Click MAP to locate destinations preceded by yellow numbers.

Start your day at the 1 Haas-Lilienthal House (2007 Franklin St.; 415-441-3004). Operated by the San Francisco Architectural Heritage, this stunningly preserved 1886 Queen Anne Victorian was built for William Haas, a wholesale grocer and patriarch of a family that continues to share its wealth with the community. The lavishly appointed house offers a peek at late 1800s upper middle-class Jewish tastes. Docent tours Wed. noon-3 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

2 Congregation Sherith Israel (2266 California St.; 415-346-1720) was founded April 8, 1851, along with Congregation Emanu-El. Together, they have the two longest-practicing Jewish congregations in San Francisco. The current Congregation Sherith Israel building, consecrated in 1905, was one of the few public buildings to come through the 1906 earthquake unscathed and was used briefly as a temporary city hall. A registered landmark, the temple's entrance has a massive stepped arch that curves above a twelve-cusped rose window. One stained glass window of the sanctuary depicts Jewish themes against a backdrop of the American West, Yosemite's Half Dome.

3 The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (3200 California St.; 415-346-6040) is the oldest Jewish Community Center on the West Coast. Its three-story building was built in 1932. This beehive of services and resources buzzes with programs designed to preserve Jewish life. Open to all.

4 Congregation Emanu-El (2 Lake St.; 415-751-2535) was founded April 8, 1851. Its Reform congregation observed Bavarian customs. The current temple, consecrated in 1927, was named the finest piece of architecture in Northern California by the American Institute of Architects. Its Near Eastern look is based on a fusion of Byzantine-Roman and early medieval traditions. Enter the temple through the courtyard, which features a fountain embellished with mosaic trim. The main focus of the temple interior is the ark, covered by a pyramidal roof supported by green columns, and a magnificent 4,500-pipe organ. The temple also houses the Jacob Voorsanger Library, a fine collection of rare works of Judaica.

The northwest corner of the city – north of Golden Gate Park and west of Park Presidio Blvd. – is the closest San Francisco can come to a Jewish neighborhood today. Home to a thriving community of mainly Russian Jews, the Jewish presence here now is anchored by the 5 Bureau of Jewish Education (639 14th Ave.; 415-751-6983) and the bureau's 6 Jewish Community Library (601 14th Ave.; 415-751-6983). The 30,000-volume library is a repository for anything in print that touches on Jewish content from religion to trash fiction. Closed Fri., Sat., holidays. Downstairs is the 7 Holocaust Center of Northern California (601 14th Ave.; 415-751-6735), a paean amid the pain of Holocaust memories. Dedicated to all things Holocaust, the center is a resource that is unequaled north of the Tehachapis. Its 500-volume Yizkor book collection, documenting life in the vanquished Jewish communities of Europe, is two-thirds of all such memorial books in existence and invaluable to genealogical researchers. The collection includes rare books, first editions and out-of-print volumes, from minutiae to the monumental.

Also "out on the avenues" and open 6 a.m.-6 p.m. daily is the 8 House of Bagels (5030 Geary Blvd.; 415-752-6000), offering 14 flavors of bagels – including jalapeño – with seven different spreads, and hamentoshin cookies year round plus pastry ones for Purim. Urban reality is that neighborhoods change; a glance across the street from the House of Bagels at a trio of Asian eateries tells the story.

George Segal's 9 "Holocaust Memorial" in Lincoln Park, a powerful sculpture that was controversial when installed in 1984, continues to evoke anguish. It depicts emaciated bodies in a heap. A prison-garbed figure stands nearby, his back to the horror, staring in wistful irony out at the entrance to San Francisco Bay.

Precious metals mogul Adolph Sutro, of the legendary Comstock Lode fame, bought about 100 acres at the northwest edge of San Francisco in the 1880s, including a bluff overlooking the Cliff House and Seal Rock. There he built a mansion and gardens with abundant statuary and fountains, a railway, and a saltwater bathhouse adjoining the Cliff House. A popular destination at the turn of the century, by the 1930s Sutro Baths had closed and the gardens had fallen into ruins. Fire later destroyed the mansion and the bathhouse. The National Park Service took over both properties and has been gradually restoring and revitalizing them. 10 Sutro Heights Park offers a spectacular view of the ocean around the Cliff House and Ocean Beach to the south (end of Point Lobos Ave.; 415-556-8642).

Temple Emanu-El

Haas-Lilienthal House

Courtyard of Temple Emanu-El

George Segal's "Holocaust Memorial" in Lincoln Park