No Jewish celebration is complete without pickles, says food writer Karen Solomon. So she showed up with about 1,000 pickle samples to hand out at Thursday night’s opening event for the inaugural San Francisco Jewish Week.
“I love this event and I love this community,” said Solomon, who has written eight pickling cookbooks. “And the insanity of making 1,000 pickle tastes — it’s just a completely all-consuming project — that was really fun for me too.”
For the more daring folks, Solomon served up straight pickle brine to sip.
Solomon joined the scores of organizations, performers and speakers at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park — 19 years after President George W. Bush proclaimed May as Jewish American Heritage Month. Public awareness of the month may still be lacking, though. Nearly everyone who spoke to J. on Thursday night acknowledged that they hadn’t heard of the commemorative month until they learned about the event they were attending.
Adam Swig, the organizer behind San Francisco Jewish Week, is trying to change that — one event, or one week of events, at a time.
“I saw there was a void. People don’t know about it. And I really wanted to lift up our community and showcase Jewish American Heritage Month in San Francisco,” Swig told J. “We could support so many small businesses, so many artists and so many nonprofits. I wanted to create an opportunity for people to see the Jewish peoplehood.”
Swig is founder and CEO of Value Culture, a San Francisco nonprofit that organizes cultural and charitable events (some Jewish, some not). San Francisco Jewish Week is his interpretation of how to learn about and celebrate Jewish American culture with a Bay Area flavor.
Through Wednesday, May 21, local Jews (and their non-Jewish friends) can stop by events such as a Shabbat service at a Russian bathhouse, a DJ set by Tel Aviv-based electronic music brand Maccabi House or a young adult “social” in the Richmond District.
With about 20 organizations, nine performances and five speakers on hand Thursday night, every corner of Jewish American culture seemed to get a moment to shine: food, music, art, comedy, film and even a little science.
The some 1,500 attendees could stop by a henna or a face painting station, purchase a new weed grinder, gaze up at aerial performance, wander past the science academy’s shark tank or catch a planetarium show.
Musical performances included Brooklyn rapper Kosha Dillz. During his set, attendees threw a mini bar mitzvah for Sami Steigmann, a Holocaust survivor who offered a motivational talk earlier in the night.
“We lifted him up in a chair. People were going nuts,” Swig told J. “It was incredible, just the depth of this event. If Holocaust survivors can heal and have a full life, so can you.”
The night culminated with comedians of diverse Jewish identities, from Black and Persian Tehran Von Ghasri to Menachem Silverstein, the self-proclaimed “Brad Pitt of Orthodox Jews,” both based in Los Angeles.
Local comics also performed, giving attendees a taste of San Francisco Jewish Week’s final event on May 21: a free comedy showcase at the Boom Boom Room, celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander and Jewish American heritage months, both of which take place in May.
Paul Robertson, who is Korean American and half Jewish, is on the May 21 show lineup.
He told J. that Jewish American culture in particular has a “special place within stand-up comedy culture itself. Whether it’s seen by the newer comics or not, it’s definitely in the DNA of stand-up comedy today.”
Over in the science corner, Rabbi Zac Kamenetz gave a lecture on safe and intentional use of psychedelic substances within Jewish community, from accounts of sages and rabbis throughout history to Jewish researchers and therapists in the field today.
“I think that American Judaism is uniquely influenced by underground psychedelic activity in the ’60s,” said Kamenetz, CEO of Shefa, a group dedicated to helping Jews explore their spirituality through psychedelic practices.
On the more traditional end of the spectrum, Rabbi Shmulik Friedman of Chabad of San Francisco stood at Chabad’s table, which offered attendees the chance to lay tefillin or take home Shabbat candles.
In honor of Lag Ba’Omer, which began Thursday night and includes the tradition of lighting bonfires, Friedman told J. how the holiday symbolizes an attitude of “pro-semitism” as an ideal antidote to antisemitism.
“We’re proud, we’ve contributed, we make an impact, we’re a light,” he said.
Lag Ba’Omer, Friedman added, celebrates the “inner light that we all carry within us. We don’t have to hide it. We don’t have to shy away from it. Just carry it with pride and shine … and others will catch on as well.”
Swig has high expectations for the future of San Francisco Jewish Week.
“We hope to do this every year, moving forward, bringing a chance for our community to come together,” Swig told J. “We can celebrate our culture, our heritage — and share it.”