How do you say "Pardon our dust" in Yiddish?

It might be good to find out before the Jewish Home undergoes its extreme makeover. With a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday, April 22, the Home launches a two-year construction project that will thoroughly transform the 135-year-old San Francisco institution for Jewish seniors.

Speaking about the ceremony, Jewish Home CEO Daniel Ruth jokes, "Some say I have a hard head and won't need a hard hat. But there will be shovels."

They will need a lot of them. The project calls for the demolition of an entire building at the Silver Street complex, followed by construction of a new kosher kitchen, wellness clinic, synagogue, arts center, physical therapy lab, even a new café.

David Friedman, president-elect of the Jewish Home, has had his work cut out for him in overseeing the capital campaign. "In terms of the numbers, we're at the 60 percent point," he said. "This will be a state-of-the-art and a state-of-the-science project."

All told, the price tag tops out at $55 million — $30 million for the remodel and a hefty $25 million addition to the Jewish Home's endowment fund.

"There's the brick-and-mortar side," says Ruth of the twin campaigns, "which allows us to do this modernization. The second is enhancing our endowment, which needs to be $75 to 100 million. It sounds like a lot, but our waiting list is growing and the needs increasing."

Currently, the Jewish Home endowment stands at around $50 million, according to Ruth. As for improvements to the physical plant, they were long overdue.

"We'd put the last Band-Aid on the old building," says Jewish Home board President Dr. James Davis. "The kitchen is over 80 years old and was built for 100 residents. Now we have 433 residents."

Because the Jewish Home has long been a center for research, planners promise a new state-of-the-art research facility under the direction of Dr. Janice Schwartz, former chair of gerontology at Northwestern University, and current professor of medicine and pharmacology at UCSF.

With 83 percent of Jewish Home residents on Medi-Cal, the need for these modernized facilities and a secure financial future are more important than ever, say administrators. "The funding is incredibly precarious now with state budget cutbacks," says Davis.

Adds Ruth, "We are not impervious to economic issues in California. Like every health-care organization, we have our financial challenges. We'll be fortunate if the state holds our budget flat. But our costs don't remain flat."

The urgency to shore up the Jewish Home, physically and economically, has to do in part with changing demographics. According to Ruth, people have begun accessing assisted living services earlier than before, a trend that has impacted the population at the Home. "We're seeing people later and frailer," says Ruth. "The complexity of the demand is increasing."

But thanks to a generous local Jewish community, both Davis and Ruth are confident about the long-term health of the Jewish Home.

"In California, nursing homes are barely keeping their heads above water," says Ruth, "but we have a wonderfully supportive Jewish community. With that support we can develop meaningful programs and build the right stuff."