by suzan berns
Good — and better — advice
At the grand opening celebration of the Jewish Home’s new Rosenberg Family Center last month, Jewish Father advice was being dispensed at 24 cents a shot, but it cost a penny more — 25 cents — to get it from a Jewish Mother. (As my Jewish father would have said, “Vuden?” — which I always interpreted to mean, “What else?”) Barbara Rosenberg, David Friedman — who chaired the $55 million campaign to build the new center — and David’s mom, Phyllis Friedman, were among the hundreds of guests who checked out the Home’s new clinics and the synagogue, which was dedicated at the event.
Author, author!
In book news, San Francisco resident Michael Lavigne was the runner-up in the Jewish Book Council’s Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his novel “Not Me.” S.F. resident Diana Cohen has a chapter included in “Best Women’s Travel Writing 2007.” She’s doing readings around the Bay Area. The East Bay’s Jeff Norman has published “Temescal Legacies: Narratives of Change from a North Oakland Neighborhood,” which looks at five significant changes to the neighborhood since World War II. And finally, KQED Forum’s Michael Krasny’s memoirs on the folks he’s met as a radio show host, appropriately called “Off Mike,” will be published shortly by Stanford University Press.
Going green
Woody Weingarten, managing editor of j. for two-plus decades, has a new volunteer role as the head of San Anselmo’s Quality Life Commission. He will take on the challenge of how to encourage shopping with reusable bags and explore the potential of permeable driveway materials, along with other issues impacting quality of life, he reports. “Green issues, most Bay Area Jews recognize, are an actual matter of life and death — for humans, for other creatures and for the planet,” he says.
Short shorts …
The National Council of Jewish Women has recognized Tannette Goldberg of San Francisco with the Hannah G. Solomon Award, presented to a woman who has changed the lives of others through her leadership efforts and service in her community. Hillsborough’s Helen Miller was named the NCJW Woman of the Year. … Adam Zeff of Woodland was ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi and David Kasher (formerly the circulation manager at j.) was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in June. Kasher will return to Oakland where he’ll be a Judaic studies teacher and parent education program coordinator at Oakland Hebrew Day School.
Steve Friedman of San Rafael writes that his wife, Verna, raised $2,500 to benefit Oakland’s Charlotte Maxwell Clinic with an original dance presentation by Warriors Against Cancer. The dance group is comprised of four cancer survivors and four others who have been “touched by cancer,” he says. … Colin Schlesinger is the new Contra Costa Jewish Day School board president, replacing Karla Smith. … Liat Blum of San Anselmo is one of 10 college and graduate students selected to participate in the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s Auschwitz Fellows Program — A Bridge to History. … New S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation board members are Eve Cohen, Nannette Freeland, Adean Golub, Deborah Mintz, Dan Safier, Valli Benesch Tandler and Regina Waldman.
This columnist can be reached at faces@jweekly.com.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California