News & Impact

  Never the Last Road: A Partisan’s Life By Mira Shelub and Fred Rosenbaum Mira Shelub is a partisan and a familiar face to many Bay Area students who have had the privilege of hearing her speak. Never the Last Road: A Partisan’s Life has just been released and tells Mira’s miraculous story. Barely twenty years old, Mira escaped from a Nazi labor camp to join the Jewish Resistance in the forest. She fought back against radical evil and began a passionate love affair that would last a lifetime. Published by Lehrhaus Judaica in partnership with Jewish Family and Children’s… Read More

By all accounts Micah had a great freshman year—good grades, a nice mix of extracurricular activities and some new friends who shared his passions for music, soccer and anime comics. But by October of his sophomore year, Micah, now 16, had lost interest in school, sports, clubs and friends. He spent a lot of time alone in his room listening to heavy metal music; only emerging for meals where he sat sullenly, responding to his parents’ questions with barely a grunt. “We were out of our minds with concern,” said his mother, Joanne, who contacted Parents Place for help after… Read More

Anti-Semitism is on the rise—not just in Europe, but around the globe. At JFCS, we take this very seriously, standing with the communities that have been attacked by recent events and working closely with other organizations across the country and in Israel to counter growing anti-Semitism. Because anti-Semitism and other forms of hate can lead to extreme acts of violence against people—including genocides— the JFCS Holocaust Center, which holds more than 2,000 oral histories and testimonies from Bay Area survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust, believes that the need to educate others about the lessons of the Holocaust is… Read More

When the San Francisco section of the National Council of Jewish Women helped establish an educational scholarship at JFCS benefiting single parents in need, it held particular resonance for NCJW Board member Linda Kurtz, who partnered with the Council to bring the scholarship to fruition. “My father died when I was 11,” Linda says, “and my mother was left to raise six children alone. We became destitute overnight.” Named in loving memory of Linda’s late mother, the Rose Mazursky Memorial Scholarship helps single mothers striving to better their and their children’s lives through educational opportunities. “I know what a little… Read More

When Drew and Flavio met on JDate.com more than eight years ago, they discovered—to their delight—that one of the interests they shared was in raising a family. “I wanted to find a partner with a child who wanted to have another child,” says Flavio, a Brazilian-born psychologist. Drew, a high-tech executive who had been in an earlier LGBT relationship in which he was raising a son, was a perfect match. A few years into their marriage, after considering various options, the couple came to realize that open adoption was the best way for them to grow their family. Their thoughts… Read More

Looking at Helen, you’d think 92 is the new 75. Spry, quick-witted, and intellectually curious, she believed, until recently, she could do it all. But when a pulled muscle in her leg turned out to be severe arthritis in her hip, she acknowledged, “Now I know that I can’t do everything on my own.” That’s when she turned to Seniors At Home, JFCS’ senior care program that had served her late husband so well while in the final stages of Parkinson’s disease. “My laundry was piling up because I couldn’t get up and down the stairs so easily any longer,”… Read More