They Rang the Bells for 20 Minutes

Rita Semel, 2nd from right, at MLK Day celebration 2014. San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 2014

A great passed away this week. Rita Roher Semel was my great aunt. She was also the great-great aunt for my kids. And she was a quiet but great leader for justice, compassion, and interfaith understanding. Auntie Rita died this week at the age of 104 1/2 (because the half is important when you’re 104 years old) in San Francisco, her home for 80 years.

She was great in so many ways. There are about a million articles written about Rita Semel, but here are the threads and knots that are part of our family fabric. She was born in The Bronx in 1921. She followed her older sister, my grandmother, Miriam, to Barnard College at the age of 16. She came out to San Francisco in the 40s, with her husband Max (whom she married within weeks of meeting him, shortly before he was shipped off to Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion). Her first job was as a “copy boy” for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she had the opportunity to attend the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco. She turned her copy boy experience into becoming a reporter and associate editor for San Francisco’s Jewish newspaper and then later joined the staff of the Jewish Community Relations Council as Associate Director. Mind you, this was all at a time where working mothers were simply not a thing. Despite having two children, Elisabeth and Jane, a few years after coming to San Francisco, she had work to do in the world, largely based on her observations of the Jim Crow South while she and Max lived on an army base in Mississippi shortly after WWII. In 1970, tragedy struck - Jane died at the age of 18 in a freak accident. I became intimately tied to this tragedy when I was born six years later and was given Jane as my middle name.

Rita went on to become the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council and “retired” in the late 1980s. I say “retired” because she was at least as busy after she retired as she was before. In the wake of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area she worked with religious leaders across faiths to found the San Francisco Interfaith Council as well as the United Religions Initiative. She served on countless boards after she retired, finishing her final board and commission roles just a few years ago at over 100 years old. (Yes, she even figured out how to do Zoom meetings through the pandemic.) She had a dizzying social life, really up until the end - she was apparently at a gala a week ago, just before her mercifully quick demise. For years, we were more likely to get her answering machine than her when calling to say hi or schedule a visit, thanks to her packed calendar of dinners, committee and board meetings, and convenings. 

Rita was also my GREAT aunt. She took me to the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker performance every year starting when I was 5, with very few exceptions. It became an annual family affair to the point that in recent years, my now teenage/young adult children have started to ask about going on our own even when it became difficult for her to attend. I had overnights with her, attended the occasional Catholic Charities or United Way board meeting as her tagalong, and later explored many San Francisco museums with her, Andy, and our kids. When our kids were young during our visits to her apartment, they would periodically entertain themselves by running around her apartment counting all of her awards. The last count I remember was around 25, though I suspect that was an undercount - at a certain point, she presumably had to start stashing some of her many awards in closets. Much to her chagrin (she was unbelievably humble), award ceremonies for her served as routine family gathering opportunities, usually attended by multiple clergy members from every faith.

Before sharing the kind words Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi shared on the House floor on Thursday, I will close with two stories I heard yesterday at her burial. A dear friend of Rita’s shared that she had just lunch with Rita last Friday where Rita mentioned that she was bored and wanted to think of ways that seniors who couldn’t volunteer anymore could be helpful - she was looking for ways to improve the world days before she died. Perhaps most reflective of her life’s work - interfaith dialogue - when word came of her passing, Grace Cathedral, the center of the Episcopal Dioceses in San Francisco, rang their cathedral bell 104 times for each of her 104 years. It took 20 minutes to complete all of the rings - all for an indomitable Jewish woman, less than 5 feet tall who insisted that everyone should be heard.

Nancy Pelosi Pays Tribute to Trailblazer Rita Semel on House Floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uRdC6OUGoU

Zichronam livracha - may her memory be a blessing.