shorts: bay area

Diller foundation gives $35 million

for USCF building

The Helen Diller Family Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund recently contributed $35 million, its largest individual grant, to UCSF Medical Center to further cancer research.

The money will go to building the university's Mission Bay campus, which will house UCSF's Comprehensive Cancer Center. The new facility will allow research programs in cancer of the prostate, kidney and brain to be expanded. It will be named the Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building.

Diller of Woodside has donated millions of dollars to Jewish causes. In 2002, the two largest grants from the Diller Foundation were $5 million each: to fund a visiting scholar in Jewish studies at U.C. Berkeley and a humanities building at Israel's Ben-Gurion University.

Workshop to teach how to uncover

your Jewish roots

Learn about the branches of your Jewish family tree at next month's Jewish genealogy workshop in San Francisco.

Sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, the 18th annual event features a talk by Stephen P. Morse, a society member, computer designer and genealogy guru.

Morse, whose Web site is at http://www.stevemorse.org, offers tools for interfacing with the Ellis Island database and the 1930 census. This year, he was honored for his contributions by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.

The workshop will be from noon to 4 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, 1835 Ellis St., S.F. The cost is $5 for nonmembers. Information: http://www.jewishgen.

org/sfbajgs.

Local Girl Scouts reach out to Jewish elderly, needy

Members of S.F.-based Girl Scout Troop #1310 are giving a Jewish spin to their community service efforts.

On Sunday, the 20-member troop of first- through fifth-graders will pitch in to help distribute food to the needy at the Emanu-El Food Pantry on Geary Boulevard.

Then on Nov. 7, members will help lead a Shabbat service for residents of the Jewish Home, according to troop leader Talia Pierluissi. Started three years ago, most of the troop's members are Jewish and attend Brandeis Hillel Day School.

Emanu-El fetes

its rabbi with a

party for thought

In celebration of the 10th year of Senior Rabbi Stephen Pearce at the synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El is presenting a series of seven lectures hand-selected by the spiritual leader.

The series kicks off Thursday with an address by Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States, and winds up June 10 with a lecture by Laurie Pearce, an expert in Assyriology who also happens to be the senior rabbi's wife.

A New York native with a doctoral degree in psychology, Pearce joined the S.F.-based Reform synagogue in July 1993.

All the talks in the series, dubbed "Scholarly Mind, Generous Heart: Celebrating our First 10 Years with Rabbi Pearce," start at 7:30 p.m. Information: (415) 751-2535.

JCC offers discount

The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco is offering a 20 percent membership discount to many employees of Jewish community organizations.

Set to open in January, the new center at 3200 California St. will house a fitness center, two pools, a variety of workout classes and more. Information: (415) 292-1259.