Judy Gold Bloom

1944 - 2025

Judy Gold Bloom
12/14/1944 - 01/08/2025
Judith Gold Bloom embraced a life of exploration, teaching and giving back to others with voracious commitment, devoting herself to the Jewish value of Tikkun olam, repairing the world – whether through helping women transition back to the workplace, advocating for peace in the Middle East or teaching young children how to swim in between chemotherapy treatments.
Judy was born in Chicago on Dec. 14, 1944, to Marvin and Sophye Gold, who instilled in their children a deep appreciation of embracing people from different cultures. From the earliest age, Judy had a drive to help others. When she was five, she taught her four-year-old brother Norm how to read to give him a head start on kindergarten. The family later moved to Sacramento, where she met her future husband, Jordan Bloom, through Jewish youth group.
After graduating summa cum laude from UC Berkeley, Judy taught French and Spanish to middle school students. When her three children were young, she began a lifetime of service volunteering at a dizzying array of organizations – in many cases, in a leadership role – including ORT America, the League of Women Voters, Shalom Bayit, the San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women, the Peninsula Jewish Community Center, Peninsula Temple Beth El and the Jewish Community Relations Council.
"If nothing else, I have lived my life committed to help bringing justice – fairness-righteousness to the world – most particularly by helping those who are not as fortunate," Judy wrote in 2008 in an ethical will she left for her family.
In 1983, when then-Assemblywoman Jackie Speier was forming the San Mateo County Advisory Council on Women, she tapped Judy to help found the group. As chair of the council, Judy led groundbreaking hearings in which low-income women testified about the feminization of poverty. That experience propelled her back into the workforce, and when she was in her early 40s, she told her then-16-year-old son Michael that he was in charge of the family carpools going forward. She ended up spending a decade on Speier's staff, serving as her district director. "She was incredibly smart, organized and principled," said Speier, who remained a close friend after going on to serve in Congress. "She was a feminist before it was common – let alone attractive – and she put 150% into whatever it was she was doing."
Working with Speier, Judy became the founding president of the Professional BusinessWomen's Conference, a group focused on developing and mentoring women that just celebrated its 35th anniversary. She went on to serve as executive director for Resourceful Women, director of employer Services at Jewish Vocational Service and director /development officer for the Endowment Department of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation before retiring in 2010.
Once in retirement, she didn't pause for a moment, packing her life with all of her passions: flowers, cooking, travel, music and dancing to live music with Jordan. She loved flowers so much that she became a certified floral designer, served as a docent at Filoli gardens and provided gorgeous arrangements for gatherings of friends and family. She was a dedicated Torah student and got involved with the New Israel Fund and J Street, traveling to Israel and visiting the West Bank to seek ways to promote a two-state solution to end the violence in the region. Even in the final months of her life, she was volunteering to teach young children to swim and tutoring children in English and Spanish.
"She was never an old person before she was sick," said her daughter Nicole. "She would do more in a day than most people would in a month. And she did it all with values of wanting to contribute and make the world a better place."
In retirement, Judy embarked on a nonstop exploration of the world, traveling most recently to South Africa, Japan, the Balkans and France, one of her favorite places. In the fall of 2023, shortly before turning 79, she and longtime friend Ruthellen Harris traveled extensively through "the Stans," as she described the former Soviet states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. "More Americans should visit this part of the world and realize it holds important lessons from the past," she wrote in an email to family and friends.
"She felt enriched by learning other people's cultures and by sharing her culture with other people," said her son Jon. "It was all about connection with people."
Most of all, Judy was deeply devoted to her family. Every year, every relative – including far-flung grand-nieces and nephews - would receive the perfect greeting card from Judy in the mail before their birthday, like clockwork. Last spring, she traveled on a red eye between Phoenix and Chicago so she wouldn't miss the back-to-back high school graduations of two of her granddaughters, making the second one with just two hours to spare. For her 80th birthday, she had hoped to take the entire family to Mexico to celebrate.
"Family was not only a high priority, but the deepest joy," said her son Michael.
In her ethical will, Judy advised her family "to be tolerant, forgiving, to demand much of yourself but to be tolerant of others who have different belief systems, priorities, abilities and levels of energy. Be strong and steadfast; but laugh and cry – share your emotions with those you love. I hope that you value integrity - more than just telling the truth but also living what you say you believe."
She is survived by her husband, Jordan; her children Michael, Nicole and Jon; her daughters-in-law Diane, Sue and Jill; her grandchildren Miriam, Elena, Evan, Marlee and Anya; her brother Norm; and countless other relatives and dear friends who will miss her profoundly. May her memory be a blessing and inspiration to us all.
Memorial Services will be held at 1:00 pm on Sunday, Jan. 12 at Peninsula Temple Beth El located at 1700 Alameda de las Pulgas, San Mateo, CA, followed by interment at Skylawn Memorial Park at 3:00 pm at 888 Lifemark Rd, Half Moon Bay, CA.