast, which started in March, reaches about 2,000 listeners, Rofes said in an email.
In this week’s episode, Kushner and Schlesinger discuss how The Kitchen has evolved, why the organization decided not to seek its own building and its work with design company IDEO. The episode also discusses the creation of Hello Mazel, The Kitchen’s Jewish quarterly subscription box that launched at Passover this year.
The episode can be downloaded on iTunes and Google Play or streamed at www.judaismunbound.com. — j. staff
Chabad Center for Jewish Life planned in Pleasanton
Chabad of the Tri Valley has opened escrow to purchase the Pleasanton Masonic Center to be the future home of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life, Rabbi Raleigh Resnick announced this week in an email.
The center would include a synagogue, early childhood education center, Jewish teen lounge, mikvah and Hebrew school, the rabbi said, and the one-acre property also would house a community event hall, Holocaust memorial, catering facility and Judaica gift shop.
The rabbi and his wife, Fruma Resnick, who moved to California 11 years ago to establish Chabad of the Tri Valley, announced they will be launching a fundraising campaign to help build the center.
East Bay Federation raises $3 million
The Jewish Federation of the East Bay raised more than $3 million in the last year, in gifts directed both toward its special projects and its general community campaign.
The annual community campaign, which the Federation branded “Alight: Your Story,” concluded on June 30. Through special events and on its website, the Federation used the campaign to highlight the personal stories of community members and invited donors to share their own stories as they pledged support.
Additionally, this year, 21 new donors pledged to include the federation in their wills or trusts, Federation officials said.
JCC East Bay holds sukkah design contest
The Jewish Community Center of the East Bay is hosting a design competition for local installation artists to create an innovative, usable, site-specific sukkah for the center’s courtyard.
Artists’ designs will be reviewed by jurors, including the director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Lawrence Rinder, and JCC of the East Bay staff. The winner will receive $2,500 in prize money and $3,000 in materials budget to design and build the sukkah.
JCC of the East Bay officials said they are interested in a sukkah that uses healthy materials with low environmental impact. The submission deadline is Aug. 10 and the winner will be announced Sept. 9. For more information visit www.jcceastbay.org.