Friends of the Jewish Community Library 50th Anniversary Celebration
Join us in celebrating 50 years of community, culture, and support! Historian Fred Rosenbaum looks back at the dramatic divide in 1940’s San Francisco Jewry over Zionism. Stay to connect, toast to the Friends of the Jewish Community Library, and enjoy a delicious reception! Please RSVP to help plan for food and seating.
50 Years of Community, Culture, and Support
Celebrating the Friends of the Jewish Community Library
Join us for a memorable afternoon of history, insight, and celebration at the Jewish Community Library on Sunday, November 22. After the presentation, connect, toast to 50 years, and enjoy a delicious reception!
Since 1976, the Friends of the Jewish Community Library has been the sustaining force of the Library—now providing more than 90% of the Library’s budget through community support. This 50th Anniversary event is our special thank-you to you, the community that has helped the Library grow and thrive.
- Your RSVP is greatly appreciated to help us plan for food and seating.
- Free garage parking available on Pierce Street (between Ellis & Eddy).
Keynote Presentation ·
Fred Rosenbaum
Deep Divide: San Francisco Jewry’s Debate Over Zionism in the 1940s
In the critical years leading up to 1948, San Francisco became a focal point for one of the most intense debates in American Jewish history. On Yom Kippur in 1943, Rabbi Irving Reichert of Congregation Emanu-El took the pulpit to declare his vehement opposition to Jewish statehood, launching a local chapter of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. The backlash from Rabbi Saul White of Congregation Beth Sholom and others was swift and furious. For five turbulent years, the Bay Area Jewish community was fractured by the most bitter conflict in its history.
Renowned historian Fred Rosenbaum brings to life the nearly forgotten story of the Bay Area leaders on both sides of this historic divide. Discover a dramatic chapter of local history—and explore the powerful lessons it holds for us today.
Fred Rosenbaum is the premier authority on Bay Area Jewish history, now based in New York City. An award-winning author and educator, he is the Founding Director of Lehrhaus Judaica (revived as New Lehrhaus) and has been a faculty member at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and the Graduate Theological Union. His books include Cosmopolitans: A Social and Intellectual History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area; Visions of Reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco, 1849-1999; and Free to Choose: The Making of a Jewish Community in the American West: the Jews of Oakland, California from the Gold Rush to the Present Day. In recent decades he has devoted himself to biographies and memoirs of Holocaust survivors, most recently The Boy Who Vanished: A True Story of Surviving the Holocaust, with Ernest Fontheim.