Just as people will forever remember Sept. 11, 2001, Seymour Fromer can recall June 5, 1967, the day the Six-Day War broke out in the Middle East. “On very short notice, without any special effort, thousands of people turned out at the Oakland Auditorium to support Israel,” the Berkeley resident said. “It was the whole community.”
The rally was sponsored by a handful of Jewish organizations, B’nai B’rith among them.
That was just one example of the organization’s work, said Fromer, a past president of the Oakland lodge of B’nai B’rith.
B’nai B’rith will mark its 125th anniversary in the East Bay with a celebratory dinner at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28 at the Oakland Marriott Hotel at City Center.
The national organization of B’nai B’rith, meaning “Sons of the Covenant,” was founded by German Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side of New York in 1843.
“The first lodge in the West was in San Francisco in the 1850s,” said Warner Oberndoerfer of Oakland, another past president of B’nai B’rith as well as the chair of the anniversary dinner.
“And the western district of the organization was established in San Francisco in 1863.”
The Oakland chapter followed in 1875, according to Oberndoerfer. At its height, the organization had eight different lodges in the East Bay, but over the years, some of them merged with one another.
“There was a small Jewish community in Oakland at that time,” he said. “In November of that year, those folks started two organizations: the First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland, which is now Temple Sinai, and a week later, they started the Oakland lodge.”
According to Oberndoerfer, many of the same people were involved in both, “with the congregation for the religious aspects and B’nai B’rith for the secular aspects.”
Based on the principles of “benevolence, brotherly love, and justice and harmony,” the group was then divided into men’s lodges and women’s chapters. Now the lodges accept female members.
Widows and orphans were among the first recipients of B’nai B’rith funds. In the early days, the national group did such things as gathering signatures for a petition protesting the pogroms of czarist Russia in the late 1800s and raising funds for victims of a flood in Galveston, Texas in 1900.
The organization was also the founding force behind the Anti-Defamation League, and expanded into the youth arena, with B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO) and the Hillel Foundation providing services for Jewish college students. (The youth branches both have become independent non-profits, but receive support and financial assistance from B’nai B’rith.)
“A great increase in numbers came during and immediately after World War II, when people realized the damage of the Holocaust,” said Oberndoerfer.
Now, he estimates that there are about 135 members in the East Bay and another 300 in San Francisco.
“When we count all of our lodges in the Bay Area, and some outlying ones, we probably have close to 1000 members,” he said.
Like many of the Jewish organizations that have been around awhile, B’nai B’rith has seen attrition in its ranks.
Its regional office in San Francisco closed in 1999, leaving the Los Angeles office the only one in the entire region.
“It may be related to the loss of office, it may be due to aging of the membership, it has not been that easy,” Oberndoerfer said. “We share that problem with many of the old-time fraternal organizations. Younger people are not as interested in going to meetings and listening to speakers.”
He added, “Our image is of an old persons’ organization.”
While the national office has tried to help the lodges attract younger members, it hasn’t been easy.
Despite their diminished numbers, however, B’nai B’rith members remain quite active. In recent years, for example, local lodges have worked closely with Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay to help settle new immigrants.
They have offered “Safe Holidays,” a program in which lodge members hand out coffee and donuts to people traveling on BART on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. They have delivered kosher holiday meals to needy Jewish individuals and families.
“That’s always been important to me because a lot of people think there’s no such thing as Jewish needy when there are many,” said Stanley Goldman of Moraga, the current president of the Oakland lodge. While Goldman enjoys the social and educational activities, recalling a recent lecture about Richard Rodgers of the composing team Rodgers and Hart, he said, “I’ve always enjoyed the community-based activities more.”
The lodges were involved in providing entertainment for military personnel undergoing recovery at the now-closed Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, and providing programs for the elderly at the Home for Jewish Parents.
The Walnut Creek lodge is still a major sponsor of Contra Costa County’s Jewish softball league.
And long known for its disaster relief efforts, B’nai B’rith is currently collecting money to help those impacted by the terrorist attacks in New York.
“The efforts of the members of the lodges in the East Bay go beyond the region,” said Irving Abramowitz, the current president of the Golden Pacific region of B’nai B’rith. “We respond to the needs of people worldwide.”