God must have been smiling on Palo Alto Sunday afternoon because the rains let up shortly before the fifth annual “To Life!” street festival began, raising the spirits of organizers, entertainers, vendors and several thousand fairgoers.
After two years of sweltering September days that curtailed the visits of countless attendees, organizers decided to delay the Jewish cultural street festival until October 24 — only to grapple with an early rainy season.
Fortunately, the clouds dispersed and California Avenue turned into a one-day Anatevka, where Jews know everyone they meet.
Overheard up and down the street:
“I feel very Jewish today.”
“Funny, I just keep bumping into all these Jews today.”
There were rabbis cooking kosher hot dogs and hamburgers, children with painted faces in strollers, music from the minor melodies of Eastern Europe to contemporary Middle Eastern rock, and the pungent aroma of garlic fries wafting amid the booths.
Driving along the avenue in an electric car, festival director Stephanie Brown and chair Euca Burrows Sugarman were clearly happy with the turnout — and the ambiance.
“It’s cooler, damper and more lively — more physically comfortable,” said Brown.
“They’re not shvitzing and melting,” said Sugarman. “People kept saying, ‘Sunday is going to be clear.’ That was my mantra. Some people said they dropped the rain prayer out of the Amidah [the standing prayer], so we must have gotten some help — the power of group prayer, baruch HaShem.”
The fair, she added, “is a cultural experience. People of all levels of observance and lack of observance come together.”
Indeed, there were Orthodox families with half-a-dozen children in tow, women in long skirts with their heads covered, tapping their toes or rocking their babies to the strains of RebbeSoul while men and women in jeans stood on the sidelines doing their own dances.
And above all, there were children — like red-headed Ariel Goldman, 2 1/2, of Campbell, who was dancing with Atticus Ginsborg, 2, of San Jose, while 17-month-old Benjamin Wander, a visitor from Washington, D.C., moved back and forth between performance mode and his mother’s arms. The three were clearly enjoying the performance of Ya Elah, a women’s a cappella group, that drew a crowd of a couple hundred.
“I love it. It’s great,” said David Ginsborg, Atticus’ father. “We’ve come here many times. There are lots of people from different parts of the Jewish community, and great art.”
Certainly, there were silk tallitot in every shade of the rainbow, sterling silver jewelry from Israel, handblown glass dreidels, handmade papercut collages, Jerusalem wallhangings, handcrafted mezuzot, and tallit bags and matzah covers from Ethiopia decorated in primary colors with biblical scenes.
Jennifer Jacobs of Menlo Park, who had just married the week before in Boston, was trying on tallitot at the booth of Ilan Hasson of Jaffa, Israel, debating among a flame-colored design, an off-white pattern and another with olive green and gold.
As she wrapped herself in the flame-colored tallit, Avinoam Lerner, who came from Israel to show the designs, said, “This is all about sunrise, the discovery of what is beyond. Because when a woman buys a tallit, it’s all about saying she’s a spiritual being — part of God. It should embrace you.”
At the other end of California Avenue, there was hands-on art of the paint-by-numbers variety. Folks of all ages had the opportunity to paint a section of a Marc Chagall mural that will eventually find a home in the new Campus for Jewish Life in Palo Alto. Sam Lichy, 6, of San Jose, picked up a foam brush dipped into light green paint and tried his hand at one of the structures below the floating couple. Afterward, the volunteers said, the artist (not Chagall himself, alas) would be adding the finishing touches — and doing some touchups.
At around noon on the Jessica Saal Memorial main stage, families were enjoying excerpts from “MeshugaNutcracker,” the crazy Chanukah show in which costumes are festooned with bagels and bananas, and “Mattathias” rhymes with “defy us.” Later on the Guggenheim kids’ stage, competitors vied for “Jewish American Idol,” with prizes and cameo roles in the wacky musical from Chelm. And throughout the day on the seniors’ stage, fairgoers listened to humorists, storytellers and choruses singing in Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Ladino.
Sylvia and Abe Berman, who live in the neighborhood, sat at a table in the middle of California Avenue. “We’re just spending our money,” said Sylvia. “It’s a great set-up. The prices are better, the food more accessible and people are friendlier” than last year. “I think it had to do with the weather. They practically carried me away from here last year,” when temperatures were in the 90s. She also was impressed by the wide array of Judaica.
Some said attendance may have been lower than in the past; others said no, it was higher and people were staying longer. Some said the lines for kosher food were overly long, but on the whole, kvetching wasn’t on the agenda.
For those wanting to shop for Jewish information, just about all the Peninsula congregations were represented, along with community organizations and other sponsors. The main sponsor was New Bridges, a Peninsula Jewish outreach organization that originated the fair in 2000, and is now part of the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center.
Since Jewish identity often begins in the kitchen, area chefs were well represented. At the foot of California Avenue, Mat Schuster, marketing coordinator of Whole Foods in San Mateo, was demonstrating how to make pumpkin mousse, using a vegan — and parve — recipe with tofu.
Schuster said that some of his customers say they keep kosher, while others consider themselves vegan. “I don’t think they realize they eat the same foods.”
Ruth Rosenbaum, who has lived in Palo Alto for many years, was struck by the breadth of Jewish activity in the region. “To see all this made me more aware of what’s available. It’s eye-opening. I see people speaking Hebrew and a variety of languages, and the children are gorgeous.”