Residents of San Francisco's Noe Valley and its environs, prepare yourselves. If your last name is Rosenberg or Cohen, and you haven't yet received a phone call from a friendly rabbi telling you he's new on the block and he'd like to meet you, you probably will.

California Dreaming: Portola Valley Residence Located on the San Francisco Peninsula, Portola Valley is a small town nestled between wooded hills. It sits astride the San Andreas Fault and the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Potashes are the fourth Lubavitch couple to serve as shluchim, or emissaries, in San Francisco. Rabbi Shlomo Cunin in Los Angeles, who oversees all Chabad activities in California, and Rabbi Yosef Langer, director of Chabad of S.F., decided that Noe Valley should be the next outpost for Chabad's unique brand of outreach.

That's one of the ways Lubavitch rabbis make their presence known when they arrive in a new place — by flipping through the phonebook and calling people with Jewish-sounding names at random.

And as Rabbi Gedalia Potash, wife Leah and daughter Chaya Mushka have been in their new neighborhood for just over a week, the flurry of phone calls has begun.

'Most people have heard of Chabad,' Potash said in an interview recently in the Noe Valley bed-and-breakfast where the Potashes are staying. 'And people enjoy our attitude.'

His full black beard makes Potash look older than his 24 years. During the interview, he sat the whole time with 6-month-old Chaya Mushka in his lap.

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'I tell them what we're planning, and that I hope they'll be interested, and the general response is, 'Here's my address, keep my phone number, and please keep me informed.'

As of two weeks ago, the rabbi had about 30 names. Some people responded that they already belong to a synagogue, which Potash is all too happy to hear.

'We're not here to harass people, only to help them,' he said.

The Potashes are the fourth Lubavitch couple to serve as shluchim, or emissaries, in San Francisco. Rabbi Shlomo Cunin in Los Angeles, who oversees all Chabad activities in California, and Rabbi Yosef Langer, director of Chabad of S.F., decided that Noe Valley should be the next outpost for Chabad's unique brand of outreach.

'Noe Valley is an area that has a large, young, professional community that's growing, and there's a lot of high-tech industry moving into San Francisco,' Langer said. 'We want to give them some high teaching.'

Cunin recommended Potash to Langer, he said, and the shidduch was made.

With the aid of Potash, 'We're looking forward to developing a beautiful Jewish community in Noe Valley and the surrounding area,' Langer said.

Potash said moving to the Bay Area was an offer he couldn't refuse, but not for the reasons most might think. 'San Francisco was not the main attraction for me.' Rather, he said, 'there's a large community of Jews here, and I thought our input could be well used.'

The Potashes have been waiting to serve as Lubavitch emissaries, following the wishes of its deceased leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known to Lubavitchers as the rebbe.

As a child in London, Potash grew up in a religious family, listening to the rebbe give speeches via satellite from New York. Potash recalled a story from his youth, when he and a friend built a sukkah, and wheeled it around their neighborhood. They carried a lulav (palm branch) to shake and etrog (aromatic citron) to sniff, bringing a mobile version of the harvest festival to those who might have forgotten about it.

And when he was 13, Potash used money he had saved up himself to travel to New York and meet the rebbe.

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'The rebbe inspired us to share our rich tradition with every single person, to help them to connect with their roots and give them pride in the rich tradition we have,' Potash said. 'It's not a paradox with living a normal life.'

Potash left London to do his rabbinical studies at the Lubavitch movement's yeshiva in Brooklyn, N.Y. He spent one year in Sydney, Australia, doing outreach work there. One of eight children, he has one brother serving as the Chabad emissary in Tunisia, and another is in Panama.

Leah Potash, 21, grew up in a Chabad family in Pittsburgh and has spent time in outreach programs in Melbourne, Australia, and in Malibu. One of seven children, she also has siblings distributed throughout the world, though most of them are in the United States.

After several weeks of searching, the Potashes signed a lease this week. And once they are settled, they will begin offering Hebrew, adult education and introduction to Judaism classes as well as Shabbat dinners. They also plan to start a day camp.

But in the meantime, the pair is hardly kicking back and relaxing. 'Anything the community wants, we're here to do,' the rabbi said.

Leah Potash will offer classes for women, and also teach some of the children's classes. In the past, she has talked about the Torah portion of the week and Jewish women in the Torah, and taught women to make challah. She doesn't like to lecture, preferring a casual atmosphere.

'A lot of people think women are on the back burner in Judaism, and that's not really true,' she said.

The Potashes are not daunted by the large numbers of unaffiliated Jews here. Take a recent Shabbat, for example. It was Potash's first in his new city, and he was one man short of the 10 required to make a minyan. So what did he do? He did what any Lubavitch rabbi would; he went in search of one.

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By stopping passersby in the Noe Valley streets and asking them, 'Are you Jewish?' his minyan had grown to 16 within 10 minutes.

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Not a bad start, the rabbi thinks.