Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 64

yVLOCAL 3JHE OAKLAND TfflBUNE Touring Oakland churches lets you The Oakland Tours Program will conduct a churches and templet walking tour Sept 11. The tour will highlight four of worship, earn with a rsmlque contribution to Oakland history. The free tour gets under way' t.lO ajn. in fruit of the First Presbyterian Church on the corner of Broadway and 27th St According to author Beth by 1860 some 10 churches had opened and were attracting members. "In Oakland.

as in the rest of California, comments Bagwell. 1 churches were among the first Institutions to be existence was St Sli of family llfe and a settled community. The Presbyterians were among the early congregations to form, meeting Initially In a tent under a spreading oak free. Later they met In a one room school house near 4th and Clay streets. Oakland's first school teacher Hannah Jayne, active In the new was married to town founder Horace Carpentler.

Legend has It Carpentler generously built little echoed house In ex-ychange fin1 assuming sole con-A trol of the waterfront A group 5 of Methodists also began meeting In the school bouse and a short time Methodists Presby-terlans selected sites in the downtown district I wood frame New England style9 church buildings with. slender 1 spires. In time, the, downtown locations became seen as more fin' commercial devel opment and the congregations sold their church buildings and moved uptown. First to move were the Methodists, constructing a monu-; mental edifice modeled alter London's SL Paul's Cathedral. Dedicated in 1914.

It stood on 24th Street In the block between Broadway and Webster, bring the hills (rather than downtown). The Presbyterians retained ecclesiastical architect William C. Hayes, a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts to de-; sign an English Gothic Revival style church In 19 15.: Cultural Heritage Survey files Indicate the nationally known firm Cram Goodhue and Fer-' guson of Boston also consulted on the project A combination rtf 20th century construction "methods and materials steel frame, reinforced concrete, con- Crete block cladding, along with Gothic Inspired design features perpendicular, 'and eluant window tracery, quality the church fin fisting on the National Register; Built in an shape," the' sanctuary wing prefects Broadway smile'. parish' Tudor Revival style, is set back beyond a broad stretch of lawn; Atop, the -sanctuarys 75-foot tower, a copper-dad spire rises, bringing the total height to 138 feet Just First Christian Church on Broadway Is part of next week's scumenical walking tour. tion.

A' site for a place of wor-' ship was selected at 14th and Webster across the street from Presbyterian Church; the' wooden structure cost $8,000. earthquake) desired. the. new! temple; The unusual fluted columns along the front portico are said to be like those. King Solomon's Temple In Jerusalem might have had.

Temple Sinai's members played host to the "First when they decided to move uptown Selling their downtown, landmark church In 1923. they selected architect. John Galen Howard (best- known --'as the' Alter 30 years, they. too, de-' elided move, following the -Protestant congregations north to upper Broadway. Gustave Lansburgh, trained at' Arts and active, in San.

Francisco (he returned to California one month alter the 1906 i "I 4 lanaglng architect at TIC Berkeley) to design a Italian pal- azzo-style church atop a dr-cular; drive at 27th; ind-r Harrison Streets. i r'v Howard also a graduate of the Ecole, eroded a miniature version of a campanile (bell i tower) similar to the ope at Cal, the church complex, For more Information re-gardlng the tour and to make a-i call 238-3234. hii.elfU bb V-h Ml 4 i 1 writes of ciate editor of the San Francisco Review of Books. earned a master of aria from Oxford Uni-: versify and cum -laude from Brandels. She In the Montclair district in Oak-, with her husband.

i She bcha her national book tour this week and wifi appear at Black Oak Bookstore ln BerkefeyonThursdayat 7:30 p.m. Other appearances are achedufecT bn her Web site: htqAyww.llsawrhlffnian com. Schlflman, a former asso to the north fit 28th land Webster a Beaux Arts derivative, style masonry synagogue Temple Sinai, was completed' In According to Library History Room files, It was the third location for the- congregation, first organized, in the 1860s as the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Leading Jewish citizens founded the group as a burial 'society and charitable associa begins Friday. I asked her to respond to her book's passage that -I read aloud to her describing her visit to the Luba-vltcber's house of worship: 1 didnt belong.

Not at this iny other. Not per- temple or any haps, anywhere in tills religion. I had no one with whom to be Jewish. Ity friends were either not Jewish or too Jewish. My with family was uncomfortable organized religion even their own.

I then asked her to describe how she felt about her Jewishness then, before she wrote the book, and afterward as well She declined to answer because she didnt want to see her answer in print But now she says, Tm a Jew, and to me It means folfifiment Somehow Ive the thing, that since my Journey Into. Judaism, (s that Ive Ive become Jewish by choke as much by birth. What do I know about my own Judaism? The question begs others. Can something be fluid and fixed at the same time? Can something be bean-. tlful and Invisible, difficult and tall of grace? Can it live In the heart as well in the tnlnd? Ill learn from It what I can.m sort out my own conflicted truths.

I refuse to reject myself part I no longer choose said. At Uaa Schtffman'a book "Gamration racounta har aaarefi for truth aa an Amarican Jaw. I 5 Oakland's Lisa Schlflman has become die poster child of Generation when she said, jm not alone. Tim part of a I generation of fragmented Jews. llweYe in a kind of llmbo.

We're uspended -between young ispende ulthood and mlddle age. be-Judalsm and atheism, a desire to believe in Religion and. a personal history skepticism. Call us a bunch of searchers. Call us post-Holo-; iaustjews.

Not to be Confused with, i Generation Generation J-ers represent: millions -of unattached. unafllllated. ambivalent Jews between 20 and 50 years age, who are trying to under-Itand how Judaism fits -Into, secular fives. They don't; to a synagogue, don't peak Hebrew and don't, keep But theyre Jewish. Schlffman's una-engaging narrative tiled 'Generation J.

which a henna-tattooed Star Of on her back on the cover takes yon with her her sojourn for truth as American Jew. Inspired by writer TOnl novel $ula, Schtf-too, writes Inside the of her culture, maintaining csHgnces nii idiosyncrasies frith Yiddish words, without an Accompanying glossary. don't Uke dossaries cause It seems like the van of a book that tries to everyone, and pleases no This la a Jewish book for that searches for Schlflman said. i'a an Internet atrat- an SKO (Special Knowl- Officer) who helps, poratlons "brand them- to gear up for the foat-aced maxl-marketing demands -I -commerce. Shea also an ithropologlsL She blends both these skills a if Qiese skills as she dances on he tiilrd-nll Issues of American Fesny, intermarriage and why 4 many Generation J-ers coin at to NewAgelsm nd Atheism.

Chapter 4 titled Kfitea nd Queen she gets away with tan tl about ataff that a non- could poaalbty. be excori' id" for. She shows the power flames and Identity by saytng needed to Voice, names; we qeeded to sound out as prayer, if names 'an be a blessing, then we must las After reading the book, I was -moved by Schlflman's exc-Z sia tbc algnlfkamce of. hmea afld name-cafilqg that 1 fined with Janet Wdla, a South tanty Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day- Saints member pd National Assoctatim for the fj a mA dvancement efi Colored )ader to send a protest to 1 p-calllng the blackboy.Isalah,' Jsm died: massacre, a mascot fifith her gleaning notes, cr relentless i camera and her relentless questions, she takes you inside the Jewish experience to a piecemeal presentation of Jewish Orthodoxy at a Mavenliqf by worshipping Lubavttchera In a Crown Heights, N.Y., synagogue. bathe with her In Bay Area Mlkvabs.

You struggfe and tnroi chortle with her through keeping kosher. Her friend Ftyn Wood, who owns the Paata Bella restaurant In Sebastopol, has a menu Item called the "Lisa Schlflman. made with prosciutto, breasts, garlic and heavy cream, of all things; kosher It's a kosher contradiction, but it's our best seller, Wood said. 1 expect to see a made-for-TV moyie based on her nationwide relentless search to find rabbi who would dare perform her marriage ceremony to David Fore, ner husband of seven years who Is also a writer, Her countless tntervfews with prospective rabbis led her to delve into the Torah, Talmud, Kabbalah and sacred writings to discover why her Intermarriage was considered as up her blrthrlghL She goes deeper by attempting to update, the hnmd- of the American Jew by ralstag questions about the tag-line The Chosen Ones.1 As, we. approach Rosh Ha-, ahanah fair me year 5760 which a i.