Global warming may be taking its toll elsewhere, but the coolest place to be for Bay Area Jews on the last Sunday of summer will be downtown Palo Alto, when To Life! A Jewish Cultural Street Festival comes to town.
To Life! takes place 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, and, as usual, will bring scores of artists, entertainers and Jewish organizations to Palo Alto’s California Street for the South Bay Jewish community’s biggest day. (Information: www.tolifefestival.org).
Organizers promise a few twists this year, including the coming-out party for a new Jewish artists’ guild called Judaic Artists of the Bay Area (JABA). Because To Life! has always had a strong arts and crafts component, the new guild is a big deal.
“This is the thing I’m most excited about this year,” says To Life! Director Stephanie Brown. “When I moved here three years ago as a Judaic artist there was no support group for us. This is a vision I’d been carrying for a while.”
In addition to dozens of booths featuring local artists, Brown says a separate JABA booth will be open to display high-quality Judaica and persuade artists to join up.
The arts have long been a central draw for the festival, and this year more than 100 artists will display their wares, from ceramics and textiles to jewelry and paintings.
But To Life! is more than a moveable feast of art. Brown says the entertainment this year should top any previous line-up, with performers from across the Jewish music spectrum. “We distilled the festival down to its quintessential Jewishness,” says Brown. “But we expanded the offerings to incorporate more diverse entertainment.”
Some of the headliners offer Jewish music with a twist. Like Meshugga Beach Party, a Bay Area band that plays traditional Jewish songs backed by a wave of surf reverb; Hip Hop Shabbat — a trio that brings a rap sensibility to the stage; and Heather Klein, an opera singer by training, who will sing klezmer.
Part of the fun with To Life! entertainment is the number of local ensembles that take the festival stages. In addition to the various chorales and choruses, a band consisting of eighth graders from the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School will rock the house.
And then there’s the 3rd annual Jewish American Idol contest, which generates as much audience frenzy as the Paula Abdul variety. The depth of talent took festivalgoers by surprise the first two years, but by now they have come to expect a great show from the finalists.
At the “Tents of Community” last year, a record 50 Bay Area Jewish organizations — from synagogues to JCCs to federations — set up shop, meeting and greeting the community members they serve. Brown says she expects to come close to that same record number of participants in 2006.
With Israel so recently at war, Brown realizes that some within the Jewish community may not be in such a party mood, but she has her own take on the festival’s purpose.
“How do you wrap your head around having a good time when people are at war?” she asks. “You have to have both. Celebrating Jewish life is just as important as honoring Israel. The two go hand in hand.”
In fact the festival will have more of an Israeli — and Russian — accent than ever. Considering the South Bay’s burgeoning Israeli and Russian émigré communities, it was only natural that the Jewish street festival reflects their presence.
Members of those communities sit on the festival board, and the Israel Center (a project of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation) will have a booth. “We’re broadening the focus to have more attention on Israel than we had in the past,” adds Brown. “The Israel component is huge.”
Given tensions surrounding the Lebanon war and the anti-Israeli backlash, security remains a top priority for To Life! organizers.
“We have traditionally been very aware of security,” says Kim Teevan, producer of the event. “We hired an Israeli security company that is very aware of these issues in the Jewish community. Plus there is the Palo Alto Police Department.”
Because Brown is in her third year as director, some aspects of festival production have become familiar, but they are never routine. The event is much too important to her.
“For me personally,” she says, “I really believe the mission: to do outreach to the community. How I get jazzed? I try to make it different every year.”