Dedicating Congregation Kol Shofar
Tiburon Congregation Kol Shofar’s $17.5 million expansion got above-the-fold, front-page coverage in the Marin Independent Journal — right below the story headlined “Fairfax seeks ban on new pot clubs,” mused congregation president Karen Hirsch at the Aug. 29 dedication.
“We’ve been floating on consecrated air for a full weekend,” she added.
Howard Zack, who co-chaired the fundraising campaign with Ron Brown, thanked the headhunter who recruited him for the job — his wife, Diane Zack, who was then the congregation’s president. Noting that the campaign revved up just as the economy took a nosedive, Howard Zack said there was a good side, as construction costs dipped, too.
After giving Israel Consul General Akiva Tor a personal tour of the new space, Susie Colliver of S.F.-based Herman Coliver Locus Architecture remarked happily that she had attended the first Shabbat service in the new sanctuary and that the acoustics worked great.
Spiritual envy
KQED radio host Michael Krasny’s new book, “Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest,” will be “outed,” writes Krasny, on Oct. 1. It includes a forward by author Joyce Carol Oates, and among the chapter titles are “Respect for the Faithful, the Faithless and the Wishy-Washy,” “Cosmic Joking,” and “Peace Unto Thee and Me, and an Old Elvis Top-Ten Hit.”
Krasny, the host of “Forum” on KQED FM, will be making a ton of appearances to promote the book. Just Google him and the title to find one near you. Also, he’ll be featured when NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” is in San Francisco on Oct. 6.
Let’s put on a show
Danielle Rose Landress, a senior at Marin’s Branson School, is reprising Music for Martin, a show she put together to raise money for cancer research. Martin Grand, Danielle’s grandfather, died four years ago from melanoma and leukemia.
Laura Landress of Mill Valley, Danielle’s proud mom, writes that the show “spotlights a long list of Danielle’s talented friends from Branson, Tamalpais High and other local schools to sing, dance, perform slam poetry, juggle … and basically highlight what a bunch of slackers we were back in the ’70s.”
The show will be Sept. 26 at 142 Throckmorton Theater in Mill Valley. Last year the show raised $2,000 for the American Association for Cancer Research.
Short shorts
Mushkie Pil, daughter of Rabbi Bentzion Pil, a spiritual leader in San Francisco’s Russian Jewish community, married Menachem Rapp in Union Square with invited guests and tourists looking on, reports Marcia Naomi Berger. Berger, who wrote about the wedding for the San Francisco Examiner, reports that one of the songs at the reception was “Waltzing Mathilda,” saluting the groom and the other guests from Down Under … Dan Eisner is the new education director at Congregation Beth Sholom in Napa. He will supervise religious school and direct bar/bat mitzvah studies … Naomi Lempert Lopez is chairing the Jewish Coalition for Literacy’s benefit, slated for Sept. 20 at the JCC of San Francisco … “My Jewish educator daughter rocks,” writes Jill Maleson about Sherie Rose Maleson, Gan Ami director at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. She’s giving two workshops at the CAJE Advancement of Jewish Education Conference in Boston … And on a personal note: Chag sameach! May we have a caring, peaceful and enriching year in our homes, our community and our world.
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