The streets of Palo Alto and the hills of Oakland are about to get their annual Jewish facelift.
It’s time to welcome back the South Bay’s To Life: A Jewish Cultural Street Festival, and the East Bay’s PicnicFest. That means Jews from across Northern California have in store a day of food, fun and schmoozing.
We urge you attend one or the other on Sept. 9.
Along with San Francisco’s Israel in the Gardens, To Life is one of the Bay Area’s top Jewish events, bringing together scores of Jewish agencies, artists, synagogues and organizations under one hot sun.
PicnicFest draws a similar crowd in the East Bay. PicnicFest takes place at Joaquin Miller Park, and more than 700 people are expected to turn out.
As always, To Life will feature delicious food, including everything from baba ganoush to Salvadoran pupusas. And as usual, the kids will have 10 million things to do, from a make-your-own-tzedakah-box booth to entering the first annual “Mitzvah Bee.”
But this eighth edition of To Life also has some noteworthy innovations to boast of this year.
As one of our stories this week points out, 32-year old director Amy Grossman hopes to bring a fresh perspective to the event. Her background in music promises some first-rate live performers on the festival’s multiple stages, including My Eighth Day, a rock band made up of Orthodox rabbis, and Samson Koletkar, a Jewish Indian comedian.
The centerpiece of the festival is always the Tents of Community. More than 50 Jewish agencies will take part this year, a significant increase over years past. For anyone looking to connect with the local Jewish world, this is one-stop shopping.
For the last several years, this newspaper has covered the remarkable growth of the South Bay and East Bay Jewish communities. With the opening of new JCCs, Jewish day schools and synagogues –– not to mention the soon-to-be-completed Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life –– both regions have become major hubs of Jewish life.
That means To Life and PicnicFest aren’t just for locals — they’re for everyone. Wherever you live, either festival is well worth the shlep.
Soon the summer will draw to a close. Our hearts will turn toward the High Holy Days, to school, to the business of life. Before the air turns chilly, why not bask in the sun one last time with your Jewish neighbors at PicnicFest or To Life?
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California