Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Donate to Myanmar Disaster Fund.JRF is an ongoing coalition member of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief (JCDR) during times of natural disaster and human suffering in the world.

AS UJC's overseas partner, the JDC has opened an emergency mailbox to raise relief funds for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated portions of Myanmar on May 3.

Read the JCDR Mayanmar Cyclone Situation Report.

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 pm, Eastern Daylight Time

Click here to register for this and other PEARL: Providing Education And Resources for Leadership tele-conference sessions.

Processes and Programs in our Congregations; Taking Action in the Larger World; Living our Values of Tikkun Olam Inside and Outside.

This call will explore best practices for creating committees and buy-in for effective social justice work in our congregations, including integrated youth and adult education and tikkun programming, as well as service-learning, decision-making and advocacy outside our communities.

When: Sunday, May 18
Where: Bet Am Shalom Synagogue, 295 Soundview Avenue, White Plains, New York

Cantor Benjie SchillerCantor Benjie Ellen Schiller, cantor of Bet Am Shalom synagogue in White Plains, NY, will give a rare recital performance on Sunday, May 18.

The program, “Life Song Cycle - A musical reflection on the journey of our lives,” will include her own compositions and works of other Jewish composers. A dessert reception will follow the concert. Admission is $36 for adults and $18 for students and children under eighteen.

This week's Omer Study Packet on hunger and poverty highlights teachings from the 2006 JRF Omer Study and from our partners at Mazon: A Jewish Repsonse to Hunger and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA).

Especially time-sensitive is the action alert on the 2007-2008 Farm Bill, currently making its way through Congress.

We also feature innovative programming from JRF congregations Dorshei Derekh, Mishkan Shalom and Darchei Noam.

When: Sunday, May 4th, 10 - 11:30 am
Where: Mishkan Shalom Synagogue, 4101 Freeland Avenue, Philadelphia

Tamar KamionkowskiLisa Kelvin TuttleThe Mishkan Shalom library committee's Third Annual "One Book Mishkan" series — drawn from the themes related to Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible — will host its ever popular panel discussion this weekend. This year's panel is convened by biblical scholar S. Tamar Kamionkowski, Ph.D., and Lisa Kelvin Tuttle.

Donna KirshbaumIsaac SaposnikTwo future Reconstructionist rabbis are profiled in the Forward among 11 up-and-coming Jewish leaders to watch. Both will graduate this June from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

Read more to learn about them.

JRF member community "Chapel Hill Kehillah" of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has helped launch a chapter of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to do the work of Congregation-Based Community Organizing (CBCO). Their first event, Sunday, April 27th was a successful, powerful and inspiring event.

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/front/story/14211.html

"We had hoped for founding member commitments from 14 organizations and churches and 170 attendees. By the end of the evening we had 250+ people and 29 organizations making founding member commitments and over $19,000 . As the article states, it was a truly historic event here in Orange County. Thanks to JRF for all the encouragement."

L’shalom,
Rabbi Jen Feldman
Chapel Hill Kehillah

For further resources on CBCO work see www.jrf.org/cbco

From constructing new buildings out of recycled materials, to installing a compact-fluorescent ner tamid, to joining together in song, JRF congregations are engaged in protecting their natural environment, reducing their carbon footprint, and ensuring a inheritance for those who come after them.

In partnership with COEJL and JCPA, our hope is to motivate and educate our congregations in sustainable practices, with the goal of reaching 100 percent participation in the years ahead. Building upon the resolution on the environment passed by JRF in 1990, our movement continues to labor towards facilitating a globally sustainable approach to living in faith community.

During this second week of Omer teaching, we are highlighting these many environmental sustainability initiatives taking place ...

Register Online Now
The Salute To Israel Parade, the single largest gathering in the world in support of Israel, will celebrate the milestone 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel on June 1 on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

During our first week of Omer teaching, we are highlighting the efforts and energy within our congregations engaged in congregation-based community organizing (CBCO). As you read through it feel free to add comments on this page about your own experiences in community organizing or use the listserve or web page to ask questions.

Below as an attachment, you will find a PDF resource packet and the recording from our Community Organizing and Congregational Advocacy - PEARL tele-conference call, featuring:

• Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for JRF
• Shuli Passow, CBCO consultant for the Jewish Funds for Justice
• Rabbi Steve Carr Reuben, Kehillat Israel, CA
• Kathy Kaufman and Irene Zipper, Chapel Hill Kehillah, NC
• John Goldstein and David Weingrod, Shir Hadash, WI

For more information, please contact Rabbi Shawn Zevit at JRF, 215-885-5601 x 24.

From Seedtime to Harvest:
From the values and spirit of tikkun to community building and sustained action

Beginning on the eve of the second day of Pesach, we are instructed by our tradition to count the days of the “Omer” until the fiftieth day, which is when the first barley crop would be harvested. It is also the Jewish holiday of Shavuot when, according to our tradition, the Jewish People received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The counting of the Omer is a bridge between Pesach and Shavuot – between a moment of liberation and a moment of self-definition and direction at the beginning of our evolution as a religious civilization. It is an opportunity to deepen our study and close the gap between ideas and action for the tikkun (rebalancing, repair) of the challenges we face in our world.

Boaz Grabs the BreadI've written an article on my blog about my experience searching for chametz (leaven -- the forbidden stuff on Passover). Here is an excerpt:
This year, we only recovered three pieces of the bread of the ten pieces we put out. Where are the other seven? Boaz, our cocker spaniel, is the likely culprit. We have eyewitness evidence of him downing four of the pieces. As for the other three...?

Our cocker spaniel Boaz likely claimed the other seven. You can read (or listen) to whole piece at everydayandeverynight.com.

Happy Passover.

Brant RosenKol hakavod to Rabbi Brant Rosen, rabbi of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL, for being recognized in Newsweek magazine as one of the Top Pulpit Rabbis in America.

With Rosen's leadership, JRC is gaining notoriety as "America's greenest shul" for meeting the highest standards in green building practices in its recent renovation.

Newsweek's criteria were rabbis' inspirational abilities; leadership within the congregation, denomination and the community; and skills in meeting the spiritual and personal needs of congregants.

Would you like the skills and experience to bring Jewish environmental education to your synagogue? Join congregational school teachers, activists, camp counselors, students and lay leaders from a range of denominations, backgrounds and ages at the Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education, June 2-5 at Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring, NY.

The Teva Seminar is a four-day innovative professional development opportunity for those interested in camping, gardening, environmental sustainability, Jewish education or just plain having fun.

Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 pm, Eastern Daylight Time

Click here to register for this and other PEARL: Providing Education And Resources for Leadership tele-conference sessions.

For the last two years JRF has partnered with the Jewish Funds for Justice and some of JRF's own leading rabbis and lay leaders in the field of congregation-based community organizing to help promote and develop spiritually activist communities.