About the Jewish High Tech Community
Mission
JHTC's mission is connecting the Jewish High Tech Community and its friends together to enhance our opportunities for socializing, networking and education, and giving back to the community.
We meet monthly, currently the second Tuesday of each month from 6:30 p.m. at the Fenwick & West Silicon Valley Conference Center in Mountain View.
Vision
The JHTC aims to improve the quality of life in the Silicon Valley for Jewish people working in and around technology and for the Jewish and South Bay communities more generally by improving connections among our members and their extended networks as well as exposing them to important and relevant individuals and companies. Longer term, our goal is to develop charitable and professional development programs.
Leadership
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President
Bill Lazar
Director
ArLyne Diamond
Director
Jim Codik
Past President
Neal Greenberg
Chair, Programming
Tanya Okmyansky
History
The Jewish High Tech Community has been an important part of the Silicon Valley scene since the 1980s and flourished in the run up to and during the dotcom explosion. Monthly dinner meetings were held at the old Hyatt Rickey's in Palo Alto and many friendships and business relationships were established, creating a real sense of community among Jewish techies under the wing of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley.
After the crash, though, people weren't able to be so free with donations and so the group pulled back a bit. The dinner portion was eliminated, along with the $35 fee, and meetings were cut back to every other month. Additionally, JHTC cut the formal ties to the Federation. Neal Greenberg put in a huge personal effort to keep our group going, arranging wonderful speakers six times a year including the likes of:
- Kamran Elahian, co-founder of more than half-a-dozen highly successful companies, including CAE Systems, Cirrus Logic Inc., NeoMagic Corporation and Centillium Communications, as well as one spectacular failure, Momenta
- Pete Slossberg, founder of Pete's Wicked Ale and Coco Pete's Chocolate Adventures
- Reid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn
- Ben Shelef, Spaceward Foundation
- Donna Dubinsky, co-founder, Palm Computing and Handspring
- Guy Kawasaki, Tech Evangelist extraordinaire
- Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft
- Steve Poizner, tech entrepreneur and now California Insurance Commissioner
Meeting space was generously provided by Congregation Kol Emeth and Fenwick and West.
Confusion caused a hiatus during 2005 through the early part of 2006.
JHTC relaunched in March, 2006, under the leadership of Bill Lazar when Shelley Hebert, Executive Director of the Campus for Jewish Life, made an impressive presentation on this amazing community project to a small group at Kol Emeth. Fenwick & West partner Barry Kramer graciously used one of his partner sponsorships to again make the terrific Silicon Valley Conference Center available to us again beginning with the May meeting.
Note: JHTC meetings are open to people of all faiths with no explicitly religious program components.
