The Jewish Business Lunch group has all the trappings of a typical professional get-together. There are lawyers, financial consultants, therapists, sales representatives, environmental consultants and a variety of other professionals. Everyone is dressed for success. Conversation swirls around the room as people exchange business cards, handshakes and hugs.
But don’t be deceived. This is not your ordinary business lunch.
The first clue comes when everyone sits down, takes a piece of bread and says the motzi.
For the past 22 years the Jewish Business Lunch group has met on the last Monday of every month except December and August. December is reserved for the annual Chanukah party and in August, well no one is around anyway, so they take the month off.
Although the group boasts a membership of about 100, the luncheons usually draw in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 people. Meeting in the back room of the California Cafe in Walnut Creek, people eat, shmooze, network and learn a little something.
Over the years after-lunch speakers have included professors, diplomats, politicians, doctors and authors, to name a few.
At the next meeting on Monday, Jan. 31, Felix and Sue Warburg will speak on “Jewish Pioneers of the Southwest.”
“The group has two purposes — to bring topics of Jewish interest to the group and Jewish business networking,” said Alan Sternberg, one of three co-chairs. “People know people from synagogue or the JCC but they don’t know what [each other] does. This is an effort to bring together business professionals so they can network.”
According to Sternberg, the group is “totally informal.” It doesn’t have bylaws or a governing board and has very few rules, most of which are negotiable. You can join the group for $10 a year or not. Either way, you can come to the luncheons. And as far as being Jewish goes, you’re supposed to be but no one checks credentials at the door.
All in all, the Jewish Business Lunch is a bargain. Thirteen dollars in advance or $15 at the door buys a tasty meal — pasta or salad — a speaker and a chance to win a bottle of wine.
Originally the group was all men, Sternberg said. But several years ago women were invited to join, an addition that revitalized the gathering. Currently women make up a third of the membership and account for about half of the lunch crowd.
“Some of the old-timers wouldn’t come [when women were added],” Sternberg said. “They couldn’t tell dirty jokes. But they weren’t telling dirty jokes before.”
For the past six years, Sternberg along with Stan Felix and Terry Matzkin have been the group’s co-chairs, sharing responsibility for keeping track of money and lining up the monthly speakers.
“Every couple of years we get together and wish and hope we could get someone to take over our job,” said Sternberg. So far there haven’t been any takers.
Recently Sternberg has started the lunch program by telling a joke, a perk of being in charge. This month it’s a shaggy-dog story about a parrot that wears a tallit, davens and speaks Hebrew.
Next come “public service” announcements — reminders about a Jewish film festival, a fund-raising drive by the Jewish federation, a countywide Jewish education day. First-time attendees are then invited to introduce themselves, say what they do and tell something about themselves. Then the floor is opened up to the rest of the audience.
Bonnie Kellogg announces that she’s about to get her MBA from St. Mary’s College and that her firm, Environmental Consulting Corp., just been certified as a “disadvantaged business.” This is good news because it opens the door to more government contracts.
Then Lisa Reed rises to announce that her sister just earned a doctorate.
For the privilege of making these announcements, Kellogg is charged $2 and Reed $1. It’s one of the group’s few rules. Except for first-timers, personal announcements cost $1. Public-service announcements are free.
But this day Kellogg is in luck. As she sits down a male voice from the other side of the room says he will put the $2 into the treasury for her announcements. He takes personal pride in her accomplishments. He’s the dean of St. Mary’s business school.
Once announcements are out of the way, Sternberg plugs the restaurant, urging people to buy gift certificates. Next comes the drawing for the bottle of wine and then they get down to the real business — the introduction of the lunchtime speaker.