Faces

Art and fun on the farm

Marlene and Martin Stein's Yoffi Farm in Santa Rosa became a gallery for the work of the Jewish Home's resident artists when they hosted the Home's President's Circle members — plus kids and grandkids — for a thank-you event last month. Among the crowd: artists Deborah Friend, Carl Rothblum, Rudi Hooremans, Gloria Houtenbrink and Irving Grossman; board of trustees chair David Friedman, CEO Daniel Ruth; and Flo Hoffenberg of Santa Rosa, who was pleased to find her former student, Jewish cowboy Scott Gerber, entertaining the group with his repertoire of Yiddish and country songs. Scott was one of her few Jewish students when she taught fourth grade at Hillcrest Elementary School in Sebastopol, Flo reports, noting that he was a "very good student." P.S. Deborah Friend's collages and sculpture of the Dalai Lama are in a show at the San Francisco Women Artists gallery on Sacramento Street.




Many happy returns

Howie and Nechama Tamler of Palo Alto traveled to Israel to celebrate the wedding of their son Dov Tamler, and good friends Paul and Sheri Robbins came along ... Larry and Gerri Miller of Tiburon toasted their daughter Lisa Miller at her wedding in Italy, where she's been working. A crowd of Bay Area friends and family joined them, including Lisa's sister Nicole Miller of San Francisco and Congregation Kol Shofar.

In honor of Ilana Green's participation on our community's Maccabiah volleyball team — which will compete in St. Paul in August — miniature plush volleyballs were tossed instead of traditional candy at her bat mitzvah at San Francisco's Congregation Sherith Israel on Memorial Day weekend. Rabbi Lawrence Raphael challenged the kids to hit the top of the dome (no one did). The Brandeis Hillel student is the daughter of Gail Green, Jewish Community Information and Referral director. Among the guests were JCI&R longtime volunteers Bill Green with his wife, Frannie, Marilyn Taubman and Jan Selix.




New kid on the block

The new Jewish social justice group in town threw a stylish "launch" party last month at Simmons Gallery, an art gallery in Union Square. To welcome the new group, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller did a riff on the baby naming prayer and Rabbi Camille Angel led the crowd in a Shehechiyanu. Among the 100-plus celebrants were David Biale, Rabbi Doug Kahn, Janis Plotkin, Debbie Findling and Paul Kivel. Abby Levine, the group's regional director, will tell Dr. Henry Shreibman about the organization on "A Jewish Perspective" at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, June 12, on KRON-TV (Channel 4).




Short shorts

Seventh grade students at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto received special recognition from Reps. Adam Schiff and Anna Eshoo for allocating bar/bat mitzvah dollars (plus money they raised) — totaling $25,000 — to nonprofit organizations as part of the school's Celebration of Tzedakah ... Receiving honorary degrees from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles were Rabbi Aliza Berk, Bay Area Jewish Healing Center; Rabbi Michael Berk, Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi Leonard Zoll, North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation; and Rabbi Mindy Berkowitz, Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley.




Corrections and Clarifications

Laurie Hahn of Palo Alto's name was misspelled in our last column ... Also from the last column, Steve Bauman is the overall co-chair of the World Union for Progressive Judaism's Biennial in Moscow later this month.




Suzan Berns, a freelance writer and publicist, welcomes your submissions of cute, poignant or informational anecdotes about you and your organizations at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).