A Secular Humanistic community serving those who identify with the Jewish People through family, culture and history, rather than through religion. Serving the Greater East Bay with holiday and shabbes celebrations, opportunities to express your progressive social values, and education for children, adults and families.

Our Jewish Culture School provides a broad hands-on approach to Jewish life and learning focusing on history, music, literature and ethics. JCS students cook, sing, dance and engage in heated discussions of the lessons of Jewish history. They also participate in Secular Humanistic holiday celebrations and learn cultural ways of celebrating at home. We derive progressive social messages from our studies of Jewish history and express those messages in our songs and our community service projects.

JCS culminates in a Secular Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony in which the students demonstrate what they have learned. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah preparation, consisting of a series of projects including community service, is aimed at making connections between Jewish life and the every-day interests of the students. Projects are chosen in consultation with parents, teachers, mentors and the students to reflect those interests.