could morning and welcome to mosaic. we are joined by two new clergy here in the area. carla the assistant rabbi of accommodation emanu-el in san francisco and the new rabbi competition beth israel to judea also in san francisco welcome. let's jump in and say where did each of you come from? i've come from toronto where i was a rabbi for 31 years to run to was also my home town was born there. i served there until this past year when have come to the bay area. i caught up in dallas tx

and i moved here from new york i was retained about a year ago. and i am wondering if from both of the places that to come from certainly you've what attracted you to come to the san francisco bay area and served our unique jewish community? the bay area is just a wonderful place to live and the jewish community here is a great jewish community and i was attracted to come because of the diversity and the openness that one finds in san francisco just having been here and only in the past as tourists, loving the time that i spent in the bay area. i went to stanford as an undergraduate and i decided to become a rabbi based on the bay

area jewish community and have five present and to engage in that was for young adults. i think when i left to move to israel and was wanted to come back. and this is just as an amazing opportunity to reconnect with friends and mentors and i have a lot of family in east bay that was a real drop. there's a lot of conversation in the community about how religion is relevant to the contemporary way of life. certainly when i look at the san francisco bay area is a lot of conversation on how one faith in spirituality intersect and hopefully to integrate with of the different ways in which we understand life. social and action issues since it seems this to the state of california there's always a least one ballot measure having to do with health-care or social status of individuals to commit themselves to one another and

the contact of marriage and family life that have a thread that its linked to religion. to all the different ways in which one might try to figure out where is god and all of this. i am wondering when you look at the bay area's jewish community and now you're here year and you are attracted to the diversity what do you see in terms of the vibrancy of jewish life in that context? i think that it's impossible to separate our concerns form the well-being of society and the tolerance and acceptance and diversity in the

community with our spiritual and religious values. the jewish tradition has so much to teach about social equality and social justice. it's really a big part of our job as rabbis to bring the teaching of the jewish tradition and torre to these contemporary issues. my experience this first- year spending time with people in their 20s and 30s and san francisco is that life this lonely and that it's really busy and that it's very plugged in to all sorts of different kinds of devices and not in some ways there's a natural flow

towards political or spiritual apathy and i think judea's some and reformed judaism offers a real answer to that giving a community so you don't feel so alienated and a sense of purpose so you have a frame by which to engage the broader world to and i think it gives you time to disconnect and talk to yourself and other people and not just to screen. not that it's not true throughout the country but the bay area has an intensity to it and a transients and mobility to it but i think makes those issues all the more relevant to people. were going to take a quick break and come back in a moment please join us back here.

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will come back perianth honor to be your host this morning. we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation with nuclear issue that have joined us in the bay area have with us the rabbi's assistant rabbi congregation emanu-el in san francisco and also a congregation beth israel do judea of aurora talking earlier about the ways in which the bay area is very unique place for a connection and building community and am wondering if we could have a conversation about what you see and what you're doing a particular and your congregational settings around with a means to the committee and bring people together. while we both the daly city part of san francisco face unique challenges demographically install this

center of the jewish community as it once was and the convocation center south of park are smaller and numbers than they were maybe 10 years ago or 15 years ago. we have begun to collaborate on the education programming in youth programming to bring resources for neighboring santa gog's together and rabbis to teach courses and services and programs combined in an effort to create a larger pool of participants and to reach out even further into the community. for those of you listening that might actually live in that cluster of the neighborhood that's let them know the complications involved in that cluster.

the four congregations working in collaboration r can they go on to the internet or call one of you to find out more you could get the information on a programs from any of the four synagogues web sites. with about three years ago did a listening campaign we had a small group conversations with 600 congregants and ask them what is says that keeps you up at night and what to the concern in new and the two main things that we heard were alienation feeling lonely and disconnected and the second thing was cost- of-living that surprising given the cost of san francisco. those of the two main areas that we have been focusing on a round community building the first

issue we've started emanu-el in the neighborhood which is that every emmanuel zip codes if you live and 94118 your part of the 94118 emmanuel community and have a liaison a confidant to sully is on tears to coat and other community building near the community break the fast committee touring program delivering meals to you for sec checking on you if you need people are for homebound and you want someone to come this it anything it does with direct consequence support they do that now completely basic code. and that's been an amazing experiment in the last year-and- a-half and reaching confidence and smaller local groups. with over two dozen families it's a lot of people to coordinate but it's been successful. that's the first piece. the second pieces been using the tools of community organizing to

think about how we can at the kate for young families in particular to be able to stand san francisco in the long term given the increasing cost of both housing and education. we spent the last three years building up an advocacy campaign to support our local public schools. it's interesting to to both of their places regardless of size of the common theme a yearning to connect to and to feel that matter and that who you are is an important part of the community whether in a smaller place or a larger place. i think that there's a tremendous challenge that the jewish committee faces an aging and declining numbers of those

that affiliate with all the different kinds of organizations and the jewish community. whether it's synagogues or service organizations. and how going to be engaged this generation to be a part of these organizations and sustain these organizations that have been the infrastructure that has built strong jewish community that we know. and having people feel that they matter and having people feel that they're part of a communal family is really the key to engage in them and drawing them back into the orbits of these organizations that provide the structure of jewish life. whether it's the family dinners

of the synagogue before services or other kinds of retreat programs and programs that bring people together. in addition to the activity that places once they are together these are ways to try to reach out and engage this generation. for going to have a quick break as we continue our conversation with the new clergy here. this sternness in a moment. of 33 off

welcome back. i'm honored to be your host this morning in the middle of a conversation with new clergy here in the san francisco bay area. now were joined by the rabbi from the temple israel of of the

debt in the kantor the new kanter accommodation israel in san francisco welcome. let's just jump in and ask you where you've come from and what attracted you to come to the san francisco bay area. i'm not new to the bay area of lift to the bay area my entire adult life but and new to the clergy or a change in june and very lucky to have a job but in the heart of san francisco which started in july. and then the new one in the area in a move to in to the san francisco bay area six years ago from columbus ohio or my family has been living for a long time. and i've been a rabbi for 25 years but what attracted me to the area of the the net audience is the jewish committee here and

vibrancy create today and imagination on what the future of jewish life can be a was really motivated and inspired by the people i met here and also really like the core of people in the east bay and in the san francisco area bright and imaginative and willing to a venture and explorer about the future of jewish life when you say that you lived here and new to the cantor at what attracted you to become a cantor how much time to you have? it will house a professional musician my entire adult life in a secular it to and i started performing the duties of a cantor as a soloist fourteener 15 years ago and became hooked on it. i realize that there was more to

it than just singing a good service and i decided if i wanted to continue this work that i needed to understand what i was detained on the bema aside from singing and that's what motivated me with each of you look around the front office and to the area of how to continue to build and cultivate the vibrancy of the jewish landscape here in the bay area what you hope for? was listening to the first couple you are interviewing an adequate they say about listening to the people. this is it time in our lives that we really have to go the committee from a grass-roots kind of way is that community building type of formula and long gone are the days that you and i with the rabbi stir it up on a high potential people what to believe and how to believe it

will live in a much more eclectic kind of time and it requires active listening and compassion and understanding of how people live and where other living and use the resources available which there are many in the san francisco bay area to reach out and attend to those people where they are and realize as we do they will then come in as well so i think it starts is a grassroots kind of project and using the framework of the jewish community life which is historic but if i could add one thing. everybody is talking about the concerns for a low affiliation may to how to bring people back as if it something novel. in fact affiliation hello affiliation is rather a historic

and one might even say biblical and the idea that affiliation this be all and all of the future of jewish life i think is putting for the pores. you need to find out what people believe than and how to structure that to do that in a community setting being jewish is something that has to be done collectively but that is something that we have to look at it. were going to take a quick break to continue this wonderful conversation.

and amid the welcome back kate and anna gone into they're supposed this morning at the tail end of a wonderful conversation with the new claudette's come to the san francisco bay area and now with

the rabbi at temple israel of us need the cantor at the competition is real and san francisco. we're talking about the need to understand what motivates peep hole and how they yearn for community and attracts them to committee. talking about whether or not that may include affiliation with the synagogue and am wondering what your experiences with that issue i am new to the clergy but i have the sort of newness and the academic side for having just gotten out of school. but what i see in the community right now is that there's hunter from connectivity the talked a lot about how to help people feel connected and being a kantor obviously always interested in how the music can bridge some adult loneliness and reach out in the community in many congregations my own included there are different

services for different community groups. as a family service and a young person service and more musical service with a band and it tells me that music has a hot line for people to the soul that even if they cannot talk about god and use the word got especially in the reform movement. but they can sing in practice and they can feel a connection that is different as opposed to just reading interesting and out loud and i think a lot of synagogues are trying to cater to musical tastes of their congregations. there is little danger in that we have a very rich tradition that unfortunately is falling by the way said and i feel it's my mission to be a bridge to break contemporary service that speaks to people in the here and now

but not give up on a rich musical traditions which i think would be a great loss. of with talked about this summer creating intergenerational kind of activities. i mean into generational worship and trying to get away from the compartmentalizing of the different kinds of services for the different constituencies. all i want to increase the worship experience or an educational experience that is in fact going to be entered generational to the on the are learning by modeling from the cold and older integrating in getting to know the children and our schools cannot religious and everyone else it's a we are when the committee and assigned to take the village to make it happen. adding to that town jake and experience for people how they step over that threshold of worship.

and become changed by it so when the come back across the threshold that they're different i think that there's the social action experience an educational experience and you name it to music can be ritual can be studied there are many doorways into the synagogue that are nominal and the make those important moments stick. if we just focus on ritual and think we missed many more opportunities that are more meaningful perhaps for the majority of the people. this is such a large conversation but listening to the thing that comes to my mind is that rate we are a committee that spends so much time committing people on parts and the ferry system people in their cars individually or a car pulling picking people up a car pool stop

and kids shuttled from soccer practice and you hope they're going to come to hebrew school a couple of times a week but they're so over schedules comes to mind for me is how to bring worship into the daily experience like people i'm sure on that i paw's listening to music on the ferry as an example and i think a lot of people there's of moments of spiritual capacity and in the life that has to say my happened outside the synagogue. we live in a day and age were electronically we have all the applications that you want the people of i-pad i-phone this and the movement is in fact putting those things making them available to many to publicize that and also all kinds of resources to use. pleaded not its time at the end of our time. thanks for being with us in a

rush to a wonderful day here at mosaic.