Balebuste Botanicals

Leadership Spotlight: Naomi Stein of the Homeless Action and Sacred Land Committees
 

This feature spotlights one of Kehilla’s member leaders, asking them quick, short questions, so the whole community can get to know them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naomi Stein
(she/her)

I serve with the Homeless Action Committee and the Sacred Land Committee
 

 

Where did you grow up? I was born in Brooklyn.  My Dad, Hal Stein,  z”l, was a jazz musician. 6 weeks after I was born his gig in NYC ended and we moved to Las Vegas so he could be a side man for the shows there. When I was 3 we moved to Berkeley.  Here he could do the jazz gigs in North Beach, teach music in the public schools, work the orchestra pit for all the Broadway shows that came to town, & at the Ice Capades/Follies, thus supporting 3 kids. Then there was a whole lotta moving, 6 different schools in all. Just before I turned 15 I moved away from my family in order to come to San Francisco to be part of the first graduating class of School of the Arts High School. Then I went off to conservatory in St. Louis.  I discovered that I didn’t like the midwest. It was mutual. So I moved back to San Francisco for a few years until the earthquake wrecked my apartment, which propelled me to Oakland.  Given the poverty of a jazz musician’s family life, we often lived in multiple places in each town (can’t pay the rent? time to move on…), so after all of that schlepping, I’ve settled. I’ve lived in Oakland for the last 35 years.

Tell us about your leadership journey at Kehilla. For the great bulk of my time with Kehilla, which began in the early ‘90’s when I was in my early 20’s, I stayed off the radar.  My work engaged me with up to 5,000 people a week and I needed my spiritual home to be a place of respite.  But in 2017 when the Nazis came to Berkeley,  I felt compelled to create something, both for my family and all the other Jewish/BIPOC/LGBT families who were impacted by this visitation. I’d been taking both of my kids to protests regularly during the Trump years, arts and crafts time at our house was making political signs, but then Charlottesville happened and I didn’t feel safe taking them. I contacted Michael to ask if we could use the Social Hall to hold an event, I'll always be grateful for how quickly he acted and how easy he made it.  I collaborated with my compatriot, the brilliant organizer Shayna Cureton and we made an educational event, bringing in SURJ and Our Family Coalition as partners and over 200 people in family groups gathered. I chilled out again after that, content to follow, until…

What inspired you to get involved with the Homeless Action Committee? The first pandemic High Holy Days, watching services by Zoom, typing the names of my dead in the chat on a day it is not my custom to write at all, and just feeling all out of sorts about the state of the world and that moment.  Then, Howard Hamburger’s voice came into my head.  This visitation is quite odd when you consider that I don’t know him personally and he doesn’t know me from Eve. But I’ve been coming to Kehilla’s HHD services since the Northbrae days, so I know his voice, and have heard him say many times, the phrase that came into my head on Yom Kippur 2020 “Is this the fast I have asked of you?’.  As I sat alone in my room looking at a screen, I decided no, no it was not.  I got up, cooked a large pot of food and took it to a local homeless encampment that was almost all women.  That kicked off regular visits, bringing food and other supplies there.  After six months, I remembered that I’d heard about a group at Kehilla working on this issue. It was perfect timing, because the group had collected tons of supplies, while I had exhausted mine, and they needed someone to distribute as this was before the vaccine, and I was already doing that (I figured it was all outdoors and I wore a mask). I joined and later became chair for about a year and a half.  I believe in democratic governing structures, so in 2024 I will pass that title along, both so that we have the benefits of rotating leadership and so that I can focus on my new small business, Balebuste Botanicals (you won’t find me on the web).

What inspired you to get involved with the Sacred Land Committee?
Dvora Gordon has been the primary steward of Kehilla’s land for many years, she is Kehilla’s gardener.  We got to know each other through our work with the HAC, then she left that committee to make the time to create Sacred Land. She created a shift, caring for this spiritual, communal space in a spiritual, communal fashion and reached out to people she knew were “plant people’ to invite us in. Her grounded vision, and warmth, combined with the allure of knowledge exchange with the deeply experienced members of this group compelled me to join that as well.  It’s the newest Committee at Kehilla.  We are examining and implementing ways to sanctify the outdoor portions of Kehilla’s space.

Do you see a connection between the efforts of those two groups?  Yes. Corrina Gould, in her immense graciousness, refers to non-Native people in the Bay Area as guests. She speaks of the pain of seeing guests suffering on this land. We can be better guests by taking care of our fellow guests, as well as Native people unhoused on their own land. Consciously stewarding the land, or in Jewish terms, being shomrei adamah, is profoundly needed at this time in history as well.

The efforts of moving obstacles for people in unhoused conditions to have their needs met - from the practical to the political - and healing the land by replanting Kehilla, (Sausal Creek, my own garden, the homeless encampment on 41st, the American Indian Healing Center, wherever I can) with Native plants, are some of the ways I’m working on being a better guest.

What do you like most about your teams? I’m so glad for this chance to mention what a bunch of mentchen we have on these Committees!  Lovely people, thoughtful, goodhearted, generous, smart and kind.  Different generations, levels of observance, orientations/identities, united by our desire to pursue housing for all (HAC), and right relationship with the land(SL). These are really great people to be in the struggle with, come check us out!

How could the Kehilla community best support or get involved with your teams? We want everyone to know that working with the Homeless Action Committee can look a lot of different ways.  Regardless of what your limitations may be (temporal, physical or mental), we have ways for you to plug in.  If you only have an hour a month, we are very happy to give you a meaningful task for that hour.  If you are not able to physically sort or distribute clothes, or emotionally/mentally you are not up for working in the streets, you can still make a huge difference with the housing crisis.  We’d love help with advocacy work e.g. research, attending a coalition meeting virtually, many other options.

The Sacred Land Committee welcomes all. You don’t need to be able to physically garden, people with any set of abilities do, and can, participate impactfully.  We invite you to join us in deepening our relationship to this land through learning, gardening, hosting events that are ecologically & Jewishly focused.  Come join us and add your special beauty to our metaphorical and literal garden!

Do you have any special relationship with clergy here? I am so blessed to learn from the amazing leaders of our community! What Rabbi Burt has taught and has built has expanded my mind and heart, inspired me in innumerable ways and made a spiritual home for me. As a patrilineal Jew, to have a place I feel wholly accepted is a gift I am profoundly grateful for. Rabbi David is the one who I think of as “Rebbe” or ‘my Rabbi” because he knew my beloved Dad, he officiated my marriage, my daughter’s naming ceremony and Bat Mitzvah. His consciousness and his conscience have illuminated and guided so much for me.  I am amazed by Rabbi Dev’s wisdom, centeredness, and great sense of humor! I was delighted to learn from Rabbi Sam, endlessly patient and upbeat. And while no longer serving, Rabbi Gray has my enduring gratitude for navigating the b’nei mitzvah program in the first year of the pandemic when my daughter came of age. Ore Ganin Pinto was a lifeline of grounded wisdom as my daughter’s primary teacher, having Ore part of our lives at that time was a critical piece of our spiritual survival of the pandemic.  I’m ecstatic to see Ore on the bimah more, bringing such music! What a team! I’ve already written about how impactful the lay leadership has been to me, a treasure. And then there are the people disguised as staff, but actually spiritual exemplars, Natalie Boskin, Dee Ward, Fred Williamson. Red was a wonderful role model and caregiver for my kids, so happy to see Red on the education team, a group I hope to get to know better.

Were you raised as an observant Jew? Nope! I’m mixed, and according to many sects of Judaism, it’s the wrong mix (I’m getting an image of Mr. Potato Head…). I was raised with both Chanukah and xmas, Passover and Easter.  But when I was 10 years old, separated from my Jewish side of the family, going to a school with no other Jewish kids, I decided to make a seder by and for myself.  I wrote a one-person show about that and other early experiences with religion, No Man’s Land, directed by the late great Corey Fischer, z”ll. I attended Chabad in Berkeley with my Dad during the time I would have become Bat Mitzvah, so that didn’t happen. As a young person I never attended any b’nei mitzvot but I did get to be in other coming of age ceremonies, as a dama in two quinceaneras.

You mentioned you’re starting a small business, teaching Jewish ethno-whatnow? Ethnobotany. I love to study about the relationship between nature and Jewish communities in different times and places. It’s been a real balm in this painful time to lead groups in learning about our plant practices, generating Jewish joy and investigating ancestral practices for enduring and thriving in hard times.

Here’s a concrete example: in the first week of the war I began teaching a series on Jewish Magic through the Aquarian Minyan, with the marvelous Rabbi Jonathan Seidel.  I shared what we know about traditional Ashkenazi baking cures, like when a baby was sick, the Mother would write a prayer, bake it into the challah, and give the challah to the poor. Moved by the beauty of that practice of the past and the despair of now, my modern version was to begin baking my weekly challot in the shape of peace signs, which I shared with our friends at Wood Street.  I also baked a few of something I am thinking of as ‘peace cake’.  Along with lemon to uplift the spirit and poppy boiled in milk in the Ukrainian fashion, to calm the nerves, I include 5* pieces of edible rice paper on which I use edible ink pens for writing “salaam” in Arabic, “shalom” in Hebrew and three pictures of peace symbols. *5 is the number of protection in Judaism (think hand of Miriam/Fatima/Hamsa).

I have enjoyed so many great experiences this year on this vast topic, from editing and writing in Naomi Spectors’ new book The Jewish Book of Flowers to teaching about herbal approaches to Passover in person at Urban Adamah, and getting to be part of a national conversation about culturally relevant gardening for kids through Kids in Gardening. Creating a DEIB team for the Northern California Herbalist Symposium with my friends Aya deLeon, Shereel Washington and Susannah Mackintosh, generating more cultural offerings, mine being bringing Shabbat, Havdalah and Jewish ethnobotany to a dominantly white, Gentile, rural, wonderful gathering. Closest to my heart has been the time spent with the elders of Cafe Europa (a group for Shoah survivors facilitated by JCFS), documenting their memories of plant use in the Old World. I just co-taught a class about infusing oils for Chanukah with symbolically significant plants and oils, and will be at Chadeish Yameinu in January for Tu b’Shvat. If any of that sort of thing sounds interesting to you, drop me a line at jewishherbalist@gmail.com, and I’ll put you on my mailing list.

I’m part of the organizing team for the Sacred Land’s first Tu b’Shvat seder at Kehilla, we’d love to see you all there! Save the date, the afternoon of January 21, 2024.

What do/have you done outside of Kehilla? Momming, mitzvot and teaching are what my life is about now. In addition to teaching grown-ups about Jewish plant history, in the summertime I am the science specialist for a wonderful preschool in East Oakland. I spent 28 years in live theatre, 18 of them at the Lawrence Hall of Science, in their Science Discovery Theatre department.  That meant I got to perform for short people in the day and taller people at night with a variety of groups, doing Greek tragedy with Shotgun Players and giant street theatre with Wise Fool Puppet Intervention, dancing at the Yerba Buena Center and singing with the San Francisco Opera.   

What are you most proud of in terms of the committees you are a part of? The growth of the Homeless Action Committee, in terms of membership, scope and impact. The incredible dedication of all HAC members during the eviction process of Wood Street. While the process revealed unspeakable layers of tragedy, I am honored to have been trusted by two pregnant women in unhoused conditions to help them to the best of my, terribly limited, ability. The history - the insightful activist Jeanne Finberg and amazing organizer Sue Greenwald saw the opportunity to support Talya Husbands-Hankin and reached out to the EJC who helped them get set up, with the constant logistical support of Alex Madonik. The group’s guiding light. If someone came up to me and said “You know one of the lamed vovniks*, who is it?” I wouldn’t hesitate a second before I said Talya. Her work is epically inspirational. Proud we all get to learn from her. *36 tzaddikim in each generation on whose existence the world depends

 

Minor victories - the day Jeanne and I worked together to get someone a trailer to live in, or the time Wood Street got three more months of delay for eviction.  That happened because of the powerful testimony of an unhoused advocate we have worked with closely, John Janosko.  But he was in the hospital and didn’t have a computer. I got to bring him mine to use and just show him how to operate Zoom, he did everything else.  It was a thrill to be able to, as Talya says, “weaponize privilege” to create access to the political process for such a dedicated and impassioned leader.

Major learning opportunities - watching Catherine Lyons evaluate the health of a Mother and baby with a singular glance and un-invasive question.  Coming to understand how much power there is in the quieter, subtle approaches of people like Elena Moser, Jon Ransohoff, Simon Gertler, Brandon Vesely. Taking in the practical powerhouse efficiency of Susan and Barry Stock. Most revealing of all ha been unpeeling the layers of individual judgment imposed on people without homes, to see the systemic processes and effects of late stage capitalism that create the housing crisis,

The Sacred Land Committee is new, so I believe the best is yet to come, and yet there is already much to kvell over.  A well attended, effective fundraiser (both for Kehilla and the presenter) about where our water comes from, we replaced non-Native weeds with Native grasses & did a major cleanup of the parking area, and benefited from a deep learning session with JOOL.  

What do you identify as? Mother & Married, Environmentalist. Feminist. Bi-sexual. Educator and Jewish Ethnobotanist, Performing artist. Pollyanna. Jewish full stop. And also Patrilineally Jewish/British Isles mutt, (6th great granddaughter of John Parker, who fired the first shot of the American Revolution). Nerd.