The Jewish Bay Area,
mapped the way
a Jew would map it.
A mohel in Berkeley. A mikvah in Palo Alto. Shmurah matzah in Napa. The minyan nearest your hotel on Tuesday morning. We catalogued every piece of Jewish life in Northern California — organized by region, not by PR budget — and we wrote down why each one matters.
A synagogue, a mikvah, a Jewish school — near you.
Enter a city or zip, pick a radius, and we'll map the closest matches from our directory.
Not a phone book.
A compass.
Jewish directories are usually alphabetical lists of who paid to be listed. This one is organized by what you are actually trying to do — bris, burial, bakery, bar mitzvah — and it tells you why that thing matters before it tells you whom to call.
Region-first
Pick San Francisco, East Bay, South Bay, North Bay, Sacramento, or Other NorCal — everything below resizes to what's actually near you.
Every listing, reviewed
Approved, Chabad, Pending, or Listed-without-Endorsement — each entry is labeled so you know what editorial stamp it carries.
Educational at heart
Before the listings, the reason. Every category explains why this matters in Jewish life — so the directory teaches, not just directs.
New to the vocabulary? See the glossary — Shul, Mikvah, Bris, Frum, and ~70 other terms this site uses.
Where do you actually live?
Set your region once and every page reshapes to you. Tourists and guests: pick the region you'll be in.
Every corner of Jewish life,
mapped.
From the mohel who circumcised you to the Chevra Kadisha that will bury you, and everything in between. Each chapter opens with its own educational note.
We say approved.
We mean it.
This directory is Chabad-forward. The default point of contact for most lifecycle questions — a baby naming, a bar mitzvah, an end-of-life call — is your local Chabad Rabbi. Every region on this site resolves to a specific Chabad house with a specific rabbi you can call.
Beyond Chabad, we list approved frum non-Chabad options when they exist: the Vaad's certified caterer, the Orthodox day school across the county line, the RCC-guided conversion. Each gets a label — Approved, Chabad, or Listed without endorsement — so you know the editorial stamp behind every entry.
When we don't yet have a listing for something we should — a birth-support network, a shochet in the South Bay, a kosher assisted-living facility — we say so. Gaps on this site are signal, not failure. If you can help fill one, tell us.
All of Israel are responsible for one another. — Shevuot 39a