J. The Jewish News of Northern California

While most people see a toothpick as nothing more than a small wooden stick to pry popcorn husks from between their teeth, Steven Backman sees raw material. With a straight-edge razor, he dismantles a single toothpick into hairlike strands and uses them to build miniatures of iconic sites and objects, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Liberty Bell and, most recently, a Noah’s ark that stands just 23.9 millimeters tall.

As a 15-year-old Muslim, social media algorithms want to predetermine my worldview by pushing me into a box that pits groups against each other. Intentionality is required to seek out viewpoints that challenge what my algorithm wants me to believe and instead to focus on common ground.

Earlier this year, J. launched an audio oral history project commemorating 130 years of our reporting on Jewish life in the Bay Area. We asked community members to leave us voicemails about how their family ended up in Northern California and published several of them in April. Due to popular demand, we kept the line open and collected another batch of your stories. In these six new voicemails, we hear about families that made their way to the Bay Area from Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere.

(JTA) — Jews living in smaller communities are less likely than those in large communities to feel their concerns about antisemitism are taken seriously by law enforcement and would-be allies, a new survey from the Jewish Federations of North America has found. Jews in smaller communities were “lacking a sense of allyship in the communities around them,” said Mimi Kravetz, the chief impact and growth officer for JFNA.

The Maccabi Sports Camp, an overnight summer program run by the Oshman Family JCC, will move to a permanent location after renting space at local college campuses since its 2014 launch. But that forever home will not be in the Bay Area. Starting in summer 2027, the sports camp will operate out of Ranch Camp, a Jewish camp managed by JCC Denver and located in Elbert, a town located about an hour southeast of the city.

So much happens in our community every day that it can be hard to sift through all of the events. We’re highlighting a few here, in every corner of the Jewish Bay Area, to get you started. You can find many more in J.’s online calendar. If you have a community event you’d like to share, go to J.’s “submit a calendar event” page. Tuesday | July 7 Jewish Heritage Night at the San Francisco Giants — Take in a ball game against the Toronto Blue Jays. Ticket includes a Jewish Heritage Night jersey.

The videos of local activists in San Francisco accosting Scott Wiener, the state senator running to replace Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. House, are hard to watch. “Say ‘Free Palestine’ for the camera, dog,” Jesus Coba, who runs a popular Instagram account, tells Wiener as he’s trying to watch the World Cup at a bar. “Say ‘Free Palestine’!” Coba is holding the camera close to Wiener’s face as the politician stares at him in silence.

At dawn on Friday, two soldiers showed up for physical training. Their rabbi was already waiting. Black T-shirts. Gold ARMY across the chest. Nothing to set them apart. They blended into the formation — hundreds of soldiers under the pine trees as reveille cut through the morning. The flag rose. They saluted, stretched, climbed ropes, ran into the dark. For 30 minutes, they were indistinguishable. Then everything shifted.

The mood was festive Friday evening as Jews gathered for a Shabbat celebration in Dolores Park ahead of the annual San Francisco Trans March. Organizers and attendees were unaware that state Sen. Scott Wiener was trying to make his way toward them — or that he’d never arrive. Wiener, a prominent Jewish and gay politician who has spearheaded transgender-rights legislation, was surrounded and screamed at by protesters accusing him of supporting genocide in Gaza.

No one has done more damage to Israel than the people who claim to love it the most. As last week’s shocking election news demonstrates, the extremism of Benjamin Netanyahu, his far-right coalition partners, and his fundamentalist Amen corner in the United States has destroyed the bipartisan support for Israel that has been in place since the Kennedy administration. Israel’s most ardent defenders have become some of its worst enemies.