Faces

To the White House

He's too young to be president, but Robert Reffkin is heading to the White House. The 26-year-old Berkeley native was appointed by President Bush to the very prestigious 2005-06 Class of White House Fellows. Reffkin has an MBA from Columbia Business School and as an investment banking associate at Lazard Freres & Co. LLC., he founded the firm's sponsors for educational opportunity internship program for underrepresented minorities. Mazel tov! (Does anyone have anything they'd like him to whisper in the presidential ear?)




It's movie time

In a cute and quick aside during a press conference for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Executive Director Peter Stein noted that though he and his program director, Nancy Fishman, are close, they really didn't plan to wear almost-matching striped shirts that morning. The two described a bigger-than-ever lineup of 49 films from 15 countries in honor of the festival's 25th anniversary year. It will kick off with "Go for Zucker! — An Unorthodox Comedy" which Stein noted is a German Jewish comedy (is that a conundrum?) that has been met "with waves of laughter and relief" in Germany. And, there's an only-in-Marin premiere — "Le Grand Role," a French film in which Marin resident Peter Coyote has a leading role.

Festival founder Deborah Kaufman and former director Janis Plotkin will be honored at an anniversary celebration on Tuesday, July 19, at Club NV ... Fishman and Stein will preview the festival offerings on "A Jewish Perspective" on KRON-channel 4 at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, July 10, and "Mosaic," CBS-5, at 5 a.m. Sunday, July 17. For info on the films and to get tickets, log on to www.sfjff.org.




Kudos and congratulations ...

Jerry Braun has been named the 2005 recipient of the Ninth Circuit John P. Frank Award, which recognizes an outstanding lawyer practicing in the federal courts of the western United States. A founder of Farella Braun + Martel, Braun has a distinguished career that spans more than 50 years ... Nomi Deutch, daughter of Sharon Deutch of Berkeley and Zev Deutch of Glenside, Pa., won a Fulbright scholarship to Turkey. She graduated from Penn State University with honors, including the Reddy Mission Award, one of the university's three student awards ... Judy Musante of Berkeley reports that she is in the "kvell mode" — her daughter Danila Musante, who will be a senior at Harvard, was awarded a Lipper Internship at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. She'll learn about museum education and teach students about the Holocaust. Ink Mendelsohn's and Garry L. Newkirk's video "Amusing America and San Francisco" received an Award of Excellence in the international Videographer Awards competition. The video accompanies the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society's exhibit of the same name, now on display at Pier 45 at Fisherman's Wharf, SF. Mendelsohn curated the show and wrote the video and Newkirk directed it.




Dining out

Hope Alper (who has a terrific e-mail address — "hopeworks") wonders if Ristorante Raphael, the kosher-Italian-vegetarian downtown Berkeley restaurant co-owned by her husband, Noah Alper, will be the site of a mystery novel. L.A.-based mystery writers Faye and Jonathan Kellerman were recently seen there eating — and spying? ... If you buy a Don Linker pastel, currently on display at Max's in Corte Madera, you also get a bonus, a "Donnie Linker" sandwich: corned beef, pastrami, coleslaw and thousand island — No. 4 on the menu.




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).