Or Shalom Celebrates Pride Month!

June is Pride month and the beloved SF Pride Parade is back! -- taking place Sunday June 26, at 10am. Or Shalom members will be joining in a march contingent with the SF Jewish Community Center. Register for the parade on the JCC website.  The JCC has a great lineup of events all month long, including:

June 26: LGBTQ+ PRIDE Parade: Love Will Keep Us Together

June 30: Queer Torah

Or Shalom is proud to be a diverse and welcoming place where people know they will be loved and accepted for who they are. Let's celebrate our members, family and friends who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Farewell message from Rabbi Katie

Dear Or Shalom,

There are no words adequate to summarize the 15 years we have journeyed together. There are not enough hours to meet with each of you one on one to have the kind of closure I would wish for. Like so much else in life, my departure will leave loose ends and unfinished edges. But to the extent that words may help us all to find comfort and strength in this parting, I offer these.

What a blessing it has been to be the rabbi of Or Shalom Jewish Community!

Read the rest of Rabbi Katie's message on the blog.

l'hitraot from Emily Rosenberg

Dear Or Shalom Community,

It’s been a pleasure working with you for the past six months as Interim Administrator. I was hired to fill the gap in the time between Lillian stepping down as Administrator and an Executive Director being brought on board. With Amy now in place, it's a good time for me to move on. My last day will be June 30.

One thing I’ve especially enjoyed in working with Or Shalom is the people that I have met – in-person, virtually, and just through email conversations. Your commitment to social justice, sense of community, and joyous spirituality that permeates it all, is wonderful.

I want to especially thank Madeleine Levin for encouraging me to take on this role, and Lillian Markind for being so generous with her time and assistance.

Curious about what I’ll be doing next? Me too! Hope to figure that out in the next couple of months.

l'hitriot,

emily

Host a Traveling Shabbat this summer!

Want to meet fellow Or Shalom members in your neighborhood? Thanks to our Back to Shul Committee along with our Minhag Committee, we're thrilled to be able to have Traveling Shabbats this summer.

Our Back to Shul committee has recommended the following: Shabbat services at a member's home can be conducted inside (wearing masks and vaccinated), followed by a light meal (finger foods) served outside the host's home after services.

We are looking for host homes! Can we count you in? Please see the form to sign up, and send any questions to Amy.

Shabbat Service with the Or Shalom Music Ensemble

Friday, July 1, 6:00 pm

SF Brandeis School, 655 Brotherhood Way

If you've attended a service led by our music ensemble, you know this will be a beautiful spiritual experience. Please register.

Parking is on Brotherhood Way or on the road between Brandeis and the Armenian Church next door, as shown in yellow on the map below. If you enter the frontage road that runs along Brotherhood Way, remember the traffic flow is up the frontage road and around the back of the synagogue, for everyone's safety.

Annual Meeting Recap

On a recent Sunday morning, 45 members gathered around the Zoom meeting space for Or Shalom’s annual meeting. It was an opportunity to celebrate the hard work and accomplishments of this past year, in particular the contributions that staff and so many members have made to help keep things going – Bet Sefer, services, gatherings, Tikkun Olam actions, fundraising campaigns, etc. – during a time of so many transitions and the ongoing challenges of COVID.

The work of the many committees was highlighted and there was energy and enthusiasm among participants about restarting some dormant committees and getting more members involved. If you are interested in participating on a committee or learning more about any of them, please contact our new Executive Director, Amy Mallor at amy@orshalom.org

It was also an opportunity to honor Rabbi Katie. There was an outpouring of love and appreciation for all that she has provided to the Or Shalom community over these past 15 years. With Rabbi Katie's departure -- we will miss her! -- our beloved member Rabbi Me'irah Iliinsky is stepping up to offer pastoral care as needed and also to lead occasional Shabbat services, while the search for an interim rabbi is going on. 

And it was an opportunity to look forward and hear about plans for the coming year: more in-person activities; planning around the high holidays, including securing a rabbi specifically for the high holidays; the ongoing rabbinical search; and plans to revamp the website and communications. We also approved the Board of Directors for 2022-2023.

There will soon be available a concise annual report, with more highlights and details from the annual meeting.

Tzedakah

We gratefully acknowledge these contributions from our community:



• Judy Olasov, In Memory of Nathan Patla Olasov
• Debbie Benrubi, In Memory of Esther Benrubi
• Chana Jacobs and Terry Gomes, In Memory of John Gomes
• Corey Weinstein, In Memory of Roz Lyn Elson
• Robyn Talman, In Memory of Jake Talman
• Robyn Talman, In Memory of Hill Boss
• Corey Weinstein and Pat Skala, On Behalf Of Ryzard Ostrowski
• Stephen Gerard and family, In Memory of Trudy Lionel

In Honor of Rabbi Katie

Thank you to community members who have honored Rabbi Katie by donating to the

Rabbi Katie Mizrahi Tribute Fund:



Linda Chafetz, Jurate Raulinaitis & Kirk Schneider,  Me'irah Iliinsky, Chana Jacobs & Terry Gomes, Robyn Talman, Debbie Benrubi, Howard Fallon, Jody LeWitter & Marc Van Der Haut, Bryna Rifkind, Steven Harris, Melinda & Eric Ruchames, Anna Christina Braun, Saralie Pennington and Tom Herz, Amy Mallor, Nina Grove & Ken Johnson, Matthew & Motomi Rudoff; Elliot Helman, Corey Weinstein & Pat Skala, Nina & Hashim Anderson, Barbara Bernstein, Phyllis Shulman, Betsy Strausberg, Susan Levine, Robyn Talman, Peter Smith, Gabriella Schultz, Leslie Roffman, Deborah Spanier, Fred Weiner & Ellen Weinstein, Eleanor & David Louis, Robin Roth, Allan Pleaner, Norisa Berardi, John Tibbets & Barbara Bernstein, Margo Freistadt & Lynn Ludlow, David Greene & Wendy Thurm, Laura Bresler, Stacey Leyton & Pierre Barolette, Carol Small, Rachelle Resnick

Condolences

Or Shalom sends condolences to those who have had losses in the past month:

Susan Levine and Jim Lauer, on the loss of Susan's mother Beryl Levin

Rabbi Me’irah Iliinsky, on the loss of her cousin Brian Ellis

Yahrzeits

On the anniversary of their deaths, we remember:

Esther Rostker Benrubi, Louis Bouquette, Maurice "Chick" Choslovsky, Marlyn Greene, Jerrold Himelfarb, John Johnson, Sonia Levine, Gordon Mar, James Marks, Nathan Patla Olasov, Donna Ruchames Rogers, Khane Bushel Solow, Sam Weiss, Sara Weiss, Don White

This Week's Parsha

The parsha for this week is Beha'alotekha (Numbers 8:1-12:16)

Commentaries:

from Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

from American Jewish World Service

from Reconstructing Judaism

Please note our mailing address!

Please send all mail to:

Or Shalom Jewish Community

400 Missouri St

San Francisco, CA 94107

To reach Or Shalom by phone, please call: (415) 469-5542