News

March 2024

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IsraAID: Meeting the needs in Israel requires all of our humanitarian experience

After the devastating attacks on Oct. 7, IsraAID used their humanitarian, technical, and mental health expertise to launch a large-scale response at home. In an op-ed for EJP, IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer reflects on the unique challenges in Israel, and what it takes to rebuild resilience.

March 2024

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JCCSF unites diverse communities at Soul Vey event

JCCSF recently hosted “Soul Vey,” an event celebrating Judaism, Black History Month, and Women’s History Month. The event brought Black and Jewish communities together to break bread over a culturally diverse Shabbat meal.

March 2024

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USC Shoah Foundation gives National Library of Israel full access to Holocaust testimony

USC Shoah Foundation and the National Library of Israel signed an agreement to make Shoah’s full collection of survivor testimonies from the Holocaust and the October 7 attacks publicly available to all Israelis.

February 2024

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ANU Museum offers ‘snapshot’ of how Israeli art responded to Oct. 7

ANU Museum of the Jewish People recently opened a full, temporary exhibition entitled “October Seventh” featuring dozens of works by Israeli artists responding and related to the Hamas massacres and the ongoing war.

February 2024

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CA Department of Education brings survivor testimony to Bay Area schools

The California Department of Education recently launched an oral history speaker series to bring Holocaust testimony to public school districts across the state. With support from the JFCS, the series aims to give students a deeper understanding of the Holocaust by allowing them to hear directly from survivors and their family members.

January 2024

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Jewish Story Partners: Supporting Jewish filmmaking from many angles

Jewish Story Partners (JSP) believes that films generate empathy, inviting Jews and non-Jews alike to see each other across perceived boundaries and gain insight into the human condition. JSP has funded 85 films in its first two years, selected from well over 700 applications. We spoke with Roberta Grossman, JSP’s co-executive director, about the diversity of films JSP funds and the range of additional support it offers filmmakers to maximize impact.

October 2023

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Group created to collect Holocaust survivor testimonies to start interviewing victims of Hamas massacres

The USC Shoah Foundation, which was created to record and gather the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, is now working to do the same for the victims of Hamas’s attack in southern Israel, which was the largest number of Jews murdered in a single day since the Holocaust.

July 2023

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Eight Jewish Story Partners films selected for the SF Jewish Film Festival

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival has selected eight documentaries supported by Jewish Story Partners for this year’s event. Learn more about the selected movies and the event.

June 2023

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Galicia Jewish Museum: Honoring Jewish life in Poland before and after the Holocaust

Many foreigners are surprised to learn that the executive director of the Galicia Jewish Museum (GJM) in Kraków is not Jewish. To Poles, however, this is not unusual. We recently interviewed ED Jakub Nowakowski about Jewish culture in Poland today, GJM’s newest traveling exhibition, and the museum’s mission.

June 2023

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The Saga of Rywka’s Diary: Giving voice to an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances

Ensuring the continuity of Jewish peoplehood has always been one of the Koret Foundation’s priorities. Central to our commitment is preserving and honoring the history of Jewish communities. We first wrote in 2017 about the discovery and publication of Rywka Lipszyc’s diary and the museum exhibition it inspired in Kraków. The Girl in the Diary: […]

May 2023

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Television Academy Honors awarded to “The U.S. and the Holocaust”

The Emmys have awarded The U.S. and the Holocaust with their 16th annual Television Academy Honors, which recognizes television programs that have harnessed the extraordinary power of storytelling to fuel social change.

March 2023

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Hillel at 100: Meeting students at different points along their Jewish journeys

There are, as we like to say, many ways to be Jewish, do Jewish, and feel Jewish. Hillel has provided diverse Jewish experiences to college students around the world since 1923, and much has happened in that century. Enjoy these glimpses of programming and priorities at five Hillels around the Bay Area.