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-4 PM
Thurs., 11 AM-4 PM
Pushcart Branch at the OFJCC
3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto
Wed., 8:30 AM-1 PM
Contact
415.567.3327
info@jewishcommunitylibrary.org
Note that the Library will be closed on Monday, September 25 for Yom Kippur.
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
Ilan Vitemberg Memorial Program with Yair Qedar, Maya Arad, and Arthur SlepianIn-Person
Join us at this free in-person event at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto co-presented by New Lehrhaus, the Oshman Family JCC, Congregation Beth Am, the Jewish Community Library, A Wider Bridge, and the East Bay International Film Festival. For details and registration links, click here. This event is held in memory of Ilan […] ...
Places We Left Behind, with Jennifer Lang in conversation with Marc DollingerIn-Person
Join Jennifer Lang, author of Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature, and Marc Dollinger to discuss her new book about cross-cultural marriage, interdenominational relationships, making aliyah, and identity. Click here to register for this free in-person event, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street. Books will be available for purchase and signing. About the […] ...
Amos Oz: Writer, Activist, Icon, with Robert AlterIn-Person
Join us at this free in-person event with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street. To register, click here. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Amos Oz (1939–2018) was one of Israel’s most prolific and prominent writers, as well as a regular contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the author […] ...
The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour ResistanceVirtual
Presented by Sharon Rudahl, Michael Kluckner, and Paul Buhle Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-sponsored by the Workers Circle / Arbeter Ring of Northern California and co-presented by the Cartoon Art Museum and KlezCalifornia. Told in an engaging graphic novel format, The Bund (Between the Lines, 2023) explains the oppressive origins of Jewish […] ...
By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go, with Joanne GreeneVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. Joanne Greene grew up in Boston during the 1960s and ’70s, a turning point for women in the United States. Doors were opening wider, and Joanne walked through as many as she could. As a young woman, she dove headfirst into San Francisco radio and television, […] ...
Sculpting a Life: Chana Orloff between Paris and Tel Aviv, with Paula BirnbaumIn-Person
Join us at this free in-person event at the Jewish Community Library, co-presented by Congregation Sherith Israel. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking on Pierce between Ellis and Eddy. To register, click here. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Sculpting a Life is the first book-length […] ...
Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My FamilyVirtual
Presented by Daniel Finkelstein To register for this free virtual event, click here. Click here to order Two Roads Home from Afikomen Judaica. In Two Roads Home (Knopf, 2023) British journalist Daniel Finkelstein tells the extraordinary story of the years before his mother met his father—years of war and trials they barely survived. Daniel Finkelstein’s […] ...
Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair with Rosa LowingerVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by Jewtina y Co. Dwell Time is an illuminating debut memoir by one of the few prominent Latinas in the field of art and architectural conservation; a moving portrait of a Cuban Jewish family’s intergenerational trauma; and a story about repair and healing that will forever […] ...
The Golem of Brooklyn, with Adam MansbachIn-Person
Join us at this free in-person event at the Jewish Community Library, co-presented by Reboot. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking on Pierce between Ellis and Eddy. To register, click here. Books will be available for purchase and signing. In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is […] ...
Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth Century AmericaVirtual
Presented by Laura Yares To register for this free virtual event, click here. Jewish Sunday Schools describes how nineteenth-century Jewish women laid the foundations of Jewish education in America. The Jewish Sunday school movement began with one school in Philadelphia in 1838 and quickly evolved into an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish […] ...
A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir of Sorrow (Podolia, 1918-20)Virtual
Presented by Michael Nutkiewicz To register for this free virtual event, co-presented by New Lehrhaus, click here. Eli Gumener’s 1921 Yiddish memoir, A Ukrainian Chapter: Two Years in Podolia (A Kapitl Ukraine. Tsvey Yor in Podolye), is set in a region in southwest Ukraine. The memoir depicts the fate of Jews caught in the middle of the […] ...
Jewish Life in Medieval Spain: A Religious Minority during the Best and Worst of TimesVirtual
Presented by Jonathan Ray To register for this free virtual event, click here. The great cultural legacy of Spanish Jews has long symbolized a “Golden Age” of Judaism and of interfaith relations. Yet, the Jewish experience in medieval Spain was actually quite complex. The intellectual achievements and general prosperity of Spanish Jews was marred by […] ...
We Are Not Strangers: A Graphic Novel, with Josh TuiningaVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by the Cartoon Art Museum. When Marco Calvo arrives at the synagogue to attend his grandfather’s funeral, he is caught off guard by something unexpected. Among his close family and friends there are some people he doesn’t recognize at all. Several Japanese American families have arrived, […] ...
Drop-In Book Discussion: The Postcard by Anne Berest, Facilitated by Jim Van BuskirkIn-Person
Join us at this free and lively 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. To register, click here. You may borrow a copy of The Postcard at no charge through the Library’s Book Club […] ...
The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the LinesVirtual
Presented by Marat Grinberg To register for this free virtual event, click here. In an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often […] ...
The Dissident: A Novel with Paul GoldbergVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. On his wedding day in 1976, Viktor Moroz stumbles upon a murder scene: two gay men, one of them a U.S. official, have been axed to death in Moscow. Viktor, a Jewish refusenik, is stuck in the Soviet Union because the government has denied his application […] ...
Two Tribes, with Emily Bowen CohenIn-Person
Join us at this free in-person event at the Jewish Community Library, co-presented by the Cartoon Art Museum. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking on Pierce between Ellis and Eddy. To register, click here. Books will be available for purchase and signing. In her poignant debut […] ...
Jewish Languages Today: Endangered, Surviving, and ThrivingVirtual
Presented by Sarah Bunin Benor Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by KlezCalifornia. Over the past two centuries, migrations and other historical events have led to major changes in the linguistic profile of Jewish communities around the world. Yiddish is thriving in Hasidic communities, even as its use is diminishing elsewhere. […] ...
Demystifying Sephardic Song with Judith CohenVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. As Sephardic songs in Ladino/Judeo-Spanish thrive, several myths about them still persist. Canadian Ethnomusicologist Dr Judith Cohen, a longtime scholar and performer of this repertoire, explains “medieval,” “flamenco,” and other often romantic notions about the tradition. Recorded and also live – sung by Cohen – examples will be […] ...
Ladino in the Twenty-First Century, with Bryan KirschenVirtual
Click here to register for this free virtual event. Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish or Judezmo) refers to the variety of Spanish that developed among Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and subsequently settled primarily in the Ottoman Empire. In this presentation Bryan Kirschen will provide an overview of the development of Ladino […] ...
A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish PressVirtual
Presented by Ayelet Brinn Click here to register for this free virtual event, which is co-sponsored by the Workers Circle / Arbeter Ring of Northern California and co-presented by KlezCalifornia. Between the 1880s and 1920s, Yiddish-language newspapers rose from obscurity to become successful institutions integral to American Jewish life. During this period, Yiddish-speaking immigrants came to […] ...
A Sephardic Journey through the Twentieth CenturyVirtual
Presented by Sarah Abrevaya Stein Click here to register for this free virtual event co-presented by New Lehrhaus. For centuries, the bustling port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family. As leading publishers and editors, they helped chronicle modernity as it was experienced by Sephardic Jews across the Ottoman Empire. The wars […] ...
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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