Shorts: Bay Area

Hershey's shopping spree continues with Schmidt

The great Bay Area corporate chocolate grab continues, as yet another Jewish-owned chocolate company is gobbled up by Hershey's.

The S.F.-based Joseph Schmidt Confections is the second gourmet chocolate company in a month to be sold to the giant Pennsylvania candy manufacturer.

The official sale of Berkeley-based Scharffen Berger to the Hershey Company was announced last week.

Hershey's reported that the combined purchase price of both companies will fall somewhere between $46.6 million and $61.1 million.

Born in Vienna and raised in Israel, Joseph Schmidt formed his company in 1983. He found quick success with his special egg-shaped Belgian chocolate truffles and other gourmet confections. Like Scharffen Berger co-founder Robert Steinberg and Cocoa Pete's Pete Slosberg, Schmidt is one of several Jews in the local high-end chocolate business.




Jeweler's pendant part of museum auction in S.F.

A piece by Jewish jeweler Sidney Mobell will be up for auction at a fund-raiser for the new San Francisco history museum to be situated at the Old Mint.

Attendees of the groundbreaking celebration will be able to bid on a glass diamond pendant by Mobell, a San Francisco-based jeweler.

The groundbreaking for the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society will take place at the Old Mint building, Fifth St., S.F., at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 7.

For information, call (415) 775-1111 or check out www.sfhistory.org.




Lockyer stops short of censoring artwork

A painting in an art exhibit in the State Department of Justice building accusing the United States of supporting Israeli genocide has been denounced by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, but he ruled out censoring specific pieces due to political content.

Several California regional directors of the Anti-Defamation League wrote a letter to Lockyer in late July requesting he make a statement against an anti-Israel painting by San Francisco's Juan Fuentes. In a letter penned to "My fellow Californians" on Friday, Aug. 5, he did just that.

"I and my office have endured a firestorm of controversy, mostly generated by Republican operatives and right-wing talk show hosts, over a few of the individual pieces ... Their vitriolic criticism has been drenched in lies and comparisons of me to Joseph Stalin, Sadaam (sic) Hussein and Osama bin Laden. So be it. The First Amendment is worth taking those arrows," he wrote.

Regarding Fuentes' painting, "I disagree in the strongest way with the message conveyed by the piece. I consider outrageous both the notion that the U.S. is funding genocide in the Middle East and the implication that Israel is committing genocide ... "

The exhibit is scheduled to run until the end of the month.




Jews work toward anti-sweatshop law

Rabbi Dorothy Richman was among those who testified last week at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting to push the board to pass an ordinance banning the city from buying products made in sweatshops.

"The Torah tells us: Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof — pursue justice," said Richman, Berkeley Hillel's rabbi-in-residence. "By having the strongest sweat-free legislation, San Francisco is showing the rest of our nation how to be a proactive force for justice in the world."

Abby Levine, Bay Area program director of Progressive Jewish Alliance, also spoke to those at the budget and finance committee.

If passed, San Francisco will have the strongest anti-sweatshop legislation in the country. The measure will be voted upon on Sept. 6.




Berkeley approves Beth El parking plan

Reform Congregation Beth El's move two blocks up the street passed a major hurdle earlier this month when the city of Berkeley approved the synagogue's parking plan.

Beth El's proposed plan for holding major events in its new home on Oxford Street incorporates the synagogue's 31 on-site spots and calls for the busing of attendees from four satellite lots.

The city has yet to grant Beth El an occupancy permit for its multimillion dollar new home, but the synagogue has slated a Sept. 9 grand opening.

Disgruntled neighborhood groups have consulted an attorney, however, and are weighing their options.