B’nai B’rith to honor state Sen. Milton Marks on Oct. 27
B’nai B’rith Lodge 21 will pay tribute to state Sen. Milton Marks, who will soon retire after a political career that spanned more than 30 years. The event takes place Sunday, Oct. 27 at Congregation Beth Sholom’s Friedman Center, 14th Avenue and Clement Street, S.F.
Brunch will precede speeches by State Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk, Rabbi Alan Lew, who is president of the Northern California Board of Rabbis, and others.
Cantors providing music include Julius Blackman, Martin Feldman, Henry Greenberg and Abraham Wyner. Brunch is $10. For information, call Blackman at (415) 334-0633.
Local JCRC backs Prop. 210
The San Francisco-based Jewish Community Relations Council endorses Proposition 210, an initiative on the November ballot to raise California’s minimum wage.
Rabbi Doug Kahn, JCRC executive director, said, “This is an affirmation of the longstanding commitment of the Jewish community economic justice.”
Prop. 210, sponsored by the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, raises the California minimum wage in two steps to $5.75 per hour by March 1, 1998.
Rabbi Alan Lew, president of the Northern California Board of Rabbis, said Prop. 210 addresses an issue of fairness: “It’s a basic question of right and wrong. Workers deserve a just day’s pay for a just day’s work.”
Jewish organizations endorsing Prop. 210 include National Council of Jewish Women, American Jewish Congress, Boards of Rabbis of Northern and Southern California, Jewish Labor Committee and Na’amat USA Western area.
Jews will moderate Arab writers’ panel
A Jewish scholar and editor of Arab literature will moderate a panel of three Arab writers who will discuss “From al-Mashriq to San Francisco” during the San Francisco Bay Area Book Council’s seventh annual book festival Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 2 and 3 at the Concourse Exhibition Center, Eighth and Brannan streets.
The discussion will convene at 12:15 p.m. Nov. 2 in the Center’s Jessica Mitford Room. Panelists are Etel Adnan, who taught philosophy at San Rafael’s Dominican College; Jalal Toufic, who teaches comparative literature and film at U.C. Berkeley; and Ibrahim Muhawi, who teaches folklore at U.C. Berkeley.
Moderator Ammiel Alcalay, who wrote “After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture,” teaches at Queens College.
The festival, featuring 300 publishers and booksellers and 200 authors, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Admission is $2. For information, call (415) 908-2833.
Cantor’s double chai
Cantor Martin Feldman of Congregation Sherith Israel recently celebrated his double chai anniversary at San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis.
The cantor said more than 600 people attended the Oct. 12 dinner marking his 36 years of service to the San Francisco synagogue.
Therapist’s play will open in S.F.
“Snow White and the Utilities Company,” penned by a Burlingame psychologist, is scheduled to open at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2 at the Next Stage Theatre at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1668 Bush St., S.F.
Playwright Lionel Kranitz, whose current work “The First Jewish Boy in the Ku Klux Klan” was nominated to compete for the Arnold Weissberger Grant, will play the role of an elderly Jewish man who encounters a self-destructive woman.
The show, set to preview Thursday, Oct. 31 and Friday, Nov. 1, will run through Sunday, Dec. 8. Tickets are $14 to $16. For information, call (415) 347-0365.