My pen is my harp and my lyre;
My library is my garden and my orchard.
–Yehuda Halevi, c. 1075–1141
Hours
Main Branch
1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco
Sun. noon-4 PM
Mon. 11 AM-5:30 PM
Tues. 11 AM-5:30 PM
Thurs. 11 AM-5:30 PM
Pushcart Branch at the OFJCC
3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto
Wed. 8:30 AM-1 PM
Contact
415.567.3327
info@jewishcommunitylibrary.org
For more than seventy years, the Jewish Community Library has offered the Bay Area a place to discover and engage with the riches of Jewish thought, culture, and history.
New Arrivals
Upcoming Events
Hebrew Storytelling at the Library with HadarIn-Person
We hope you’ll join us! To register for this free in-person program, click here. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. Come enjoy storytelling with Hadar Aviram, and meet other families that speak Hebrew. The Library also has many […] ...
The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum, with Margalit FoxVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from […] ...
Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook, with Ilan Stavans and Margaret E. BoyleVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by Jewtina y Co. “An instant classic and more than a cookbook—it is a critical portrait of a community. An absolutely new and stellar contribution.”—Michael W. Twitty, author of Koshersoul Sabor Judío celebrates the delicious fusion of two culinary traditions: Jewish and Mexican. Written with […] ...
Redeemed: A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, with Penny LaneVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. Penny Lane’s Redeemed: A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood is an inspiring rise-from-the-ashes story of overcoming abuse and trauma, of being waylaid by both family and religion’s promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home When she is abruptly snatched away from her […] ...
Commemorating the 85th Year of the KindertransportsIn-Person
Click here to register for this free in-person program, co-presented by the Kindertransport Association and the JFCS Holocaust Center. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. It has become more important than ever to find meaningful ways to commemorate and […] ...
Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America, with Rafael Medoff and Ruth LandyVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by New Lehrhaus and the JFCS Holocaust Center. A compelling nonfiction graphic novel written by Rafael Medoff and illustrated by Dean Motter, Whistleblowers is the true story of courageous individuals who risked their careers—or their lives—to confront the unfolding Holocaust. Figures include future U.S. Senator Alan […] ...
In My Ancestors’ Shoes: Getting Dressed in the Tenements, 1881, with ViIn-Person
Click here to register for this free in-person program, co-presented by New Lehrhaus. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. Vi of the YouTube channel SnappyDragon will offer a hands-on demonstration of how a working-class Jewish immigrant woman would […] ...
Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction, with Karolina KrasuskaVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. In 2010, when The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who were “key to their generation,” it included five Jewish-identified writers, two of whom—American Gary Shteyngart and Canadian David Bezmozgis—were Soviet-born. This publicity came after nearly a decade of […] ...
Drop-In Book Discussion: Living with Our Dead by Delphine Horvilleur, Facilitated by Jim Van BuskirkIn-Person
Join us for an in-person discussion at the Jewish Community Library. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking on Pierce between Ellis and Eddy. This event is co-sponsored by Sinai Memorial Chapel. To register, click here. You may borrow a copy of Living with Our Dead at […] ...
Tasting Flight: poems, with Yiskah RosenfeldIn-Person
To register for this free in-person program, click here. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. The poems in this collection are confidently crafted, spiritually and emotionally insightful and precise, and intelligent all at once. Yiskah Rosenfeld does not […] ...
Jewish Calcutta Through Music and Memory, with Rahel MusleahVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual program co-presented by New Lehrhaus. Although very few Jews remain there today, Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, was the site of a thriving Jewish community. Jewish merchants and traders from present-day Iraq and Syria came to the city during the period of the British Raj, beginning in […] ...
Translating Hebrew, Translating Israel with Jessica CohenVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. Jessica Cohen has translated the work of many major Israeli writers, including Amos Oz, Dorit Rabinyan, Ronit Matalon, and Etgar Keret. In 2017 she shared the prestigious Man Booker International Prize with David Grossman for her translation of the novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar. […] ...
The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Antisemitic Riot, with Scott D. SeligmanVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual program, co-presented by New Lehrhaus. On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s chief rabbi, the eminent Talmudist Jacob Joseph. All went well until the procession crossed Sheriff Street, where the […] ...
Between the Bridge and the Barricade: Jewish Translation in Early Modern Europe, with Iris Idelson-SheinVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. Between the Bridge and the Barricade explores how translations of non-Jewish texts into Jewish languages impacted Jewish culture, literature, and history from the sixteenth century into modern times. Offering a comprehensive view of early modern Jewish translation, Iris Idelson-Shein charts major paths of textual migration from […] ...
Stolpersteine: A Sacred Homage to my Ancestors and a Gift of Repair, with Ben WoodVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by the JFCS Holocaust Center. Visual artist Ben Wood will discuss his family’s Stolpersteine journey, which took place in March 2024, during which they visited Berlin and nearby towns Seelow and Strausberg to lay Stolpersteine for his grandparents’ families who were victims of the Holocaust. […] ...
Theodore Seixas Solomons: The Jewish San Franciscan Who Inspired North America’s Most Famous FootpathIn-Person
Click here to register for this free in-person program co-presented by New Lehrhaus. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. The John Muir Trail runs 212 miles along the crest of California’s High Sierra, from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney. […] ...
Yiddish San Francisco, with Howard FreedmanVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual program made possible by the support of the Workers Circle / Arbeter Ring of Northern California and co-presented by New Lehrhaus. The history of San Francisco Jewry tends to be told in terms dominated by the experience of Jews from German-speaking lands who settled in California in […] ...
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Main Branch
Location
1835 Ellis Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
Hours
Sundays noon to 4 PM
Mondays 11 AM to 4 PM
Thursdays 11 AM to 4 PM
Phone
415-567-3327
Palo Alto Pushcart
Location
Oshman Family JCC
3921 Fabian Way
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Hours
Wednesdays 8:30 AM to 1 PM
Main Branch
Location
1835 Ellis Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
Hours
Sundays noon to 4 PM
Mondays 11 AM to 4 PM
Thursdays 11 AM to 4 PM
Phone
415-567-3327
Palo Alto Pushcart
Location
Oshman Family JCC
3921 Fabian Way
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Hours
Wednesdays 8:30 AM to 1 PM