JCC of the East Bay

11/27/2025

🌟 Join the Tzedek Fund Pop-up Giving Circle!
📅 Thursday, Dec 4 | 5:30–8:30 pm📍 Location upon RSVP

Join Jews of Color and allies for a meaningful evening of learning, connection, and collective philanthropy. Enjoy dinner, hear from JOCI leaders, and help make community grants that strengthen equity and inclusion in Jewish life.

Suggested contribution: $50 (or any meaningful amount) — all gifts will join $40,000 in matching funds from the Federation!

✨ Register today: https://partiful.com/e/9ReDr86NI1jMzwBhJAh1

11/21/2025

"In 1966, “The Dick van D**e Show” aired the first-ever episode of American television featuring a bar mitzvah. It was also the first-ever episode to depict an adult bar mitzvah. Inspired by actor Morey Amsterdam’s own experience being too poor to have a bar mitzvah as a child, the episode features Buddy Sorrell (Amsterdam) as he secretly prepares for the right-of-passage he never got to have.

Nearly 60 years and many, many onscreen b-mitzvahs later, it seems that the adult b-mitzvah plot line is the latest emerging trend in Jewish TV and film."

Editorial note: Spoilers ahead for "31 Candles" and "Eleanor the Great." In 1966, "The Dick van D**e Show" aired the first-ever episode of American television featuring a bar mitzvah. It was also the first-ever episode to depict an adult bar mitzvah. Inspired by actor Morey Amsterdam's own exper

11/20/2025

"This visit had me thinking about the breadth of Jewish and Israeli cuisine, how plates and menus have been shaped by the diversity of a people, who have had to live through persecution, restrictions and, in many cases, poverty, all while adhering to kosher dietary laws. A community that comes to mind is the Jews of Libya.

The Jewish population is now nonexistent, but for thousands of years the Jews of Libya lived under the rule of the Greeks, Romans, Ottoman Empire, Italian, British and Arabs. In 1911, they made up roughly 4% of the Libyan population. In 1938, “race protection laws” banned Jews from sending their children to school, working in skilled professions or intermarrying. Later the community was divided and sent to concentration camps across Europe and North Africa."

A spicy-sweet pumpkin dip celebrates the legacy of Libyan Jewish cooking and the diversity of Jewish foodways around the world.

11/19/2025

"It’s a lovely portrait of an interfaith family that respects each other’s traditions, and takes a lot from the story of the show’s co-creator, Sonnier, who was raised Catholic and became Jewish in adulthood.

In the same way that a traumatic incident leads Danny to Boston and to the Silver’s Shabbat dinner table, it was a traumatic incident in 2019 that led Sonnier to convert to Judaism.

“My wife is white and Jewish, and my children are biracial,” Sonnier told the LA Times. Just like the Silvers, Sonnier’s family gathers every week for Shabbat dinner."

Sunday night dinners were at the heart of the hit New York detective show “Blue Bloods” (2010-2024). The Irish-Catholic Reagan family’s tradition was led by patriarch NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan. But it’s a Shabbat dinner that is at the heart of the new “Blue Bloods” inspired spinoff,...

11/18/2025

🕎 Light up your Chanukah with hands-on discovery, joyful Jewish learning, and STEM-based activities that illuminate the magic of the holiday! Join us at the JCC East Bay — along with our wonderful partners Camp Tawonga, Wilderness Torah, Eden Village West, Oakland Hebrew Day School, and The Contemporary Jewish Museum — for an afternoon full of creativity, community, and festive fun.

Spark excitement with activities such as:
✨ Circuit-powered hanukiyas
✨ Window art and other sparkly decorative crafts
✨ Dreidel games for all ages
✨ Glow-in-the-dark games, hula hoops, and face painting
✨ Making — and tasting! — gooey sufganiyot, sizzling latkes, and spun-sugar cotton candy
✨ …and so much more!

Perfect for families with children ages 2-8. All are welcome!

Link in bio to register 🔗