Jewish Community
Part 3 (1950-present)
Entry Author: Stephen
Mark Dobbs
1950 - present
The 1950s and 1960s witnessed major developments in the San
Francisco Jewish community. A 1957 demographic study indicated
that many families were leaving the city and moving to the
suburbs. The old Jewish neighborhoods of Fillmore Street and
the Western Addition had deteriorated and most Jews moved
out, while poor blacks and Asians moved in. The area became
the City's focus for redevelopment for the next thirty years.
 Congregation
Beth Israel, a Conservative synagogue located on Geary Boulevard
in the Fillmore District, and featuring the Decalogue
(Ten Commandments) in a large stained glass window, abandoned
its site and moved in the mid-1960s out to Brotherhood Way,
near Lake Merced. It merged with a Reform synagogue to form
Congregation Beth-Israel Judea. The old building on Fillmore
became the "Fillmore West," home to rock band performances
during San Francisco's hippie era in the later 1960s. The
impresario of San Francisco's rock and roll culture, and a
central figure in the live performance music industry, was
Bill Graham, a Holocaust survivor, after whom the Civic Auditorium
is named.
Beth Israel Synagogue circa 1900
Online Archive of California
New institutional facilities also went up in San Francisco.
Adjacent to the newly merged synagogue a new Jewish Community
Center was built at Brotherhood Way, the first major facility
of its kind to be constructed since the opening of the JCC
on California Street in the 1930s. Other Jewish agencies also
were growing in the post-War era. Mount Zion Hospital had
become one of the best-known Jewish hospitals in the nation,
and the home of one of the leading psychiatric departments
in the world, with such luminaries as Erik Erickson and Joseph
Wheelright, who had worked with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung
respectively. Other Mount Zion staff with international reputations
in psychiatry included Robert Wallerstein, Edward Wienshel,
and Anya Maenchenm. A new hospital building was constructed
in 1952, adjacent to the old Hellman Building which dated
to 1911.
The Homewood Terrace orphanage for Jewish youngsters, created
in the late 19th century, was phased out in the 1950s as children
were placed in foster homes. The Jewish Family and Children's
Service Agency, Bureau of Jewish Education, and Hebrew Free
Loan Association developed their services as a stream of immigrants
as well as American-born Jews from the East and Mid-West continued
to flow into San Francisco after World War II.
A significant event for the Jewish people world wide had
its consequences in 1967, when Israel defeated Egypt, Syria,
and Jordan in the Six Day War. The 21 Arab nations in the
Middle East surrounding Israel had been hostile since the
State's birth in 1948, and had tried in various ways to ---
as Egyptian president Nasser threatened --- "push the
Jews into the sea."
Israel's lightning and thorough victory resulted in the reunification
of Jerusalem and control of the West Bank, seized from Jordan.
Israel also occupied the Golan Heights, from which Syrian
artillery periodically rained shells on Jewish settlements
below. The Diaspora community was filled with pride at the
David and Goliath story, and Israel represented a new consciousness
in Jewish communities everywhere. The recapture of Jerusalem
was especially cause for great celebration, and the rabbis
pondered its significance, as the ancient cry "Next Year
in Jerusalem" resounded from the pulpit.
Within the decade periodic trips or "missions"
to Israel would be organized by the Jewish Welfare Federation,
later renamed the Jewish Community Federation. These included
tours for students ranging from the 4-week summer "Confirmation
Trip" sponsored by the synagogues to the ten-month Otzma
program. Otzma received local leadership from Brian Lurie,
who, after serving as a pulpit rabbi, was executive director
of the federation for 18 years. These programs would eventually
send hundreds of young adults to spend time in Israel. The
federation organized much of its annual fund raising campaign
around Israel.
Jews in Business and Politics
Jews were distinguishing themselves in the local community
through business and politics. Men such as Walter Haas, Daniel
Koshland, Louis Lurie, Benjamin Swig, and others were major
business figures. In 1959 the Crown Zellerbach Building, the
city's tallest since the Russ Building went up in 1934, was
named for a prominent Jewish family that was a leader in the
paper industry. The Levi Strauss Company, controlled by the
Haas, Goldman, and Koshland families, continued to grow into
an international company. Levi Plaza along the waterfront
provided open space and park areas for office workers in the
area. Real estate developers such as Gerson Bakar and bankers
such as Marco Hellman were at the leading edge of the business
community, promoting and facilitating Redevelopment, including
along the Embarcadero.
On the political side Jews served as judges, on the Board
of Supervisors, and elsewhere in San Francisco city government.
H.V. Brandenstein, Jesse Colman, Jefferson Peyser, and Milton
Marx Sr. all served as Supervisors in the first half of the
20th century. Roberta Achtenberg, Roger Boas, Harold Dobbs
(father of the author of this essay), Dianne Feinstein, Leslie
Katz, Barbara Kaufman, Quentin Kopp, Mark Leno, Bob Mendelsohn,
Harvey Milk, and Carol Ruth Silver all served on the Board
in the second half of the 20th century.
Supervisor Feinstein would later become San Francisco's third
Jewish mayor, following Adolph Sutro and Washington Bartlett,
after the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
In 1992 Feinstein was elected as one of California's two U.S.
Senators, the other being Barbara Boxer of Marin County. No
other state has ever featured a contingent of two female Jewish
U.S. Senators. San Francisco also had two Jewish state senators
in the persons of Milton Marks and Quentin Kopp, and three
members of the House of Representatives, with Sala Burton,
Tom Lantos, and Barbara Boxer all representing San Francisco
in Congress. The California Supreme Court, which meets in
San Francisco, has had five Jewish justices: Joseph Grodin,
Stanley Mosk, Marcus Sloss, Matthew Tobriner, and Kay Werdegar.
One Jewish San Franciscan, Stephen Breyer, currently serves
as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Jewish businessmen such as Benjamin Swig, Henry Berman, and
Morris Bernstein were prominent in Democratic politics, while
Walter Haas and Louis Lurie were major supporters of the Republicans.
President Dwight Eisenhower was re-nominated at the Cow Palace
in 1956, with Supervisor Dobbs playing a key role in helping
to secure the national convention for San Francisco, as he
helped do once again in 1964. In that year the Republicans
nominated Barry Goldwater, who had Jewish roots ("Goldwasser")
in late 19th century San Francisco and whose family attended
Congregation Sherith Israel.
San Francisco the International City
San Francisco had always been an international city, but in
the second half of the 20th century its cosmopolitan character
was expanded by a steady stream of immigration. Refugees from
Europe came to San Francisco throughout the late 1940s and
into the 1950s, from displaced persons camps in Europe and
via Jewish communities such as Shanghai. The organized Jewish
community always mobilized to assist such newcomers. A more
than symbolic feature of San Francisco, as a community of
people from many nations, was the development of "sister
city" relationships with partner municipalities around
the world such as Assisi, Italy (home of St. Francis); Sydney,
Australia; and Shanghai, China. These arrangements have fostered
trade, tourism, and international good will. The Jewish community
contributed to San Francisco's sister city network by creating
bonds with the city of Haifa in Israel in the early 1980s.
Haifa is also a city of hills and boasts a beautiful harbor.
To celebrate the San Francisco-Haifa Sister City relationship,
a major exhibition was organized in 1984 at the California
Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Entitled "Crossroads
of the Ancient World: Israel's Archaeological Heritage,"
the exhibition featured artifacts from Roman times excavated
at the ancient port of Caesaria (modern Jaffa). After the
inaugural exhibition in San Francisco, "Crossroads of
the Ancient World" traveled to the Semitic Museum at
Harvard and to several other American cities.
San Francisco's Jewish Philanthropy
Perhaps the most remarkable development in San Francisco's
Jewish community in the second half of the twentieth century
was the explosive growth of its philanthropy. Some families,
whose histories reached back to the Gold Rush, had been generous
to both Jewish and general community institutions and causes.
In fact, the Jewish community could always be relied upon
to carry more than its proportionate share of support for
general civic and community projects. No doubt this helped
nurture closer social relations between the leading Jewish
families and their Gentile counterparts.
A familiar trigger for philanthropy has been the arrival
of newcomers, often indigent and requiring substantial community
support. San Francisco has always been a beacon, and in the
latter part of the 20th century most of these were refugees
fleeing post-WWII Europe in the 1940s and 1950s or, later,
the war in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. A trickle
of emigres from the Soviet Union in the 1980s became a flood
in the 1990s. Most of the Russian newcomers were Jews and
they were welcomed and provided for by the San Francisco Jewish
community.
The Jewish communal agencies and institutions that ministered
to this massive and continuing influx were supported by literally
thousands of contributors in San Francisco and the greater
Bay Area, who donated to the federation campaign, and who
also gave directly to various organizations for refugee resettlement.
This included, in addition to those already mentioned, the
Jewish Home for the Aged, Jewish Vocational Service, Jewish
Community Relations Council, and such national groups as the
Jewish National Fund, United Jewish Appeal, and American Jewish
Committee.
The tradition of Jewish philanthropy resulted in the establishment
of a number of significant private family foundations after
World War II, including the various family charities linked
to Levi Strauss. This included three different Haas philanthropies,
the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund, and the Columbia Foundation.
Goldman is notable for having created the Goldman Environmental
Prize, which has become popularly valued as the "Nobel
Prize for the Environment." Another family member, Daniel
Koshland, was instrumental in establishing the local community
foundation, the San Francisco Foundation (1948), with a special
social welfare focus on the disadvantaged.
Other twentieth century San Francisco-based Jewish philanthropies
included the Rosenberg Foundation (1935), Louis Lurie Foundation
(1948), and the Swig Foundation (1957). During more recent
decades a wave of new Jewish private family foundations have
been established, including philanthropies by Friedman (1964),
Friend (1967), Osher (1977), Koret (1979), and Taube (1980).
The Bernard Osher Foundation is notable for its significant
initiatives in post-secondary scholarship assistance, which
supports hundreds of students at more than two-dozen colleges
and universities in California and Maine; establishing a national
network of lifelong learning institutes providing education
for older adults; and support of integrative medicine. The
Koret Foundation has made major contributions to Jewish institutions
locally, nationally, and in Israel. It is best known in San
Francisco for its leadership role in numerous civic projects
for the general community, including a health and recreation
center and a new law school campus at University of San Francisco;
new museums for the Modern, Asian, and De Young; the new Main
Library; and the San Francisco Zoo.
Eventually the Jewish Community Federation would develop
its own community foundation, the Jewish Community Endowment
Fund. It significantly increased its holdings in the 1990s
(including some new "dot.com" fortunes) under the
leadership of executive director Phyllis Cook. Established
initially to handle the occasional endowment bequest, the
JCEF today manages almost $800 million in private funds, many
of them "donor-advised" funds in which the donor
makes recommendations for distribution. These funds have become
a critical source of financial support for various Jewish
community projects, including renovation of facilities, new
programming, and emergency needs. Yet it is interesting to
note that the majority of JCEF grants, reflecting the cosmopolitan
and wide-ranging interests and generosity of the donors, are
awarded to non-Jewish, general community agencies and institutions.
Jewish Education and Jewish Culture
Within such a supportive philanthropic environment, Jewish
education and Jewish culture also flourished in late 20th
century San Francisco and its environs. Support for Jewish
day schools and high schools achieved new highs from the late
1970s. Programs in SF-based post-secondary institutions included
the Swig Jewish Studies Center at University of San Francisco
and a Jewish Studies Program at San Francisco State University.
San Francisco also benefited from internationally-recognized
programs in Jewish Studies at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Grants
also went to arts and cultural organizations either resident
in or performing often in San Francisco, including the Jewish
Film Festival, Jewish Music Festival, and Traveling Jewish
Theater.
Plans are currently underway to build a permanent San Francisco
Contemporary Jewish Museum in the Yerba Buena area south of
Market Street, in an old Pacific Gas & Electric Company
power station which was designed by San Francisco architect
Willis Polk.
Jewish donors to the city's museums have been leaders in creating
a new Museum of Modern Art, the New Asian Art Museum, and
rebuilding the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Other
key civic institutions that have enjoyed leadership gifts
from Jewish philanthropy include the University of California
San Francisco, S.F. Main Library, San Francisco Symphony,
San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, California Academy
of Sciences, Exploratorium, Fort Mason, and KQED, the local
PBS affiliate.
Rebuilding for the New Century
Within the local Jewish community major campaigns are being
developed, early in the 21st century, to replace and update
the facilities which provide venues for Jewish communal programs.
Many of these are anticipated to experience substantial growth
in the years ahead. For example, in February 2004, a new $75
million Jewish Community Center opened its doors at California
Street and Presidio Avenue on the site where a smaller JCC
building had served the community for 70 years.
Additional recent capital projects include an expanded and
renovated Brandeis-Hillel Day School on Brotherhood Way, and
a new Jewish Community High School which could help transform
the Mount Zion Hospital corridor. The high school also provides
a new location for a technologically state-of-the-art Jewish
Community Library, whose space has been doubled from its old
site at the Bureau of Jewish Education off Park Presidio Boulevard.
Also in the Mount Zion area is the Rhoda Goldman Plaza, offering
"assisted-living" to seniors. It opened in 2001
as part of a total makeover of the Jewish Children's and Family
Service Agency on Post at Scott Streets. Resources have also
been allocated to the needs of seniors with the building of
the Koret and Friedman wings at the Jewish Home for the Aged
on Silver Avenue, with additional new replacement structures
now on the drawing boards.
Finally, substantial seismic updates and renovations have
been recently completed for Congregation Emanu-El, and projects
are anticipated for Congregation Sherith Israel and the Concordia
Argonaut Club. The Federation has also purchased two office
buildings adjacent to its Steuart Street headquarters near
the Ferry Building to meet future community needs, including
space for some of the smaller agencies, such as the Northern
California Holocaust Studies Center.
San Francisco Alternative Lifestyles
After World War II and Korea another previous historic strain
of San Francisco culture reasserted itself. The city had long
been home to Bohemian and avant garde culture. Artistic leaders
like Ansel Adams, Isadora Duncan, and Robert Frost were all
born in San Francisco. The city had traditionally offered
openness and tolerance of diversity, which was welcomed by
the Jewish community which had suffered ostracism or worse
in so many other places.
In the 1950s this progressive spirit burst forth in the "Beatnik"
era, a term coined by Herb Caen, a Jewish newspaper columnist
who eventually earned the sobriquet of "Mr. San Francisco."
The brothers Jack and Art Rosenbaum were also fixtures of
the journalistic community. Art wrote for the Chronicle
for more than 60 years, including as the Sports Editor. The
Jewish poet Allan Ginsburg read his controversial poem Howl
at the City Lights Bookstore and was arrested for "obscenity"
(he was quickly released), while Jewish stand-up comedians
Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl created their acerbic and socially
challenging standup routines in North Beach nightclubs such
as the "Hungry i."
San Francisco was a beacon for the unconventional and nonconformist.
Alternative lifestyles, especially the gay culture, flourished
in the last decades of the century. Congregation Sha'ar Zahav
was one of the first synagogues to welcome individuals of
diverse lifestyles. Cultural trends in rock music, documentary
film-making, cuisine, performance art, and apparel all featured
Jewish innovators, practitioners, and supporters.
The Beatnik era of the 1950s was reprised by the Hippies
of the 1960s, reaching a peak during 1968's "Summer of
Love" in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco.
These were cultural revolutions with strong political components
in which Jewish activists were prominent, especially on the
college campuses. Anti-war and civil rights themes pervaded
local protests. Perhaps the best-known rabbi in San Francisco,
Alvin Fine of Congregation Emanu-El, was an outspoken advocate
for civil and human rights. In 1964, Rabbi Fine was appointed
as a charter member of San Francisco's Human Rights Commission,
one of the first in the nation.
The Jewish Community Service Network
In the early 21st century, the Jewish community of San Francisco
is at its zenith. Some 50,000 strong (and about 250,000 in
the Greater Bay Area), the community traces its lineage to
the Gold Rush and includes some fifth generation San Franciscans.
It offers diverse demographics, ranging from working people
to billionaires, ultra-observant Orthodox to highly assimilated
and non-affiliated, straight and gay, young and old, immigrant
and native. It is generally highly educated, disproportionately
professional, and middle class prosperous.
The community's infrastructure is solid and visible with
more than a dozen and a half synagogues and religious schools,
multiple agencies addressing every community need, day schools
offering a combination of secular and Judaic education, adult
and higher education options for Jewish Studies, and numerous
artistic and cultural programs and activities. Their success
is based in part upon a dedicated cadre of community volunteers
who help staff these organizations and who campaign for financial
support. The Jewish Community Federation offers a central
address for planning and distributing the funds that are raised.
The post-WWII years also witnessed a continuing diversification
of the organized Jewish community. The synagogue had historically
served as the center, providing worship, education, social
services, and cultural activities. Now a host of specialized
agencies have evolved and continue to spring up to address
emerging needs. For example, the Bay Area Council for Soviet
Jewry maintained vigils and picket lines for several years
outside the official residence, on Green Street in the Cow
Hollow neighborhood, of the Soviet Union's Consul General
in San Francisco. The Jewish organization kept the issue of
the imprisonment of Soviet Jews on the public's radar screen.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, in 1989, the community
faced a floodtide of émigrés.
The proliferation of artistic and cultural interests was also
in evidence. In addition to the established film, music, and
theater events, street festivals and art exhibitions were
added to a busy community calendar. Jewish art was displayed
at the Jewish Museum in federation headquarters, at the Jewish
Community Library, and at the Fine Museum in Congregation
Emanu-El. Art in the service of compelling historical themes
is exemplified by sculptor George Segal's The Survivor,
the community memorial to the Holocaust. It was created and
installed in 1984 at Lincoln Park, across from the Palace
of the Legion of Honor. Another setting of extraordinary artistic
merit is the new Meditation Room, opened in 2002, at the Mount
Zion Hospital, which became part of the University of California
San Francisco Medical Center in 1991.
On the political dimension, Jews continue to be active in
local politics, state and national races and issues, especially
those concerning Israel. Special interest groups organized
around such concerns include the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and the Zionist Organization of America. But even
with common positions on issues there is factionalism within:
the Orthodox community and the Chabad Hasidic branch
of that group each display unswerving commitment to Israel
and to observance of the letter of Jewish law (halakah).
But they characteristically have different means for encouraging
and implementing policies and practices.
An important social and cultural resource in the San Francisco
Jewish community is the Jewish weekly, called "j."
(formerly the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California).
Published in San Francisco but distributed throughout the
Bay Area and Northern California, it is a primary communications
resource for local, national, and international news; calendars
and cultural reviews; and information about Jewish holidays
and worship activities. "j." can also be
accessed via the Internet at www.jweekly.com.
A Community in Transition
A current demographic study will provide a detailed update
on San Francisco's Jewish community, but some estimates may
be offered. It is likely to turn out to be an aging community,
as housing prices are driving young families and singles from
San Francisco to the suburbs where housing costs are still
among the highest of any American metropolitan area. It is
also a population which is renewing and reinventing itself.
The trends towards intermarriage (about 50%) and assimilation
have led to a "post-denominational" era in which
one's upbringing as an Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform Jew
matters less than, say, the quality of the JCC nursery school
or the social action program of a given congregation.
Younger Jews, in particular, are often simply not attracted
to the generic Judaism of their parents. They seek instead
a spiritual authenticity that features more personal involvement
(such as making up one's own prayers), more music and Hebrew,
and a general openness not to be intimidated by tradition.
Attendance is up dramatically at synagogues featuring "alternative
services" that encompass the new spirituality.
Synagogue-based social action programs designed to help those
in need and improve the larger community (tikkun olam)
are also very attractive to marginalized Jews. Special activity
programs are being created by synagogues and agencies for
"outreach" to communities which may have felt excluded
or neglected in the past, including seniors, teenagers, gays,
and others.
The fabric of Jewish life in San Francisco is richer than
ever. A multitude of choices --- for worship, for social and
cultural life, for self-study or group education --- exist
throughout the local community. It thrives in one of the most
providential locations in the entire Diaspora. Although it
is a community of fewer than two centuries duration, San Francisco
is, relatively speaking, one of the youngest Jewish communities
in the world. But its strengths, idiosyncrasies, and accomplishments
make it one of the most fascinating. The local Jewish Community
also takes great pride in the fact that its history is intertwined
with that of the great city of San Francisco.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author expresses appreciation to valued colleagues David
Dalin, Marc Dollinger, Fred Rosenbaum, and John Rothmann for
reviewing the draft of the manuscript and offering very helpful
feedback.
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Mount Zion Hospital had become one of the best-known Jewish
hospitals in the nation, and the home of one of the leading
psychiatric departments in the world, with such luminaries
as Erik Erickson and Joseph Wheelright, who had worked with
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung respectively