News & Impact

The Press Democrat By Christi Warren Several generations have come and gone since May 1945 when the last prisoners were liberated from the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. The Holocaust today feels far away, especially for youth increasingly separated from not only the harsh realities of a world at war, but the scope of Germany’s campaign of genocide. For years, Jewish groups have worked to bring Holocaust survivors into classrooms to discuss their time in the camps, to tell their stories. But that population is quickly dwindling — fewer than 100,000 survivors remain — which is what sparked… Read More

“JFCS is our community’s safety net,” Teresa says, and here’s how: Struggling with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, Teresa felt lost and overwhelmed when she picked up the phone and made her first call to JFCS. An attorney in her early 60s who lost her job during recent economic hard times, she was suddenly unable to care for herself and was alone in the face of a medical crisis without family or close friends to help. Teresa says, “After getting home from surgery I could barely leave my bed, let alone care for myself or my home. Jewish Family and… Read More

San Francisco Chronicle By Filipa A. Ioannou At Francisco Middle School in San Francisco’s North Beach, more than 80 percent of the students speak a language other than English at home — and they were quick to pick up on the talk about immigration during the recent presidential debates. “There’s a total undercurrent of fear here for our particular students,” says Marna Blanchard, a social studies teacher at Francisco, where students’ other languages include Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean. The complicated emotions students feel as they observe current events — from President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to build a border wall… Read More

It’s not just because she’s something of an “investment nerd” that Barbara Otto was inspired to set up her own endowment fund with Jewish Family and Children’s Services two years ago. The international banking veteran wanted to make sure support for a cause she felt passionately about would carry on. That cause is helping young women gain access to higher education in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Barbara didn’t start out in finance; she double-majored in Spanish and Latin American Studies and Art History at Hunter College in New York City. She says, “I was the… Read More

Like many children who had a parent who survived the Holocaust, Lydia Preisler Shorenstein felt an obligation to find a way to honor her father’s memories and experiences, as well as to educate others about the tragedy of the Holocaust so that history would not continue to repeat itself. For Lydia the call to action came when she and her late husband, Doug Shorenstein, visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. along with her family, including Lydia’s parents, Simon and Etelka. Simon Preisler was born in Fancsicovo, Czechoslovakia to an observant Jewish family. A survivor of Auschwitz,… Read More

J Weekly By Dan Pine High school teacher Jessica Vaughn’s students have no trouble relating to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler in the 1930s. Whether from Latin America, Southeast Asia or the Middle East, the teens know what it means to flee one’s homeland for safety. Most have refugees in their own families. That explains why teaching the Holocaust through the book “The Children of Willesden Lane” resonated with her English Language Development class at San Lorenzo’s Arroyo High School. Written by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, the book recounts the story of Golabek’s mother, Lisa Jura, a Jewish piano prodigy… Read More