{"id":106570,"date":"2023-05-25T09:24:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T16:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=106570"},"modified":"2023-05-25T09:24:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T16:24:57","slug":"mensch-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/mensch-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mensch Hall of Fame will honor seven for social activism, philanthropy, sports, politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

One woman started an organization that books free professional entertainment in hospitals, senior centers, special-needs schools, and prisons. Another founded an educational facility that aids ex-felons, prostitutes, alcoholics and addicts.<\/p>\n

One guy has given away suits and ties to homeless men, as well as to poor ones with homes, to help them get jobs. Another challenged Major League Baseball\u2019s restrictive \u201creserve clause,\u201d action that led to players becoming free agents in all pro sports.<\/p>\n

Those four are among seven who\u2019ll be honored May 31 by a new Bay Area project, the Mensch Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

You may have heard the Yiddish word \u201cmensch\u201d but have some trouble pinning down its meaning. According to one online dictionary, it\u2019s a label for a person of honor or integrity. Rabbi Yosef Langer, who has led the fervently orthodox Jewish San Francisco Chabad-Lubavitch community for decades, is happy to expand on that definition.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mensch,\u201d he says, \u201cis somebody who has the quality of caring for himself and his fellows, for the community and humanity, a person who\u2019s honest, respects others, is compassionate and kind, and is genuine in who they are and what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Awardees of The Mensch Hall of Fame\u2019s inaugural event will be three women and three men \u2014 plus another woman who\u2019ll get lifetime achievement honors.<\/p>\n

The awards dip into the worlds of philanthropy, social activism, charity, sports and politics.<\/p>\n

Recipients are Mimi Silbert, Tiffany Shlain, the late Mimi\u00a0Fari\u00f1a, George Zimmer, Josh Becker and the late Curt Flood \u2014 with Dolores Huerta getting the lifetime award.<\/p>\n

Though the 79-year-old Langer and his 38-year-old son, Rabbi Moshe Langer, run the project, it was the brainchild of Brian Webster, who volunteered for Chabad for a decade before he became a paid employee a few years ago. To stay with the theme, the elder Langer says of Webster, who once worked for the late rock promoter Bill Graham at the Fillmore, \u201cHe\u2019s a mensch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proceeds from the event will benefit The Giving Kitchen, which, according to Moshe Langer, \u201cprovides food for financially challenged people,\u201d and the Bill Graham Menorah Project, which is responsible for lighting the huge menorah in Union Square each year and includes a new program \u201cwhere we gave out 1,000 menorahs last year to spread even more light.\u201d<\/p>\n

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State Sen. Josh Becker speaks at 2022 Union Square menorah lighting. (Courtesy Chabad SF)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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George Zimmer, pictured with an unidentified police officer,\u00a0attends the 2022\u00a0Chabad Union Square menorah lighting in San Francisco. (Courtesy ChabadSF\u00a0)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Graham had financed the first lighting of the Union Square menorah, a one-day Chanukah event in 1975. The annual affair there now lasts the entire eight-day length of the holiday.<\/p>\n

Chabad, adds Yosef Langer, is now also heavily invested in Noah\u2019s Ark on the Bay, a project that fosters mensch-hood all over the globe, \u201coutreaching beyond the Jewish community \u2014 to enlighten, not to proselytize.\u201d<\/p>\n

To determine who should receive Hall of Fame honors, the younger Langer says organizers\u00a0\u201clooked for people in the community that have shown a good deal of mensch-behavior (philanthropy, charity, volunteering).\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimmer \u2014 the suit-and-tie guy who started the Men\u2019s Warehouse \u201cfrom the ground up and created an environment where people were happy to come to work, and who started a fund to send the children of workers to college\u201d \u2014 was the first selected.<\/p>\n

The posthumous awards are going to\u00a0Fari\u00f1a, who started Bread and Roses, the organization that sends 1,000 musicians and performers each year to close to 100,000 isolated audience members, and Flood, who sacrificed his baseball career in pursuit of better negotiating positions for players.<\/p>\n

The lifetime achievement award to Huerta, 93, recognizes her civil rights\u00a0and labor activism, including co-founding the National Farmworkers Association, a predecessor of United Farm Workers, with Cesar Chavez.<\/p>\n

The other mensch awards go to state Sen. Becker, D-San Mateo, who co-founded New Cycle Capital, a pioneer in building socially responsible businesses; Silbert, who founded the educational Delancey Street Foundation, which supports substance abusers and ex-convicts via academic, vocational and social programs; and Tiffany Shlain, an independent filmmaker and internet pioneer.<\/p>\n

Chabad-Lubavitch of San Francisco, which has long been known for its creativity, is part of an international movement with roots in the Hasidic movement of the 18th century that runs an extensive network of educational and social services. Some 3,000 Chabad centers exist in more than 65 countries.<\/p>\n

The Inaugural Mensch Hall of Fame Awards, VIP Reception, Auction & Dinner are at 6 p.m. May 31 at The Mint, 85 Fifth St., San Francisco. Tickets are $200. For details, call (415) 668-6178 or visit https:\/\/menschhalloffame.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This story was first published on\u00a0<\/span>LocalNewsMatters.org<\/a>, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News\u00a0Foundation http:\/\/www.baycitynews.org\/contact\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Woody Weingarten, a longtime member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a>\u00a0or on his websites,\u00a0https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0https:\/\/vitality press.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One woman started an organization that books free professional entertainment in hospitals, senior centers, special-needs schools, and prisons. Another founded an educational facility that aids ex-felons, prostitutes, alcoholics and addicts….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-106570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"