New Members:
Therese Becker
I was born in Connecticut to a Catholic working-class family; my father was a union organizer. When I graduated from a Catholic women’s college, I was the first college graduate on both sides of my family.
The summer between my junior and senior years in college there was call to action for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A friend and I boarded a train in Hartford before dawn and upon arriving found ourselves among thousands and thousands of marchers. We heard the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the end of the day. I learned we do not have to be observers of history; we can be makers of history.
After college I moved to New York City, having become connected to Catholic Worker, a group that served meals and offered clothing to the poor and who were pacifists and conscientious objectors. (The first draft card burner was a Catholic Worker.) It was the 1960’s, a time of both Civil Rights activism and anti-Vietnam war protests. I worked as a social worker and went back to school at New York University for a master’s degree focused on group dynamics and race relations. Part of our education involved going to Mississippi to facilitate groups for the then still segregated African American teachers’ union. While there we had the honor to meet both Fanny Lou Hamer and Margaret Walker in their homes.
In the early 1970’s I went to China. On the way back I stopped in San Francisco and met the man who would become my husband. A year later I moved here. Having decided that I wanted a working-class job to become an activist, I got a job at the Caterpillar Tractor plant in San Leandro. There I completed a journey level machinist apprenticeship program and became the first female chief shop steward. I also became a mother! After 8 years the plant closed and I went on to work at United Airlines as a machinist.
During this time, I had not been religious for many years. After a personal crisis, I joined Al-Anon and slowly reconnected to my Catholic roots. As a late teen I had gone to my parish priest and told him that I wanted to be a priest. He was kind but said I could be a nun, something that I did not find attractive. By the late 1980’s it had become possible for women to do a Master of Divinity degree, the degree for ordination to the priesthood. I was accepted into the program at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. After graduation, I became a professional chaplain. With early retirement from United, I moved to Chicago for a Doctor of Ministry at Catholic Theological Union. There I continued work as a chaplain and a clinical pastoral educator. While there I also worked with other chaplains to help the American Red Cross develop a Spiritual Care component to their disaster response network. Along with others, I responded to airplane crashes, 9/11 in New York City, as well as weather disasters such as Super Storm Sandy.
My attraction to Judaism came with my first class for my MDiv (Master of Divinity)—the Pentateuch, i.e. the Torah. I was entranced! Growing up in the pre-Vatican II church, the “Old Testament” was never read. Halfway through my degree, I bought two books on conversion to Judaism. I put them aside and continued on. However, after completing the coursework for my DMin (Doctor of Ministry), and having a deepening alienation from Catholicism, I decided to be bold and begin to explore Judaism.
The first Friday night I attended services at the Reform synagogue in Hyde Park I was so nervous. I had been thinking, how can I become a Jew with a name like Therese—a French saint who had been canonized just years before I was born? After the service, which somehow felt very comfortable to me, the rabbi said, “Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know.” I turned to the woman on my left, and she said, “Hello, I am Therese Z!” I was stunned. A wonderful message! I continued to attend services and eventually, under the guidance of Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, converted.
Meanwhile my son, who was by then in law school, kept asking me, “Mom! When are you coming home?” So I moved back to the Bay Area and continued my work as a chaplain. I also decided to go back to school and get another master’s degree, this time in counseling. While working, I competed the degree and became a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Currently I work part time at Highland Hospital Outpatient Behavioral Health Department. My son is now partner at his law firm that does disability and employment rights law. And, I am the grandmother of two very wonderful grandsons, ages 8 and 10.
When I returned to Oakland, I joined a Reform synagogue and was a member there for 15 years. October 7 and the response of Israel was deeply disturbing for me. I found it impossible to stay in a synagogue where the rabbi could not speak a critical word of Israel. Heartbroken, I searched for another spiritual home. I was moved by the listening session Rabbi Chai held about Gaza. I continued to be drawn to Netivot Shalom because of the sense of community I felt there. It had a spiritual leader I respected and a religious orientation more satisfying to me than what I had at my previous synagogue.
It has been just over a year now, and I continue to be amazed and filled by the spirit and joy I find at Netivot. I am deeply grateful.
Danny and Tamara Stein
Hello! We’re Danny, Tamara, Ruthie, and Avi Stein, and we’re so delighted to be a part of the Netivot Shalom community! We recently moved from New York City (the Upper West Side), where we lived for three years. Although New York is still near and dear to our hearts, we decided to move to Berkeley to be closer to Tamara’s family in Sacramento. While Danny is originally from the Chicago suburbs and Tamara is from Sacramento, Ruthie and Avi are true New Yorkers – both born on the Upper West Side. While in New York, we ran Base UWS: a Jewish community for 20s and 30s based out of our home that was deeply rooted in Torah, hesed (compassion), and each person showing up as their authentic selves. Tamara also worked at Mayday Health, helping provide awareness for abortion access and gender affirming care throughout America.
Danny is the new Rabbi & Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel (Go Bears!) and Tamara is a Major Gifts Officer at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. We’ve loved adjusting to Berkeley, and everyone at Netivot Shalom has been incredibly welcoming. We’re especially grateful for the warm early childhood community and our children’s ability to run around the shul! (You may see Ruthie run up to the bima from time to time (sorry!)). You’ll often find us eating sushi, running (Danny), practicing yoga (Tamara), hanging with friends both new and old, and traveling to familiar and new places.
We lived in Boston for five years before New York City while Danny attended Hebrew College Rabbinical School and Tamara worked at the ACLU-Massachusetts and attended Suffolk University Law School. It was also in Boston where we began our difficult fertility journey. With incredible gratitude towards modern medicine, we’re delighted to now have Ruthie and Avi in our lives. We know how heartbreaking a fertility journey can be for certain folks, and please know that we’re here as a support for others.
We’ve been blessed to live in a variety of other places, including Chicago and Washington, D.C., where we met each other as undergraduates at American University. Some other fun facts about us: Danny used to be a professional magician, Tamara used to be an abortion clinic escort, Ruthie and Avi equally love princesses and Spider-Man, we truly have a pluralistic Jewish home full of varying practices, and all of us enjoy quality family time together.
Longer Term Members:
Esther Kimelman-Block
I was born in Manhattan when my father was in rabbinical school with R’ Chai. In fact R’ Chai did my baby naming! When I was 3, we moved to Silver Spring, MD where I grew up in a co-housing community with my parents and 3 younger siblings. I turned 27 on September 15. I attended the Jewish Primary Day School for K-6th grade and after a few years of homeschooling and public school, I attended a Quaker Friends school for high school. I am the third generation in my family to go to a Quaker school, following my father and his mother, who was a Quaker. That was a very good experience, especially “sitting” twice a week, thinking about whatever you want. I went went to Towson University and earned a BS in economics. I still love doing math.
I had a happy childhood with a lot of community in our co-housing and in our synagogue. We were active in a chavurah and I have great memories of camping trips with the other families in our chavuarh over Shavuot every year.
When I was in 5th grade I was diagnosed with epilepsy and the summer after 7th grade, I was diagnosed me with leukemia. I started chemotherapy out here on a family trip in 2012. I have been in remission from the leukemia since 2014. I still have epileptic seizures, but with medication and an implanted brain stimulator, I have them much less often.
I had been thinking of moving out here when I saw that a family friend from our co-housing in Silver Spring was living in Oakland and needed a live-in caretaker. I applied for the job and she hired me. That made my move out here in October of 2023 easier since I had housing and a job. I am glad I have had the chance to have a more positive experience in Oakland!
I am also a weaver. I started weaving in high school and have my own standing loom. I have made coasters, placemats, table runners, and a rug, but the biggest thing I have made is a tallit for my grandmother, my mom’s mom. She made tallitot for me and her 5 other grandchildren so now we have all worked together to make her one for her upcoming group bat mitzvah in a few months in Chicago. I wove it, one brother embroidered the atarah, and the others decorated the corners.
I started coming to Netivot Shalom about 3 years ago. The more I became involved, the more I realized how much it is like the shul I grew up in where the congregants were also very involved in the services. We also had a smaller minyan meeting there and we had The Menorah instead of the The Shofar. So Netivot felt like home right away. I love coming to services, helping Daveed (Mandell) and the House Committee, and working in the kitchen. I’ve done Torah reading a few times. I have made great friends here. It’s a great community!
Eugene Berg
I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts but raised in San Francisco. I went to Lowell High School and earned a BS in mathematics at Cal and a masters in mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York City. I continue to find mathematics to be a fascinating study and every year I purchase one or two math books (like those in the picture) and work my way through as much of them as I can. I have been teaching math at Jefferson High School in Daly City for 35 years and hope to continue for many more. I enjoy working with teenagers and considering that I never married and have no children, I find that working in an environment where I interact with others frequently is very rewarding.
Besides working on math problems, I play the recorder (the alto and tenor) and have played since first grade and when the mood strikes me, I have been known to bake, mostly simple cakes and pies. As an undergraduate I knew one of the players on the Cal Rugby team. Later on, a friend in graduate school introduced me to the international game and I have followed Rugby ever since – Go All Blacks and Silver Ferns!
I grew up in a very secular home and it was not until I was in graduate school in NYC and far from anyone I knew that I started attending services. I split time between rabbinic student led services at HUC-JIR and a conservative congregation near where I lived, the Park Slope Jewish Center. It was in the latter that I learned to lead davening and to chant Torah and Haftorah. I returned to the Bay Area and even though I lived in San Francisco (I now live in San Bruno), in those days, my father lived in Berkeley and I would come over to spend Shabbas with him and then go to shul. I attended services at Beth El for a number of years but both congregations I davened at in NYC were egalitarian and both were participatory and I came to believe that all services should be like that so when I heard that there was a congregation with those values here in Berkeley, I knew that this was the place I wanted to daven at.
I joined the congregation in 1993. I was a member of the House Committee for a long time and I recall setting up chairs and the ark and rolling the Torah Scrolls on Shabbas mornings when services were at the JCC. I also helped to set up and take down High Holy Day services for many years when they were at Northbrae Church and then in our new building. I was the Treasurer of the Congregation for one year, the year before we moved into 1316 University.
If memory serves me, I have always sat in the front area of the Congregation although when we were at the JCC I sat several rows behind our first Rabbi, Stu Kelman, of blessed memory. Now I sit in the front row on the side opposite of our Rabbi Chai. There used to be a nice group of people who sat in the front row too, but some people have moved, others have passed on and still others have migrated either one row back or to other sections of the shul, so the seats next to me remain empty. You are welcome to join me there. It would be a pleasure to daven with you.