I can’t believe everyone’s so young, it seems like the last time I was here everyone was much older, had that many members died since Rosh Hashanah?
I’m wondering this and I approach the Rabbi to ask him where all the older members went, he’s exuberant, his community is finally taking shape as more and more couples with young children and newlyweds move to the neighborhood.
San Francisco isn’t known for its large vibrant Jewish community, but I’m hoping that will change, being that I love San Francisco and have no plans on leaving the area any time soon, I would love to walk into shul and have a hot Kiddush every week, three different minyanim to choose from and plenty of ladies to look at over on the other side of the mechitza, but this is a long way off.
San Francisco has a bunch of small dying orthodox shuls, a few chabads that barely get a minyan and the Adath Israel congregation which is home to San Francisco’s first eruv, pretty impressive for a shul that until 5 years ago was slated for a certain death when its last member kicked the bucket. I watched painfully on pesach as the chazzan almost fainted during his musaf repetition and had to be replaced by someone much younger who could handle the stresses of figuring out which blessing in musaf to say on the 2nd day, maybe he needed lasek or something, straining of the eyes sucks when you’re up at the bimah trying to make it to Kiddush. The shul was founded by holocaust survivors and many of the founding members are dying out, their children have mostly moved away and that left the community, up until the new Rabbi took over, with little chance of revitalizing a dead community.
I have no idea how he did it, I’m sure dozens of Rabbis and community leaders in similar situations would love to know his secret, but Rabbi Strulowitz’s community is really growing, every time I go for shabbos there’s a new family in the hood.
San Francisco isn’t like other cities, for a city its size it has a dismal amount of Jewish services for the observant folks. It has two kosher restaurants and a butcher, one of the kosher restaurants is not under a widely accepted hashgacha even though it is vegan and the other restaurant is what I and anyone else who has ever bothered trying it out a chillul Hashem (IE worst kosher restaurant in the world) which only stays open because of tourists. Sure there’s a mikvah, a couple of Jewish schools and now an eruv, but it isn’t a vibrant orthodox community by anyone’s standards.
So why on earth would any young orthodox couple move to San Francisco?
Unlike the larger and more vibrant community of Palo Alto in which most people move for school or jobs, people come to San Francisco because it’s one of the coolest places in the world live. It’s very rich and it’s beautiful, add to the fact that you don’t need a car and you have a city quite like New York, but cheaper and easier to live in. The people are friendly, cool and no one is in your face about anything, it’s also much less materialistic than New York and the east coast in general. People in San Francisco value food, art and beauty – more than fancy stuff and you can see that almost everywhere.
So how do you build a community from the ground up?
I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with folks around the country about this topic. When I lived in Albany we would talk about this all the time, the Rabbi in Omaha talked with me about it and dozens of other folks in the dozens of small and midsize communities I have stayed in have asked me (it’s funny how people think I’m some kind of authority on the subject, when I’m just a social commentator) how to make their communities grow.
The San Francisco community is kind of growing organically, frum people want to move to San Francisco and they need an eruv. No one is coming to San Francisco and asking where the kosher pizza shops and seforim stores are, people make do with what they have, but certain things like young mothers having friends and being able to eat by your neighbors because you know they keep kosher is somewhat important in my opinion. Some shuls in the area have so many non-kosher keeping members that they have unofficial lists of who is “ok” to eat by – not mentioning any names here, but you who you are.
One of the issues I have with the Bay Area in general is how the communities don’t seem to be working together. It’s common to hear someone from Palo Alto or San Jose express shock that San Francisco, less than an hour away, has an eruv, or a daily minyan. I find it weird that the orthodox Jewish communities of the Bay Area aren’t focused on building the entire Bay Area community, which I look at as one unit. The distances are not that great. There are 5 active Bay Area orthodox communities, San Jose, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. Sunnyvale has a small Sephardic congregation and there are various chabad houses around the area, the largest being the one in Palo Alto which has a daily minyan, but many of the folks in the different communities do not interact, or even know the other communities exist – I find this strange – especially in a place where assimilation and intermarriage is so high. There are something like 300,000 Jews in the Bay Area and not many of them are religious, I wonder if anyone knows how many keep kosher and shabbos out of that number.
As a new member of the Bay Area Jewish community I have been trying to get a good feel for it, I have visited all 5 communities multiple times, besides for Oakland which I only went to once, I have to other northern California communities such as Santa Cruz and Sacramento and am dismayed at the lack of community shown amongst them. It’s kind of like, you do your thing we do ours, but that’s strange to me. Taking it one step further, the lack of contact between orthodox and other movements is kind of lackluster, we are all Jews, everyone has different opinions, but it can’t hurt to acknowledge each other and bring Jews together? Like when I heard that no orthodox Rabbis attend the Northern California Board of Rabbis meeting, what’s up with that? So they do things you don’t agree with, what happened to achdus and ahavat yisroel?
Although it seems like the San Francisco orthodox Jewish community is fragmented, I think the Adath Israel community is shining, I have wondered why the half dozen or so shuls with dismal shabbos attendance in the Richmond don’t just merge – I know, I know, Jews don’t get along and will find any reason to fight. I was really shocked, even though I’m a New Yorker at the fact that directly across from Adath Israel is a small shul which is a basically a breakaway minyan, for I can’t figure out why someone would open up a small shul directly across the street from an established shul other than to show that they really disagreed with that shul.
In San Jose the same thing exists, it just recently closed down, but directly across the street from Am Echad, not such a big shul to begin with is a breakaway minyan that formed when a disagreement over the new rabbi chosen for the shul arose. You can do this sort of thing in a big community, but in my mind forming a breakaway shul over a disagreement seems to go against everything I was taught about Judaism, it’s probably against halacha anyway – especially if the shul being broken away from didn’t exactly have a big showing at every davening.
Please remember that I have only been living in the Bay for 11 months, I lived in Berkeley, Santa Clara and now Palo Alto and that these views are based on my own observations, however I have been to dozens of Jewish communities around the country and Canada and can tell you that not working together is dumb. Maybe they are working together behind the scenes, but when someone who’s been living in Palo Alto their whole life tells you that they didn’t know there was a kosher restaurant in Oakland, that seems like a problem. Yes, I’m the quintessential wandering Jew, I like getting around, I was in San Francisco this week, Sacramento last week and Berkeley the week before, but I want to see these communities grow, because I like the area so much and having more amenities and services can only make it better for all Jews to keep on being Jewish.
San Francisco. Jewish Community….
The Frisco Kid with Gene Wilder
Heshy, what do you do for a day job? What kind of job gives you the freedom to move from city to city like this?
I have lived in the Bay Area for 11 months, I moved around the Bay Area because it’s hard to find a cheap place to live, the prices are like that of NYC.
That’s if you have time or patience. After being in meetings or a conference for a whole day, the last thing you want is a 1.5hr round trip to get some food…
San Francisco is way too progressive and liberal for today’s frummy.
Then again, it does have a robust welfare system and Michael Weiner Savage.
New York is just as such and more in your face, NY Jews are just surrounded by so many Jews that they don’t realize they live in such an open and liberal city.
breakaway this happened in the distant past not
have consensus on raising mechitzah higher have agreement to increase the height. when for Purim megilah, a microphone was used so everyone can hear. or the divider between men and women with like 4 feet and the conservative board would not
Heshy, you’re becoming an expert in Jewish sociology!
Have you been to the Richmond District in SF? There is at least one kosher grocery store and an ultra orthodox community out past 20th Ave.
There is a large flourishing Jewish community in SF, it’s just Reform, not frum
I take the comment back on the Richmond, I didn’t realize that I hadn’t finished the whole post. But I still stand by the flourishing community thing.
Totally true. It sucks bad when jews fight, especially for such selfish reasons.
Hey heshy, are u ever gonna visit La?(sorry if u already did)
an old timer from the bay area once told me that the bay should have been like LA in terms of jews, but the (orthodox) rabbis fight and disagree and don’t talk to one another. So, you have a very fragmented and weak community overall.
Regarding the meat ‘restaurant’ in SF. I have the unfortunate need to frequent there when I come for work several times a year. It’s a poor excuse for a restaurant. I avoid it at all costs, but eating tuna and chumus for a week (Trader Joes of course) isn’t all that fun, and ones taste buds do need a little change – even if it’s oil with a little meat. Luckily I charge it on my corporate amex. I couldn’t bear that thought or paying for it myself!
I’m going to write about it, I would say to venture to Mountain View for the good restaurant there or to Oakland for the falafal join which is quite good and open late.
After a long day in meetings/conference, you don’t want to schlep half way across the state to get some food – if you know what i mean.
I was in the Bay Area once (for a few hours literally) and enjoyed riding on the BART to get some bagels in Oakland (i think some bakery on Grand avenue or something). Surprised that there were a bunch of restaurants that were kosher but opened on shabbos. Is that still the case?
Hi Heshy,
Since I’ve spent several years shul-hopping around SF (though we’ve stuck to non-OJ places), I found this quite interesting to read. I’d love to see more about the different OJ spots in the city (what are we up to now, 7 Chabad houses?) I just wanted to mention that, as a fellow blogger and shul-nographer, I envy your fearlessness in seeking out new places and just diving in, something I have a hard time doing.
I have also found that SF Jews in general (and I assume this is true for the larger BA as well) tend to be very fragmented. I get the sense that some of the rabbis in the non-Orthodox community do talk to each other, but I’m unclear how much dialogue there is between the Orthodox and anybody else (plenty of blame to go around for that one). This seems particularly true for laypeople: I’ve had several conversations where it’s apparent that folks in the same denomination don’t talk to people from different shuls- that one’s snooty, that one’s weird, that one’s funky, blah blah blah.
The best arenas for “mixing” that I’ve personally witnessed, aside from community service activities and the like, have been organizations that reach out to the community (or chunks of it) as a whole– such as the couple of day schools and the JCC. It’s ironic that in the course of trying to expand, accommodate and appeal to different audiences and personalities, the community seems to have become too big or specialized for its own good.
As a rare native San Franciscan Jew posting on this site, let me say that growing up in San Francisco and trying to keep mitzvot is not worth the effort. Yes SF is a gorgeous city with lots of great restaurants (treif), art, culture, and excitement, but it is no place for a Jew – any Jew. Whatever is happening at Adath Israel (where I spent years 11-18 of my life), it’s a joke compared to what life should be for Jews. There is so much strife between the different sects of Judaism (reform, conservative, orthodox, reconstructionists, gay reform, gay orthodox, zen, Jews for Jesus) all trying to hold on to their little
following that working together will not work.
The number of kosher restaurants, butchers, reflect the truth. Too few care about keeping mitzvot.
Jews of SF and the bay area, get out. Go to LA, NY or better yet, come home to Israel and see what it feels like to live in Jewish country.
Either you all assimilate into oblivion there or you pick up and leave.
Great views, good weather (??) and culture are not worth the price.
I know. I tried it for 33 years.
Fred,
I can certainly understand why from the Orthodox viewpoint, SF would get a low ranking– but I think a big part of that is that the majority of the city’s Jews are not frum and don’t feel guilty about it. This results in the Orthodox not playing nearly as large a role in defining community standards (or reinforcing them) as they are used to doing elsewhere. I don’t think that’s the same as assimilating into oblivion, but it seems to play a big role in defining the local Jewish culture.
SF may not be your cup of tea, and it may be challenging to be frum here, but saying it’s no place for a Jew seems a bit much. Sorry you see things as so black and white.
You can call it what you want, but after 33 years I saw the rate of assimilation among the conservative and reform. It’s well over 60%
inter-marriage and synagogue affiliation is barely 30%. SF is a hard place to connect to Judaism on any level. For the orthodox it’s not worth the effort (yeah – who wants to drive 1.5 hours after a long day at work to eat in a crummy kosher restaurant?? – that’s not living!!)
I stand by my earlier comment. SF is not a place for any Jew who has any feelings about keeping the faith going. It’s just not going to happen there.
Fred,
I’m not contesting your experience. I’m just saying that different groups of people are looking for different things, and I don’t think anyone comes to SF looking for Lakewood or Pico-Robertson. Even the stats you throw out aren’t necessarily the end of the road when it comes to Jewishness– a significant chunk of intermarried couples are raising their kids Jewish, for instance. Along the same lines, how are you defining assimilation? Is it an absence of observance? Is it converting out? What are we talking about, exactly?
I don’t think anyone expects the graduates of the three big Jewish day schools in SF to produce high-level yeshiva scholars. However I wouldn’t discount their students or the thousands of shul-going families so easily, either. Are they going to be Haredi or even RW Orthodox? Probably not. But that’s not the same as not remaining engaged with Judaism or Jewish identity. I just think there’s a wider spectrum at play. Based on that assumption, while I don’t think SF is ideal (certainly not from the frum POV), I also don’t see in quite as drastic terms as you do.
As a native FFB I strongly disagree with you. No matter where one lives in Galus, even in Eretz Yisroel, there are going to be hardships, and bumps in the road to frumkite. Growing up in SF I was able to see what was good and what was bad. I knew that my friends who I went to school with weren’t frum, thus I didn’t stay over night in their houses. In some ways this made it easier to be frum because I had to make my own walls around the Torah and Mitzvos, thus appreciating them more. After going to a frum camp, and for the first time living with (outside of family) other frum boys my age I never heard of a frum person who isn’t shomer-negiya, or who will eat none-hekshered gum, or even doesn’t wake up for Shacharis in the morning.
Despite the fact that my friends weren’t frum they encouraged me to be frum and even asked me about it. Not only did this help me know what and why I was doing (like why Shomer-Negiya or why wear Tzis-tzis) but I was able to teach so many of my friends about Yiddishkite. Many of them would take my advice and sometimes do an extra Mitzvah. For example I brought my extra pair of Teffilin to minyan in the morning I would teach my friends how to wrap Teffilin, and for the girls I would teach them the Brochos of the Shabbos candles and supply every them friday with candles, and no; I’m not Chabad.
It is certainly not impossible to grow up frum in SF, and I think my brothers and I are a good examples of that, but if you can’t live without the occasional Sub-way sandwich or Pizza, then I think you nee to rethink about your yiddishkite, plus L.A. is only a 6 hour drive away. Yes, it is hard but our little community in Adath Israel is very friendly and has lots of room to grow. I could easily see a grade school or a high school or even a yeshiva in the near future. Unfortunately we don’t have enough people to support them. So if you want to be a pioneer and know what being a “light unto the nations” is; SF is the place for you.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were recruiting for San Francisco…
Well it would be nice to get some ladies over here, but I don’t even live in SF – what just because I write something nice about a community I like doesn’t mean I’m recruiting
Me too.
I live in Palo Alto…the jewish population is growing due to emek berecha. We need more kosher restaurants!