There may be no better reason to be in San Leandro on a Thursday morning.
The MID lecture series — the initials stand for “multi-interest day” — turns 40 this year, and will be celebrating four decades of teaching East Bay audiences about the Jewish world with more of the same. More learning and lectures, that is.
“The quality of the speakers has sustained it,” said MID co-chair Betty Ann Lipow when asked how a weekday morning series in charming but somewhat out of the way San Leandro could be thriving after all these years.
“My husband was a practicing doctor, so he couldn’t come on Thursday mornings. And I’d always be saying ‘Herb, you missed a fabulous lecture.’ Now he comes [every week] and they’re terrific.”
Seymour Fromer, the co-founder of Berkeley’s Judah L. Magnes Museum, said the MID series was one of the first — if not the first — example of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox synagogues working with the organized Jewish community (in this case, the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay) to create a lecture series.
“We have a unique opportunity in Northern California of having Jewish scholars, graduate students and bright authors who live in this area,” said Fromer, who will be honored at a Sunday, Sept. 17 lecture at Oakland’s Temple Sinai marking the 40th anniversary of the series.
The lectures originally were held at the old Oakland-Piedmont Jewish Community Center, and Fromer notes that a core group of 50 to 60 people attended every week. The venue was moved to San Leandro’s Temple Beth Sholom when the JCC closed more than a decade ago, and 50 to 100 attendees still show up every week.
The eclectic nature of the MID series’ lecture subjects has kept things from growing stale. Glancing at this year’s calendar, subjects range from “The History of Jewish Show Business” (parts I and II), “The Jews of Sing Sing” and “Christianity and Judaism under Roman Rule” (that one’s taught by the Rev. Bruce Bramlett).
Past speakers include professor William “Ze’ev” Brinner of U.C. Berkeley, hydrogen bomb developer Edward Teller and Lehrhaus Judaica founder Fred Rosenbaum, who made some of his first Bay Area lectures with MID. He will make this year’s keynote lecture honoring Fromer.
For more information about the MID series and the Sept. 17 keynote lecture call (510) 839-2900 or visit www.jfed.org.