Feinstein, a ‘proud member’ of her synagogue, to be buried privately at Jewish cemetery
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leans on the casket of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as she lies in state at San Francisco City Hall on Oct. 4, 2023. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Beth Harpaz October 5, 2023
The list of mourners at services for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein includes a rabbi from one of the oldest and largest congregations in the U.S., which is also the shul where she went to Sunday school as a child.
Rabbi Jonathan Singer from Congregation Emanu-El is expected to be in attendance at both the livestreamed service Thursday afternoon outside San Francisco City Hall and at the private graveside service in nearby Colma.
Singer called Feinstein a “proud member” of the Reform congregation. “She didn’t just come on High Holidays,” he said in a phone interview with the Forward minutes before the funeral service began. “She would come at different times to connect with our community. She cared deeply about the temple.”
The synagogue’s emerita cantor, Roslyn Barak, was also scheduled to take part in the service. “The senator just loved her singing,” the rabbi said.
Singer said they planned to recite the 23rd Psalm “and talk about her being a woman of valor who showed us how to comfort San Francisco when it was in need, and how to be courageous and stand up for justice and help us find our love of democracy, even when, sometimes as a nation, we walked through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Arrangements for the funeral were being handled by Sinai Memorial Chapel, which was founded in 1901, and like Congregation Emanu-El, which dates to 1850, is a historic part of the Bay Area’s Jewish community.
Feinstein will be buried in one of several Jewish cemeteries in Colma, about 10 miles from San Francisco. The precise location for her burial was not disclosed. Her second husband, Bertram Feinstein, who died in 1978, was buried in Colma’s Hills of Eternity Memorial.
Feinstein died Sept. 29 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 90, after three decades in the Senate. She was San Francisco’s first woman mayor, and in 1992, became one of the first two Jewish women elected to the U.S. Senate. (The other was Barbara Boxer, also from California.)
Her Jewish heritage
Feinstein’s father was Jewish and her paternal grandfather, a Polish immigrant, helped found several synagogues in California. Her mother’s family, although ethnically Jewish, attended a Russian Orthodox church, according to the Jewish Women’s Archive, which also said she graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic high school in San Francisco. But she also attended Sunday school at Congregation Emanu-El, and her parents let her choose her religion. She chose Judaism because, she said, she “liked its simplicity and directness.”
Lying in state — in her city
Politicians and ordinary folks alike streamed through San Francisco City Hall’s rotunda Wednesday to view Feinstein’s flag-covered casket lying in state. No official explanation has been offered for why the viewing took place in her hometown, rather than in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. But many considered it proper given how tragic events at City Hall marked a pivotal moment early in her career. It was Feinstein, then president of the city’s Board of Supervisors, who found Supervisor Harvey Milk’s body after he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978. She announced the news of the killings and then took over as the city’s mayor.
A memorial service on the City Hall steps was scheduled to be livestreamed Thursday beginning at 1 p.m. PT (4 p.m. ET). That service is expected to air live on some cable channels and will also stream on the city’s official YouTube channel.
High-profile mourners
The funeral was originally planned as a public event at the city’s Herbst Theater but those plans were changed due to unspecified “increased security concerns.” Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to speak at the memorial. President Joe Biden will not attend but mourners will hear a recording of his remarks.
Other expected guests include New York’s Sen. Chuck Schumer, San Francisco’s U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, former California Gov. Jerry Brown and the state’s incumbent governor, Gavin Newsom, along with U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, who was appointed by Newsom to fill out Feinstein’s Senate term. Pelosi and Feinstein’s granddaughter, Eileen Mariano, are also expected to speak.
Feinstein said that early in her political career, she received “hate mail” for being Jewish. “I’ve had graffiti on my home, Stars of David and religious and sexist slurs painted on the walkway,” a 1990 article in the Jewish Bulletin quoted her as saying, “and I just go out and take them off.”
A banner with Feinstein’s photo and the words, “Emanu-El mourns the loss of Senator Dianne Feinstein, 1933-2023,” was prominently displayed at the top of Congregation Emanu-El’s website. The Forward’s editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, will be in conversation with Rabbi Singer at the synagogue on Oct. 12 on the topic of “Jewish Journalism: New Realities.”
In his interview with the LA Times, Singer said he liked to believe that some of Feinstein’s “clear-eyedness when it came to being able to stand up to injustice came from her background in the values of Jewish life.”
Correction: This version of the story has been updated with the correct time for the livestreamed funeral service and to show that the cantor is retired.
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