Officials repent for setting Oakland fest on Yom Kippur

To help mend the rift, festival officials are making an exception to their rules by allowing Jewish groups to set up booths on the second day only. They are specifically seeking Jewish entertainers for the second day. They will set up signs on Yom Kippur noting the conflict, and they will help at least one nearby synagogue with alternative parking.

Last week, the Oakland City Council gave its reluctant support in a 5-4 vote to subsidize the festival with a $288,000 grant -- two-thirds of which will pay overtime for 182 police officers.

The vote cemented the Lake Merritt festival's dates on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 11 and 12, after more than a month of public debate and two months of quieter discussions.

Jewish reaction is mixed. Some accept the apology. Others are too incensed at the apparent insensitivity to be pacified.

"As a citizen of Oakland, I'm insulted. As a Jew, I'm insulted. We're all slapped in the face," said Lorraine Rosenblatt, a festival volunteer for 12 years and synagogue administrator at Berkeley's Congregation Netivot Shalom. "I absolutely never, never will have anything to do with it."

At the same time, at least a few Jews fear a potential backlash because several city officials have promised not to show up on the fest's first day.

Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris voted for the funding. Nevertheless, he won't attend the event on Yom Kippur "to show sensitivity and solidarity" with Jews.

Despite praising this show of support, Siggy Rubinson of the Jewish Community Relations Council said she has heard from a few Jews who fear reprisal from the African American community if Harris and others stay away.

"Each time `Jews' and `boycott' appear next to each other, there is a potential to blame the [Jewish] community," Rubinson said.

But Harris dismissed such concerns, saying he hadn't heard any reaction from African Americans. The mayor added that he wouldn't accept anyone politicizing his decision, which he said was solely a "personal decision of conscience."

"I didn't check with anybody black to see if it was okay, or with anybody Jewish," Harris said.

About 80,000 people are expected to attend the 15th annual event.

The scheduling conflict hasn't cropped up in the past because, with the exception of the first year, the festival has been held in June.

But the festival has faced problems. In 1994, a huge fight ended with nearly 70 arrests and two dozen injuries. This year, festival organizers changed the event to October, during the school year, in hopes of avoiding violence and problems with rowdy teens.

According to festival executive director Steve Tiffin, who offered his "sincere apology" for the scheduling conflict, the oversight occurred when he was planning the event earlier this year. He saw Yom Kippur noted only as Friday on a calendar and didn't realize it would last until sundown Saturday.

"That's a real statement about cultural invisibility," said Rose, who is Jewish and acknowledges that she has personal issues with the festival's timing.

When Rose began working for the festival in May, she immediately realized the problem. But even then, she said, it was already too late.

Rubinson, who is director of the JCRC's East Bay office, said the entire episode has been frustrating. She exchanged letters and telephone calls with festival organizers only to be told again and again the scheduling was a fait accompli.

Festival organizers have been adamant that they couldn't choose another a date. An Oakland Raiders game on the previous weekend ate up police power, Rose said. And other lakeside events scheduled for the rest of October narrowed it down to Oct. 11 and 12.

City Council member Jane Brunner, who voted against the festival's funding, won't attend the festival on Saturday. She believes festival organizers could have found another date. She also questioned spending so much of the city's money on police overtime for a two-day event.

Brunner, who is Jewish, said she now believes that festival organizers didn't want to break contracts they had already signed for that weekend.

Rose denied this. "There are no other weekends."

At this point, some East Bay Jews want to simply move beyond the controversy.

Rubinson is pleased the festival will allow Jewish groups to set up booths for one day. In the past, the JCRC opted out of the fest because it would not participate on Shabbat.

"I'm certainly not an apologist for Festival at the Lake. But if we can make sure the conflict never happens again and make it educational too, we should," Rubinson said.

JCRC and Jewish Community Services of Oakland and Piedmont plan to create a booth for Sunday. Rubinson isn't sure what the theme will be yet, but is considering one about Sukkot or Oakland's Jewish history.

Andy Wasserman, president of Oakland's Temple Beth Abraham, said executive board members were upset about the festival's date when they first heard about it in late May or early June.

Beth Abraham, which is a few blocks from Lake Merritt and the festival's main staging area, expects up to 1,000 people for Yom Kippur services and has no parking lot of its own. The festival and city are working with the synagogue to find a nearby lot, though Wasserman noted that the logistics of blocked-off streets and shuttle buses will make attending services more difficult than usual.

Still, Wasserman won't hold grudges.

"We are very satisfied that they're working in good faith to find a solution to the problem this year and will never let it happen again."