Meet Betty Adler

This post is part of a series highlighting women who are doing great work in our local Jewish community.

How fortunate I am to be a Jewish woman born in the USA in the middle of the 20th century! Is there any place or any time where a Jewish woman could have more freedom or more opportunities?

My parents emigrated from Germany in 1938, the last members of both their families to escape, and I was the first child born in this country. Despite having lost my mother’s parents and many other relatives in the Holocaust, my parents didn’t let the Holocaust define them. They had a positive outlook and worked hard; and, like so many of our people, they made successful new lives in America. They taught their five children, by example, to fully participate in and support their synagogue and Jewish community. How fortunate we were to be living in a land of such opportunity and security.

When my late husband Marshall and I moved to Mountain View in 1968, the South Peninsula was considered to be a “midbar,” a desert, in terms of Jewish life. There were a few synagogues and a tiny JCC in a house, but Jewish cultural life was virtually nonexistent. Looking at the growth of our community since then is truly amazing – several Jewish day schools; a Jewish high school; the Oshman Family JCC; more and larger synagogues; Jewish communal organizations and agencies; and, Jewish and Israel-related lectures, films, and programs of all kinds every night of the week!

And we helped build this! Leaders like Harvey Koch, Judith Chapman, Sunny Kaplan, Doug Kahn and Ann Bear recruited us, inspired us, and motivated us to fully participate in our Jewish community and contribute toward its future. Being in a room full of such leaders – donors to our local and worldwide Jewish community and strong supporters of Israel – fills me with pride and nourishes me. More than that, I feel personally responsible for maintaining the values of Jewish peoplehood that connect me to my parents and the grandparents I never knew, and for transmitting those values to my children and grandchildren. Together, we form a strong chain from generation to generation.

Today my husband Jack and I are very cognizant of the legacy we leave to our wonderful children and grandchildren. Now they are growing in, learning in, and supporting the Bay Area Jewish community. We have been enriched by our community in countless ways, and we feel so proud of our community institutions. How lucky we are to be living in the Jewish South Peninsula in the 21st century!