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? N 4..na,a7 1. 1.1puED asuajaG Tazatlg uag inw-efuag Hauls' Jo auiumplu Dip sT punj :Jamstry aapaTow aip Jo Japual Jo QWELDIDIU a14i sT 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