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Diplomacy at 75: Virtual Hanukkah Gala

Date: 
December 14, 2020
TIME: 
6:00 PM
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Location: 
Virtual
City: 
San Francisco
Cost: 
FREE

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Celebrating the Founding of the United Nations and AJC San Francisco

Please join us on the 5th night of Hanukka for a special candle-lighting celebration with Bay Area diplomats and dignitaries and our community, and help us celebrate our Light Unto the Nations honorees, the Honorable Dianne Feinstein, California Senator, and the Honorable, Tad Taube, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland.
Seventy-five years ago, the world came to San Francisco to commit to a core set of values for humanity. At the end of World War II, Jewish community leaders came to San Francisco to commit to a core set of values for humanity and contributed to the establishment of the United Nations at the historic Fairmont Hotel. It was at this auspicious moment that the American Jewish Committee’s San Francisco chapter was born. Today, AJC San Francisco reaffirms its fidelity to advancing human rights and democratic values for a new era.

Interests: Holidays, Israel, Meetings, Virtual, Young Adults
Organized By: 
American Jewish Committee San Francisco
Co-organizers: 
AJC Global Jewish Advocacy
Event Contact Person: 
Kim Bistrong
415.777.3820
bistrongk@ajc.org
Event Website: 
http://www.ajc.org/sanfrancisco/diplomacy75
Speakers: 
THE HONORABLE LONDON BREED, Mayor of San Francisco
Mayor London Breed is a native San Franciscan, raised by her grandmother in Plaza East Public Housing in the Western Addition neighborhood. In June 2018, Mayor Breed was elected to be the first African American woman and second woman in San Francisco history to serve as Mayor. She was re-elected for her first full four-year term in November 2019.

She led San Francisco’s emergency response to COVID-19 and is currently guiding the City’s phased reopening and economic recovery. Recently, Mayor Breed announced her vision to fundamentally change the nature of policing in San Francisco and issued a set of policies to address structural inequities. Since becoming Mayor, she has focused on helping the City’s homeless population into care and shelter; adding more housing for residents of all income levels; helping those suffering from mental health and substance use disorder on San Francisco’s streets; ensuring that all San Franciscans have access to a thriving economy; making San Francisco a cleaner and safer city, and furthering San Francisco’s leadership in combating climate change.

DAVID HARRIS AJC, Chief Executive Officer Edward and Sandra Meyer Office of the CEO
David Harris has led AJC since 1990. Described by the late Israeli President Shimon Peres as the “foreign minister of the Jewish people,” he has been invited to speak at some of the world’s most prestigious forums. He has been honored a total of 17 times by the governments of Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, Spain, and Ukraine for his international efforts in defense of human rights, advancement of the transatlantic partnership, and dedication to the Jewish people. He has been invited to serve on four official U.S. government delegations to international conferences. He has written hundreds of articles, op-eds, letters, and reviews in leading media outlets. He is a regular contributor to The Times of Israel and other international publications. From 2001 to 2015, he had a weekly spot on the CBS Radio Network reaching millions of listeners across the United States. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania and London School of Economics, he has been a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University and Oxford University.
Honorary Gala Co-Chair ROSELYNE CHROMAN SWIG
Roselyne Chroman Swig is a member of the Board of Directors of The Swig Company; founder & president of ComCon International and founder of Roselyne C. Swig Artsource. In 1994, she was appointed Director of the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program by President William J. Clinton. Roselyne (Ms. Swig) has devoted decades to philanthropic and community service efforts at the local, national, and global level with a focus on women’s empowerment, social welfare, fine art, political advocacy and education. She founded the advocacy group, Partners Ending Domestic Abuse in 1992 and co-founded the Bayview Alliance in 2011. She serves on various boards, including Vital Voices Global Partnership; KQED; NPR Foundation; Shalom Hartman Institute; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Jewish Vocational Services; Jewish Community Relations Council; Mills College, Trustee Emeritus; SF Art Institute, past president & Trustee Emeritus; Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, past president; The Contemporary Jewish Museum, past chair; AIPAC, National V.P.; American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; Jewish Community Federation of SF, Peninsula, Marin & Sonoma Counties, past president. She is a member of the Collector’s Committee, National Gallery of Art, past co-chair; member of United Religion Initiative President’s Council; member of SF Haifa Sister City Committee; SF Arts Commission, past president and former member of SF Library Commission. Roselyne is a 2015 Policy Fellow, The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio, Italy Residency Program and 2013 Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, Harvard University. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate and has been awarded Honorary Degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute, the University of San Francisco, Mills College and Santa Clara University. Ms. Swig is the widow of Richard Lewis Swig, has four children, twelve grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
The Honorable Willie L. Brown, Jr., Attorney, Community Leader
The Honorable Willie Brown is a practicing attorney and community leader. A highly influential and well-respected public official, Mr. Brown served over 31 years in the California State Assembly, spending 14 and a half years as its Speaker, and afterward served as the 41st mayor of San Francisco. Under the California term limits law, no Speaker of the California State Assembly will ever have a longer tenure than Mr.Brown's. He was born in Texas and moved to San Francisco in 1951, attending San Francisco State University, graduating in 1955 with a degree in political science. He earned a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1958 and spent several years in private practice before his election. Mr. Brown has received over 17 honorary degrees from prestigious institutions throughout his life.
Mr. Brown served as San Francisco mayor from January 1996 until January 2004. His tenure as mayor is marked by a significant increase in real estate development such as the Mission Bay biotech complex and AT&T baseball stadium, public works, city beautification, and other large-scale projects.
Mr. Brown is the Chairman and CEO of The Willie L. Brown, Jr. Institute on Politics and Public Service, an independent, non-profit organization providing a forum for non-partisan education, debate, and discussion of public policy issues to expand the expertise available to stakeholders from the political, academic, business and scientific communities. The Institute is one of the first in the country to focus on local government. Mr. Brown co-hosted a morning radio show in San Francisco, has been a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and makes a weekly podcast. In 2008, his autobiography, Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times was released. He has served on dozens of nonprofit boards and is considered a leader in reaching out to the San Francisco community to bring people together.
Honorees: 
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein, CA Senator
An American politician who has served as the senior United States Senator from California since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.
The Honorable Tad Taube, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland
Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1931, Tad Taube immigrated to the United States in the summer of 1939, just months before the outbreak of World War II. In 2003, Mr. Taube established a philanthropic program - the Jewish Heritage Initiative in Poland (JHIP) - which supports the revitalization of Jewish culture in now-democratic Poland. In 2007, the Republic of Poland named Mr. Taube Honorary Consul for the San Francisco Bay Area. In June 2015, then President of the Republic of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski awarded Taube the Commander's Cross of the Star of the Order of Merit, Poland's highest-level official state distinction for a foreign civilian, which Taube adds to his Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit, received in 2004.
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