Faces

Émigré involvement flourishing

The focus wasn't on kids or careers at the first gathering of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation's Russian Young Adult Speaker Series. It was about integrating Jewish volunteerism into busy lives, reports Dina Jacobs, JCF's coordinator of the series. Entrepreneur and Jewish community leader David Blumberg hosted and addressed 26 successful young adults who emigrated here from the former Soviet Union as children. His "passion for the Jewish community and Israel was addicting," Jacobs says.

She expected the guests — in their 20s and 30s — to ask Blumberg about his business achievements, but instead they wanted to know about Jewish organizations and getting more involved. Galina Leytes chairs the JCF's Russian Division. Among those attending were Alex Shevelenko, Sabina Shnapek, Alex Yevelev, Ilona Rubashevsky, Sasha Khanin and Lenny Gusel, program director of Jewish Family and Children's Services 79ers group (named for the year of the first Russian Jewish emigration). For information on the group or future events, contact Jacobs at (415) 512-6292 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).




A little nudging a good thing

Word has it that Joelle Steefel, a member of the S.F.-based federation's CEO search committee, was the first person to think about asking former AIPAC Executive Director Tom Dine to become the group's new leader. Steefel met with him during a federation mission to Prague where he serves as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Back in the Bay Area, she brought his name up to the committee members who assumed he would not be interested. But she persisted — and the rest, as they say, is history.

When Dine moves to the Bay Area in October, he'll be welcomed by many, but particularly by two very close friends, Bob Friend and Naomi Lauter. When Dine was the national director of AIPAC in the 1980s and early '90s, Friend was the Northern California chair and Lauter the executive director. They had many occasions to work closely together.




Akronites abound

Former Akronite David Rabb writes that his mother, Bea Rabb, was one of Alameda resident Rabbi Allen Bennet's Sunday school teachers and encouraged Bennet to be a rabbi. He adds several more Akron, Ohio, natives to the list noted in my last column (July 22). Among them, Gary Friedman (the plastic surgeon), Marsha Bear Sampson and Rabb himself, all living in Marin; Dennis Berkowitz (of Max's restaurants); Libby Lawrence and Debbie Reaven of San Francisco.




Short shorts ...

Rabbi and Cantor Jeff Saxe (son of Joanne and Steve Saxe and sister of Rabbi Julie Saxe Taller) is in the movies. He was a student in the cantorial class at Hebrew Union College featured in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's "A Cantor's Tale." ... Carolyn Metz connected Jews to the Jewish community in Sonoma County for 20-plus years. Now she's connecting them (and others) to new homes. She retired in June from her position as director of the S.F.-based federation's Sonoma division and is now selling real estate in Santa Rosa. Mazel tov and thank you! (PS, she hasn't given up Jewish communal work completely — she's still at the Jewish Community Agency of Sonoma County.)




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).