News & Impact

Twelve years ago, JFCS Executive Director, Dr. Anita Friedman, visited her father’s ancestral village in the Polish countryside. Since then she has returned to Gniewoszow multiple times and joins thousands of Jews who have traveled to Poland since the fall of communism. Friedman has built relationships with the local community and helped rededicate its Jewish cemetery as she grapples with her family’s lost homeland. She is also teaching teens in the Bay Area about this important history. JFCS is the leader in Holocaust education in Northern California, and thousands of students each year learn about the Holocaust and other genocides… Read More

J Weekly By Rob Gloster Bay Area rabbis, political and community leaders are among 200 Jewish individuals and organizations across North America condemning the Israeli government’s “callousness and ignorance” in making it harder for same-sex couples to adopt children. The public letter released on July 25 was organized by A Wider Bridge, the San Francisco-based organization that supports the LGBT community in Israel. Signatories included Hillel International, leaders of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union of Reform Judaism, prominent Jewish LGBT leaders and over 60 U.S. rabbis. Fifty-four local Jewish leaders signed the letter, including state Sen. Scott… Read More

J Weekly By Sue Barnett Gniewoszow, Poland—Twelve years ago, brought her family from San Francisco to Poland to visit the ancestral village of her father. It would be her first time in Gniewoszow, one of the many towns dotting the Polish countryside where Jews made up a majority of the population before the war—and none after. More than 200 of her relatives had lived here. All were killed in the Holocaust in death camps like Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only her father made it out alive. Friedman, executive director of S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services, wanted to share the… Read More

When the JFCS Holocaust Center first received an old and tattered school notebook written in Polish and pulled from the ashes of Auschwitz, JFCS Executive Director Dr. Anita Friedman suspected the power the mysterious volume contained as she turned each carefully penned page. Since the manuscript’s publication in 2014 Rywka’s Diary: The Writings of a Jewish Girl from the Lodz Ghetto has been an international sensation, sold alongside The Diary of Anne Frank and, at last count, translated into 15 languages worldwide. This summer Krakow’s Galicia Jewish Museum has a new exhibit titled, The Girl In The Diary, In Search… Read More

Jewish identity is changing in America, and that’s especially true for many Bay Area Jews in their 20s, 30s and early 40s, some of whom are recent transplants with busy careers. So how are these millennials finding meaning in being Jewish today? JFCS has four different programs that answer this very question. Young Professional Community Connection: Behind the Scenes Amanda Merriweather, a technology company recruiter in her twenties, volunteers every month through JFCS’ Young Professional Community Connection. “For me, the community around the culture is how I connect with Judaism,” says Amanda. “The opportunity to give back with like-minded… Read More

As a dedicated Board member, Joe “Yossi” Alouf is a longtime friend and heartfelt advocate of JFCS. His warmth and enthusiasm for helping others is always palpable, and he never misses JFCS’ Fammy Awards Gala and Emigre Community Gala. Currently a partner at Eaglepoint Advisors, Yossi advises corporate clients on business model scaling, reinvention, and operational or financial restructuring. He brings his extraordinary expertise and talent to his work on JFCS’ Finance Committee. He also serves on the Special Events Subcommittee. For him, “JFCS is such a generous and impressive organization and I’m honored to help make sure it will… Read More