Los Gatos JCC dedicating mikvah
The Levy Family Campus of the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center will dedicate its new community mikvah with a day of learning and afternoon tea from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. June 7.
Following the dedication of the mikvah (ritual bath), there will be a lecture by Jan Rose, who spearheaded the program, and light refreshments.
The mikvah is located at 14855 Oka Road, Los Gatos. Cost of the event is $18; attendees must RSVP by June 1. For more information, call (408) 357-7444 or visit www.jvalley.org.
Jewish-Palestinian group to host dialogue
The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Groups of San Mateo and San Francisco will host “Changing Lives in the Holy Land: Stories of Loss, Vision and Hope” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 27 at St. Ignatius High School, 2001 37th Ave., S.F.
Four guest speakers from Israel and the Palestinian territories will discuss their experiences living in the Middle East. All ages are welcome and refreshments will be served.
For reservations, contact Libby Traubman at (650) 574-8303 or Nahida Salem at (650) 921-3225.
Pioneering archivist wins Taube award for work in Poland
Jan Jagielski, a Polish archivist who has spent his career working to document and preserve Jewish monuments in Poland, has been named by the S.F.-based Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture as this year’s winner of the Irena Sendler Memorial Award.
Granted to a non-Jewish Pole who has worked to preserve Jewish heritage in Poland, the award is presented in memory of the late Irena Sendler, a Righteous Gentile who saved more than 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. The award will be presented at the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow on July 1.
Jagielski is chief archivist at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. In the pre-1989 communist era, he was the first person to start a project to document and ultimately preserve what remained of Jewish monuments in Poland.
Acting alone at first, he photographed neglected cemeteries and ruined synagogues and started to collect documentation on their former appearance and importance. He has since helped create guidebooks to Warsaw’s Jewish history and now leads a major conservation program at Warsaw’s Jewish Historical Institute.
“The symbiotic relationship between Jewish culture and Polish culture cannot be overstated,” said Tad Taube, Honorary Consul for the Republic of Poland and chairman of the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture. “Jan Jagielski understands the importance of preserving Jewish history in Poland against the backdrop of today’s vibrant Jewish renaissance.”
Burial conference coming to Berkeley
The North American Chevra Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference will be held for the first time in Berkeley when it is hosted by Congregation Netivot Shalom June 7 to 9.
Chevra kadishas are societies that ensure the bodies of Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish law. Chevra kadishas also prepare bodies for burial by overseeing a ritual cleansing.
The conference will include workshops on burial versus cremation, Jewish and Christian perspectives on burial, organ and tissue donation, deathbed confessionals, disaster preparedness, grief and saying goodbye to a loved one.
The conference costs $378 for Jewish Cemetery Association of North America members, $410 for nonmembers, with prices set to increase June 1. Single-day registration is also available. For a complete schedule or to register, visit www.jewish-funerals.org.
Ordination
Joel Thomas Nickerson, raised in Oakland and Hillsborough, where he studied at Temple Sinai and Peninsula Temple Beth El, was ordained as a Reform rabbi by the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion on May 17 in Los Angeles. Parents are Sydney Kapchan and Steve Tulkin of San Mateo and Eric and Michiko Nickerson of New York. Grandparents are Elliott and Patsy Kapchan and the late Rhoda Greendorfer Kapchan. Family, friends, teachers and colleagues continue sharing awe and joy.
Rabbi Nickerson and family are moving to Philadelphia, where he becomes Hillel Senior Jewish Educator at University of Pennsylvania.