This a eel
For Openers
House With A History
GAIL ZIMMERMAN
Arts & Entertainment Editor
San Francisco
nyone who has been grocery shopping has
probably noticed S&W canned vegetables or
MJB coffee sitting on the shelves of the local
supermarket. There is a very interesting history
behind those products — of pioneering, Jewish families
who settled in San Francisco after the mid-19th century
California gold
rush and went
<>4
on to transform
E their adopted
city.
• I learned their
§ story on a recent
-''s-trip to San
Francisco, when
I toured the
Haas-Lilienthal
House, the city's
only Queen
Anne Victorian
open to the pub-
lic for tours.
Built in 1886
by William
Haas, the 24-
room, 71/2-bath
residence was
home to three
generations of
the same family
The Haas-Lilienthal House
before it was
in San Francisco.
donated to San
Francisco
Architectural Heritage, a foundation dedicated to the
preservation of historic structures.
Born in Bavaria in 1849, William His sailed for New
York City at age 16 with an older brother, and made his
way to San Francisco three years later to work with a cousin
at a grocery firm.
By 1897, when the firm incorporated and the "City by
the Bay" was not yet 50 years old, William became the
company's first president. At first, the enterprise supplied
A
-
fresh foods to the burgeoning San Francisco population.
Then, in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake — when the
Haas home was spared any major damage — the family
went into the canning business, achieving great success.
William had married Bertha Greenebaum, also of
Bavarian descent, in 1880 (his older brother had wed the
sister of another Bavarian immigrant, a never-married blue
jeans entrepreneur named Levi Strauss). William and Bertha
had three children: Florine, who married Edward
Brandenstein (later Bransten), a partner at MJB, the coffee,
tea and rice importer; Charles, who married Fanny Stern,
daughter of Jacob Stern. the second president of the Levi
Strauss Co.; and Alice, who married Samuel Lilienthal.
When William Haas died in 1916, Alice and Samuel
Lilienthal moved into the house to live with Mrs. Hans, and
raised their three children — Ernest, Elizabeth and Frances
— there. Alice Lilienthal lived in the home until her death
in 1972, when the home was turned over to the architectur-
al heritage foundation. _
The home — in stark contrast to the immigrant tene-
ments of New York's Lower East Side — typifies for visitors
the lifestyle of a successful, assimilated, upper-middle-class
mercantile family.
The Haas-Lilienthal family welcomed the non-Jewish
members of San Francisco society to its roomy — but cer-
tainly not showy — home, but the family's rabbi also was a
frequent visitor.
The descendants of this extended family — comprising
the titans of San Francisco's Jewish mercantile community
— continue as the primary benefactors of the city's cultural
jewels. Their support of secular, as well as Jewish institu-
tions, has played a major part in the development of San
Francisco into a world-class city.
Before the home was opened to the public, the
Lilienthals' youngest daughter, Frances, who is still living,
insisted that the dining room chairs — threadbare from
years of family dinners — receive new needlepoint covers.
A plaque in the breakfast room lists the needle-pointers; it
reads like a "who's who" of Jewish San Francisco. 0
I EN110 THIS MOMStJT!
I EN1oy THIS PAW
emue
THIS WORLD)
I ENI0g- 000F/
v.
Ni-v"1
o, Fuad and Gandhi are not
the names of Eastern mystics.
They are the nicknames of
Israeli politicians. Can you
identify them?
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Tazatlg uag inw-efuag
Hauls' Jo auiumplu Dip sT punj :Jamstry
aapaTow aip Jo Japual
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Yiddish Limericks
There once was a fella named Fritz
Who stayed far too long in the shvitz.*
They say that it seemed
He really got steamed,
And melted away fun de hitz.**
— Martha Jo Fleischmann
* (short for shvitzbad) steambath
** from the heat
Quotables
"It certainly demonstrates an incompre-
hensible insensitivity."
— Malcolm Hoenlein, executive
vice-chairman of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, on plans to build a resort
at the Eagle's Nest, Adolf Hitler's
Austrian Alpine hideaway.
"PEOPCE WERE NOT BROUGHT
(A)To TH 15 A.)oRi_p To EN Jo
THEMSELVES`,.. A. CON EZRA
EN J - 0
SOME ASPIRIN
RIGHT NOW
Zr
By Goldfein
•
GRAPEJEWZ .Mendei
HEAR Mg WORLD! I
Et ■ ITOM LIFE AND ALL
OF ITS 1346SSWGS!
LEPV'cha
Don't Enow "01
"My mother still can't believe Jews want
to live there; she thinks it's horrible.
Her friends won't even stop over in
Germany as tourists."
— Valerie Davis, daughter of a Moroccan
Jew, leader of the European Center
for Jewish Leadership in Paris
and part of a movement stressing
that European Jewry is alive and well,
even in Germany, as quoted
by the Forward.
tri a;;:61
8/3
2001
7