Join the Jeighborhood and the Hive for an evening of deep conversation, meaningful connection, and conscious community. This “Real Talk Shabbat” will center on a facilitated discussion of Jewish identity. Guests will be encouraged to share their unique experience within the Jewish community and reflect on some big questions:
“How do I define my relationship to being Jewish, or not Jewish?”
“When do I feel most connected to my community?”
“What are my core values, and how are they intermingled (or not) with Jewish values?”
This is an opportunity to skip the small talk, make new connections, and share the gift of our stories with one another. If you’re tired of talking about the weather, this one’s for you!
Guests can purchase a table (up to six guests) for their own pod, or sit at a community table to make new friends (register soon – we can only honor GF and vegan dietary preferences submitted by Monday, August 14th)!
Please email Paige Milgrom-Hills if you have additional questions or need support.
Our Menu:
Welcome Drink: Moroccan Mint Mojito
Challah: Za’atar Challah served with Pomegranate-Walnut Muhammara Dip
App (Vegan + Gluten Free): Mediterranean Charcuterie Board – featuring vegetables from Coastal Roots Farm and a trio of Mediterranean Dips
Main (Vegan + Gluten Free): Turkish Stuffed Peppers with Dried Apricot & Mint Basmati Rice, served with Israeli Salad and Moroccan Spiced Potatoes
Dessert (Vegan + Gluten Free): Lebanese Malabi (Milk Pudding) with Rose Water and Pistachio
Meet our Speaker:
Fran Forman serves as the Senior Director of ECE and Programs at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center which includes the Nierman Preschool, Shalom Baby, and PJ Library for the past 6 years.
Prior to her role at the JCC, Fran spent decades in progressively responsible positions within nonprofit and early care & education in California and Massachusetts where the focus has been on directly empowering people living in poverty and leading others in this pursuit.
Having grown up in New York, where she attended public schools and was voted most humorous in her graduating class, and following college, Fran traveled out of the continental US for the first time and volunteered on a kibbutz in Israel where she met and married a Mexican man. She lived for 10 years as part of the close-knit Sephardic and Jewish communities in the 80s and where her children Estela and Victor were born and had their childhood. She is the proud grandmother to two boys who also live in San Diego. Fran Forman is so honored to be crossing paths with you in our Jewish journeys.
At this time, our event is full. Please email Paige Milgrom-Hills if you would like to join the waitlist.
Stacie and Jeff Cook understand commitment. They live it.
Black, Jewish and Queer. These three identities weave the fabric of who I am, but it took a long time to believe that they could exist together.
Lee and Toni Leichtag established the Leichtag Foundation in 1991 following the sale of their business. Lee and Toni were lifelong entrepreneurs with a passion for innovation and for supporting talent. They believed that only with big risk comes big reward. Both born to families in poverty, Toni to a single mother, they strongly believed in helping those most in need and most vulnerable in our community. While they supported many causes, their strongest support was for young children and the elderly, two demographics who particularly lack voice in our society.
Lifelong Baltimoreans, Rabbi George and Alison Wielechowski and their sons, 11-year-old Lennon and 9-year-old Gideon, are more than pursuing the good life in Southern California. Having moved to San Diego more than three years ago, they are fulfilling a lifelong dream.
You would think that as the executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride, Fernando Zweifach López Jr., who uses the pronoun they, has done all the coming out they possibly can. A queer, non-binary individual who has worked for many years on civil rights issues, López also speaks openly and often about their father’s family, Mexican-American migrant workers who tilled the fields of rural California.