In honor of Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month as well as Jewish Heritage Month, the League of Women Voters Berkeley Albany Emeryville’s DEI Team would like to highlight AAPI and Jewish Heritage events happening in the Bay Area.

An AAPI event worth visiting is The  AAPI Heritage Talk: Oakland’s Asian American Community & Treasures in Heaven, in which Dr. Russell Jeung will be speaking. Jeung is a Bay Area local himself, currently working at SF state as a professor of Asian American History as well as the co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which is a nonprofit organization that runs a center for self reported incidents of discrimination or hate towards AAPI individuals. Jeung was also named one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time Magazine. The event will be held on May 31st from 7 to 9PM at Resurrection Oakland Church, RSVP needed.

Another AAPI event you should put on your list is the AAPI Heritage Festival at St. Mark’s Square. The festival aims to uplift and celebrate the AAPI culture and heritage by featuring hula dancing, local AAPI artists as well allowing you to discover organizations committed to the empowerment and advocacy of the AAPI community. This festival is going to be held on May 26th from 12 to 3PM at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, tickets needed.

One last AAPI event to visit in the Bay is Celebrating AAPI Women brought to you by GlobalSF, a nonprofit organization which aims to help businesses thrive in northern california and all over the world. This event aims to honor women who have preserved and have built and or upheld great companies. Guest speakers include Christina LasKowski from Science & Technology Advisory Council – Silicon Valley, Papia Gambelin from United Airlines and more. The event will be held in Dynamico Space – Coworking & Office Rental in San Francisco on May 23rd from 4 to 6PM, tickets needed.

A Jewish Heritage month event happening in the Bay you should definitely visit is the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s (CJM) Jewish American Heritage Month Happy Hours. The CJM has beautiful exhibits year round, currently showing one called L’Chaim: Celebrating Our Building at 15 that spotlights the building’s unique and intriguing architectural history. The event will have fun and delicious Jewish-themed mocktails and drinks as well as brief tours, cooking demonstrations and crafts. This happy hour will be at the CJM in SF every Thursday May 2nd-30th from 4 to 5PM.

The Jewish Community Center of the East Bay is holding an Exploring Music: Jewish Composers & Jewish Influences in Classical Music event which you would not wanna miss. This event will be every Thursday in May, exploring a different Jewish composer’s work or works which have had a big impact on Jewish history. The event on May 23rd will explore Dmitri Shostakovich and the Holocaust – Symphony 13 “Babi Yar” while the one held on May 30th will explore Felix Mendelssohn – The Italian Symphony. This event is held on Zoom every Thursday from 1 to 2PM, registration needed.

These are all events celebrating and embracing our diverse Bay which are all worth a visit in the last few weeks of May!

–Yuval M.