How We Got Here: Reflecting on the Past 150 Years

Register here.

This event on the history of the Jews of the Bay Area, is dedicated to the memory of Seymour Fromer, the Judah L. Magnes Museum’s visionary co-founder.

Sunday, February 12
10:30 am-4 pm
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, UC Berkeley
2121 Allston Way, Berkeley

Presenters biographies

Presentation descriptions

Tribute Honoring Seymour Fromer (1922-2009)
Co-founder of the Magnes Museum with Rebecca Fromer (1928-2012)
Featuring a short documentary by Bill Chayes

 

 

 

Keynote Speaker
Fred Rosenbaum: Founding Director, Lehrhaus Judaica, author of Cosmopolitans

“Controversies That Shook the Jewish Community”

 

 

 

Three Periods That Shaped the Community (choose a panel)

The Pioneer Age – Moderator: Francesco Spagnolo

  • Ava Kahn: The Jews Rushed In: A Multi-National Community by the Bay
  • Frances Dinkelspiel: “Our Crowd” West: The Shaping of San Francisco and Its Jewish Community
  • Mary Ann Irwin: Private Charity and Public Activism: Jewish Women in San Francisco, 1855-1906

Between the Wars – Moderator: Stephen Dobbs

  • Kenneth L. Kann: The Jewish Radical Experience: Petaluma & Beyond
  • Fred Rosenbaum: The Cataclysms of the 1940s: How Bay Area Jews Responded to the Holocaust and Zionism
  • Ellen Eisenberg: To Cry Down Injustice? Bay Area Jewish Responses to the Japanese-American Internment

Innovation & Dissent: From the 1960s to the Present - Moderator: Marc Klein

  • Deborah Kaufman: Innovative Cultural Institutions
  • Dorothy Richman: Religious Innovation: House of Love & Prayer, Aquarian Minyan & Jewish Meditation
  • Yoel Kahn: Twice Blessed & Challenged: Coming Out/In to the Jewish Community
  • David Cooper: Student & Youth Activism After 1967: Soviet Jewry, Anti-War, and Dissent on Israel

Performance By Charlie Varon
“Sam Josephson must have had his medications adjusted, because now all of a sudden he was making sense.” So begins Charlie Varon’s latest fictional monologue, part of his series about elderly Jews living at an assisted living facility in San Francisco. It’s a comic tale about grandparents, grandchildren, politics and Jewish life in the 21st century.

In-Depth Workshops
Aryae Coopersmith
From the Summer of Love to the House of Love and Prayer

Ellen Eisenberg
From Protest to Collaboration: California Jews and Japanese-American Internment

Ava Kahn
Two Women Who Changed the West: Mary Goldsmith Prag and Her Daughter Florence Prag Kahn

Marc Klein
From the Mid 1980s Until Today: The Community Controversies and How the Jewish Bulletin/j. Covered Them

Steve Rivo
America’s First Jewish Photographer Goes West (pre-premier documentary film screening)

Gina Waldman
The Struggle for Soviet Jewry

Peretz Wolf-Prusan
Camp Swig: Summers of Love, Art, and Creating Jewish Identity

Tours
Magnes Director Alla Effimova will offer tours of the collection before the opening session (10 am) and during the workshops.

This conference is followed by a unique event on February 26 in Palo Alto, Where Are We Heading: Voices in Our Community Imagining What’s Next.

Price
$25 pre-registration (includes lunch); $35 at the door
There will be a vegetarian boxed lunch for those who register in advance. Paying at the door does not guarantee lunch.

The conference is made possible by the generous support of The Lazslo N. Tauber Family Foundation, the Koret Foundation, Irving and Varda Rabin, Jay Espovich and Frances Dinkelspiel.

Special thanks to our co-sponsors: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, UpStart Bay Area and The Marsh

Register here.