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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/33580/full/33580/250-gather-for-palo-alto-campus-groundbreaking/ <br /><br /> <b>250 gather for Palo Alto campus groundbreaking</b> <br /> Thursday, October 11, 2007 | by <p>janet silver ghent </p> <br /><br /><p>Standing before some 250 invited guests Sunday in a tent in a Palo Alto construction site, Carol Saal described the groundbreaking of the new Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life as the culmination of a “series of beshert moments” — not to mention seven years of fundraising, negotiating and decision-making.<br /><br /> Those “beshert moments” included obtaining a 12-acre parcel of land in 2002, a year after the dot-com bust; raising $32 million in the initial six-month period; and winning the bid for the land against nine commercial developers. Nearly $127 million of the $140 million needed to complete the campus has already been raised.<br /><br /> Outside the tent, on the site of the former Sun Microsystems campus, was a giant dirt mound, backhoes and multiple trailers. Inside, in front of the speakers’ podium, was a large sand pile surrounded by burlap, flanked with brass-plated shovels for the ceremonial groundbreaking. Elegant hors d’oeuvres tables stood at the back.<br /><br /> The big tent gathering brought together major donors and multiple organizations to celebrate a milestone for the Peninsula Jewish community, which has the largest and fastest-growing Jewish population in the Bay Area. When completed in 2009, the 8 1/2-acre campus will be the home of the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center; a senior housing complex, 899 Charleston, developed by the Jewish Home of San Francisco; regional headquarters for the Jewish Community Federation and offices for other Jewish nonprofits.<br /><br /> These groups, said Saal, “will be living together for generations to come. The whole will be far greater than the sum of its parts.”<br /><br /> Saal, who is campus fundraising chair and vice president of the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, was joined on the stage by a number of community representatives. Among them: Rabbi Sheldon Marder of the Jewish Home, who delivered the invocation; Tad Taube, president of the Koret Foundation and chairman of Taube Philanthropies; Ken Oshman, whose family foundation presented a $10 million gift to the campus; David Friedman, chair of the Jewish Home; James Koshland, president of the Taube Koret Campus; John Pritzker, JCF president; and Bruce Fram, Oshman Family JCC president.<br /><br /> In the front row of the audience, Albert and Janet Schultz, for whom the JCC on Arastradero Road is named, received a standing ovation. That complex was reclaimed by the Palo Alto Unified School District to reopen Terman Middle School, creating a major challenge for the JCC and other offices.<br /><br /> Sunday’s groundbreaking represented an ingathering. For Oshman and his wife, Barbara, who grew up in small-town Texas amid 50 or 60 Jewish families, “the local campus for Jewish life” was a 2,000 square-foot building, with a linoleum-tiled floor, a stage and a kitchen. “We called it ‘the hall,’” he said.<br /><br /> “For Barbara and me, the Oshman Family JCC is a marvelous, modern, urban extension of exactly the same community gathering place — a place not for a handful of families but for thousands of families.”<br /><br /> Meanwhile, Taube commented on the fact that non-Jewish community members have contributed to the complex, which will house a fitness center, concert and lecture facilities, a library and business center, as well as senior residences for independent and assisted living. <br /><br /> “This project is an example of what happens when people collaborate,” he said.<br /><br /> Sitting in the audience were a number of people who have put down deposits for apartments at 899 Charleston. Eph Cannon, who has lived in Palo Alto for 55 years, said the new complex is “life-changing,” giving him the opportunity to live in a Jewish community with friends like Sam Silverman of San Carlos, whom he’s known for half a century. <br /><br /> Meanwhile, Sol Kutner of San Carlos is getting impatient. “They say it will take two years, but I’m ready to move in now.”<br /><br /> For Shelley Hebert, former executive director of the campus, “this was the day I dreamed of and imagined in my mind for six years.<br /><br /> “I knew we were not just creating a place. We were creating a community.”<br /><br /> </p> <p> </p>

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