News & Impact

Form a new friendship with a Russian-speaking senior who is eagerly awaiting your visit in San Francisco! All it takes is one hour per week for conversation, short walks, and other enjoyable activities. Not only will it brighten the senior’s life, it will make you feel great, too! Meet the Clients Igor*, a lively conversationalist, is nearly 90 years old and has difficulty seeing and hearing. He is however sharp as a tack and very engaged with life and its existential questions. Because of the limitations of his eyesight and hearing, he has limited ability to be out and about… 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

Ten minutes before Ma’ayan Epstein, 18, was due to give the speech at her high school graduation she got a call from Michelle Lamphere, Director of JFCS’ Financial Aid Center. “When I answered the phone Michelle said, ‘I have some information.’ I didn’t want bad news right before my speech, but she interrupted to say I had won the scholarship! It made my whole graduation even sweeter.” The scholarship Ma’ayan is referring to is the Vivienne S. Camp Scholarship, a competitive award given out annually by JFCS’ Financial Aid Center to two Bay Area high school seniors. This year the… 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