A Trilingual Jewish Preschool in San Francisco

This article was first published as “At this preschool, 1-2-3 comes in three languages” in JWeekly.

Jackie, 4, learns Hebrew letters and phonics, but some of her classmates are learning Russian.

“This is fun!” exclaims a little girl dressed all in pink, from her Hello Kitty hat down to her sneakers, as she traces the letters of the Russian alphabet.

She is doing the exercise as part of her Russian language pre-kindergarten class at Shalom School, which is run by Chabad of San Francisco.

She and her 4- and 5-year-old classmates sing songs and recite traditional Russian nursery rhymes with their teacher, Ella Kasminskaya.

Speaking with the children almost exclusively in Russian, Kasminskaya, a native of Uzbekistan who has been at Shalom School for 15 years, works on counting and basic conversation with them. They are especially engaged when she reads a picture book with them — calling out not only the names of each animal, but also the Russian versions of the sounds they make.

While it’s not uncommon to hear Hebrew and English at Jewish preschools, it is unusual to hear Russian.

At Shalom School, it’s a mix of all three.

Currently, there are 35 children at the Richmond District school — some from Russian-speaking families, some from families where a lot of Hebrew is spoken and some from households where English is spoken.

Seventeen of them are enrolled in one of two pre-K intensive language programs: 10 are in the Hebrew class and seven are taking Russian.

The language program — which will expand in the fall with the addition of a transitional kindergarten class — is the brainchild of Hinda Langer, the director of the 16-year-old school.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Dude, A Jewish Project That Is All About The Journey

This article was first published in The Times of Israel.

Filmmaker Jessie Kahnweiler tries a Hasidic man’s suit on for size in her new web series, ‘Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?’ (photo credit: courtesy of Jessie Kahnweiler)

Jessie Kahnweiler’s bubbe died and left her a lot of money, but she can’t get it unless she “lives Jewish” for a year. Well, not really, but this is the conceit of “Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?”— a new comedic documentary web series chronicling the young filmmaker’s recent journey into the wide and deep world of Jewish tradition and expression. The payoff involves no cash, but a better understanding of Kahnweiler’s own spirituality and Jewish identity instead.

The 11-part series has a movie-within-a-movie kind of feel (think Sacha Baron Cohen in“Borat”), and Kahnweiler plays a character that is a riff on her real persona. “It’s me, but with better clothes,” she quipped in a phone conversation with The Times of Israel.

The series, which kicks off this week with a launch party at the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, is Kahnweiler’s Six Points Fellowship project. She is a member of the first Los Angeles cohort of the UJA-Federation-sponsored fellowship program for artists creating new work that explores Jewish ideas and experience.

“This is not your Birthright Israel promo video,” Kahnweiler, 28, warned about her edgy series, which takes her from Los Angeles to Israel and back, searching for God, discovering Israel and Palestine, healing the world and looking for love. Along the way she meets a plethora of people who share with her their version of Judaism, while putting up with her humorous schtick.

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

S.F. Woman Speaks Out About Murder Of Her Father

This article as first published in JWeekly.

Julie Bernstein (center) at press conference with CA State Senator Darrell Steinberg (right).

Julie Bernstein decided that it was finally time to speak publicly about how her father died.

So while in Washington, D.C., in March, she joined the National Council of Jewish Women’s lobbying effort for gun violence prevention. She knew sharing her personal story would help get the attention of staffers in the offices of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

Bernstein decided to tell her story again on April 16 in Sacramento. In that instance, she gave testimony before a state Senate committee in support of a bill to prohibit the future sale, purchase, manufacture, importation or transfer in California of semi-automatic rifles that can accept detachable magazines.

“I had never spoken publicly about it, but I knew that telling a personal story is the most effective way of speaking to elected officials,” said Bernstein, a native of San Francisco and a Jewish community professional.

What Bernstein told the politicians was that her father, Jerry Bernstein, was murdered in 1991 by a business associate who had come to a meeting at his Noe Valley office with a gun. The man shot and killed Bernstein and another business associate before turning the gun on himself.

“I was 10 years old and a student at Brandeis Hillel Day School at the time,” recalled Bernstein, now 32. “It was a very public event. It happened at a time when it wasn’t common for people to settle differences by shooting each other. Today, unfortunately, it’s not so unusual.”

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© 2013 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.