Social Action Connections for the Synagogue
YOUTH AND ADULT PROGRAMS
Hunger and Homelessness
Maot Chittin : The tradition of contributing maot chittin or kimcha dePischa, funds for matzah, is an important one. Special Pesach or matzah funds are traditionally set up in Jewish communities to provide for the needy locally, as well as in distant Jewish communities. Congregations can set up a “Matzah Fund” in the weeks before Passover, with collected money going to families-in-need within the congregation, community, or in a selected international community. Passover can also serve as an excellent opportunity to support members of the armed services who are currently continuing the fight for freedom and justice. The Commission on Social Action has just created a resource with a number of examples of ways to support Jewish military personnel during the Passover season. Please visit www.rac.org/pubs/sos.html for more details.
“Hunger No More:” MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, with support of the Religious Action Center, created this study guide for both adults and children. It is intended to help congregations facilitate discussions regarding the issues of hunger and poverty in the developing world. The resources help congregations prepare to advocate for people worldwide who need our help.
“Virtual Grocery Store:” Create a “virtual grocery store.” Set up a large display board with pictures and prices of a variety of groceries necessary for a Seder. The items can start at $0.25, and congregants can “buy” the items for Jewish families in need at Passover time. Once all the money has been collected, the groceries are purchased and donated to poor Jewish families.
Passover at City Hall: Use Passover as motivation to call attention to local government issues or concerns. The Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) have begun a social justice ritual each year at Passover that focuses attention on the city government’s continued reduction of funding to social service programs. They believe that Passover time is no longer a period of renewal, but rather, a time of destruction, as it is the time when city and state social service budgets are slashed, and teachers, students, the homeless, the hungry, youth, the disabled, and people with AIDS begin to panic. JFREJ brings together rabbis, congregants, activists, and Jewish elected officials, labor leaders, educators, and community leaders to tie the theme of resistance to oppression, topics so basic to the Passover narrative. They gather on the steps of City Hall, perform a short play retelling the Passover in relation to the pharaohs of our day, speak about the real-life effects of the budget cuts, and walk to the offices of key elected officials to speak to them with moral outrage about proposed cuts.
"You CAN Help" Project :Synagogue members at Congregation Micah in Brentwood, TN, commit for a 3-month period to buying ONE extra can of food each time they go grocery-shopping and bringing the can to synagogue when they come to Shabbat services or Sunday School. Such a project would be very suited to beginning at Passover and continuing throughout the Omer until Shavuot. It can then be extended into a year-round project, not a one-time food drive. It is a low-maintenance, convenient project for everyone involved. Once a week, the coordinators send an email reminder to "You CAN Help" participants and other synagogue members, along with a list of the food bank's most needed items. For more information, contact projectnameless@yahoo.com.
Congregational Soup Kitchen: Allow Passover to be the impetus for the congregation to start a soup kitchen or shelter. Funds can be collected leading up to the holiday, with the soup kitchen or shelter beginning the week following Passover.
Poverty Initiative: The Commission on Social Action has a Poverty Initiative website, found at www.rac.org//pubs/poverty.html, which contains programming materials, a sample of the Reform Movement’s publications relating to poverty, recent press releases, action alerts, Jewish text resources, and a list of helpful organizations. This information can be consulted to create additional Passover programming. (See sample letter in Appendix I.) In addition, the URJ’s resolution on Confronting and Combating Poverty in the United States, adopted at the 2003 General Assembly, is available on this website along with an accompanying Q & A, which can be used to learn about policy and legislative challenges facing poor people within the context of the Reform Movement’s positions.
Immigration and Refugee Concerns
Invite a Refugee: Invite a refugee family to the congregational Seder, an individual family’s Seder, a religious school class, or a Shabbat service to speak about their experience, and share the warmth of the congregation’s hospitality.
“Exodus!”: Passover’s multiple themes can inspire an extensive, multi-faceted social action program, like the one created by Northwestern University’s Hillel. “Exodus!” which has been successful for multiple years, consisted of 40 hours (corresponding to the 40 years of wandering in the desert) worth of activities, including a walk to Chicago from Evanston. Along the way, the group stopped at different community sites to listen to speakers discuss issues affecting Tibetans in exile, Vietnamese refuges, and Black-Jewish relations. The final destination of the walk was a JCC, where the students had havdalah, sang songs, and then watched a short documentary about the Ethiopian and Soviet exodus to Israel. Following an overnight stay at the JCC, they held a “PBJAM,” which involved making sandwiches for the homeless, a viewing of the film Exodus, and a “Chocolate Seder.” Profits from the entire event benefited the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Chol HaMoed Advocacy: Using some of the resources found in the Appendices, including a sample hot-spot summary and sample letter to Congress, congregants can be encouraged to take action during Chol HaMoed Pesach (the intermediary days of the holiday). An excellent opportunity for congregation-wide advocacy would be prior to Shabbat services at the synagogue on Chol HaMoed Pesach, the Shabbat that falls during Passover.
Modern-Day Slavery
Invite an Abolitionist: Social Action chairs or rabbis can invite an abolitionist or escaped slave from such locations as Sudan and Mauritania to come and speak at an event. Many speakers are available. If a congregation would like to book a speaker, e-mail or call Jeffrey Hipp of www.iabolish.com at 1-800-884-0719 or info@iabolish.com.
Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence Seder: Reach out to Jewish victims of domestic violence during Passover. For example, the DVORA Project of Jewish Family Service of Seattle created a Domestic Violence Seder entitled A Journey to Freedom--A Passover Seder for Jewish Women Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence, in which a number of area groups and congregations joined together. A participant from Temple B’nai Torah ( Bellevue, WA) wrote: “we saw strong parallels between our ancient journey from enslavement in Egypt toward the freedom of the Promised Land and the contemporary experience of women surviving abuse. We wanted to bring together a group of women who have been fairly isolated within the Jewish community and offer them a way to draw support from each other in a meaningful Jewish context. Those who participated shared the pain and the joy of the journey to freedom. The Jewish community shared the pain that comes with recognizing that domestic violence occurs among us, and the joy of fostering a communal approach to healing.”
Chametz Donations: Once individuals and families have cleaned out the chametz from their homes, the unopened packages can be collected at the synagogue and then donated to a women’s shelter in the area.
Invite Victims to Your Seder: Contact a local women’s shelter and invite a group of residents, either Jewish or non-Jewish, to join your congregation in the celebration of redemption from oppression, which is central to the observance of Passover.
Advocacy: Using the themes of Passover to raise awareness, we can promote and support local programs to aid women who are survivors of domestic violence and work to prevent future violence. Such programs may include shelters for women and their children, counseling, legal assistance, services designed to maximize self-help for the victims of violence, and rehabilitation services for the perpetrators of violence. Advocates for victims of domestic violence might urge authorities such as police, judges, prosecutors, and crown attorneys to attend training courses on the issues of violence against women. We can support legislation at federal, state, provincial, and local levels to further address these crimes and to establish "battered woman's syndrome" as a valid legal defense.
Interfaith Relations
A Common Road to Freedom: Invite members of the African American and Jewish communities to join together for a Passover Seder, using the Haggadah entitled A Common Road to Freedom: A Passover Haggadah. The synagogue and church choirs can join together to lead songs of freedom shared by both communities, or learn each other’s music.
“Alliance for Freedom:” A Passover program bringing together Blacks and Jews can be a springboard for building deeper relations between our communities. An example of such joint programming is Central Synagogue’s ( New York, NY) “ Alliance for Freedom.” A “Joint Heritage Seder” was part of an larger project between the two communities. Outraged by increasing racial and religious intolerance, as well as social injustice and human rights violations, the Central Synagogue Social Action Committee was saddened and frustrated by the failure of the African-American and Jewish communities to work together or communicate as effectively as they might. The moment for the two communities to work in partnership presented itself in the thirty-fifth anniversary of the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, an African American and two Jewish freedom riders, who were murdered in 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Here lay an opportunity to assure that they did not die in vain. On June 15, 1999, the Central Synagogue Social Action Committee, together with the New York Metropolitan Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolence and Grace United Methodist Church, (a predominantly African-American congregation) presented Advancing the Promise, an evening of inspiration and hope. Keynote speakers Representative John Lewis (D-GA), and Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, spoke of the past, the reality of today and the need to confront racism if we are to hope for a better tomorrow. Members of the Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner families, also spoke of efforts underway to further the promise. With this inspiring beginning, Central Synagogue’s Social Action committee has undertaken a series of projects with Grace Church:
- A “Joint Heritage Seder” to tell the story of the two communities’ common experience as slaves and the common hope of redemption;
- An inter-religious celebration to honor the memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.;
- The participation of Grace Church in Central Synagogue’s annual Mitzvah Day; and
- An ongoing program of study and dialogue to build trust and faith.
The partnership between Central Synagogue and Grace Church provides a wonderful model for other congregations seeking a deep and meaningful relationship.
Black/Jewish Dialogue: Sinai Temple ( Springfield, MA) has created a series of study circles with a neighboring Black Baptist church in an effort to facilitate dialogue between the Black Christian community and the Jewish community. Passover and the common experience of slavery can serve as an excellent motivator to start a group. Members of the dialogue circle learn about each other's history, culture, liturgy, and social concerns. Many organizations can facilitate these types of dialogues, such as the local chapter of the National Council for Community and Justice (www.nccj.org).
Seder for the Children of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah: Many families and congregations host interfaith Seders that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The Shalom Center has prepared a Haggadah for use with Muslim and Jewish groups called Seder for the Children of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah. This Seder aims to connect Passover’s symbols and rituals with the continuing conflict and hope for reconciliation among the “families of Abraham,” connecting Passover with the struggles today between Israelis and Palestinians.
Idea courtesy of the Hillel Program Exchange at www.hillel.org.
More information about this type of activism can be found at www.jfrej.org.
According to the Torah (Lev. 23:15), we are obligated to count the days from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavuot, seven full weeks. This period is known as the Counting of the Omer. An omer is a unit of measure. Beginning on the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering.
A helpful guide for starting this process is Housing the Homeless: A “How-To” Manual for “One Congregation-One Home,” published by Micah House (Washington, D.C., 1992).
Information available on-line.
Contact the Jewish Family Service of Seattle at 206-861-3159 for more information. Copies of this special Haggadah are available for purchase at www.faithtrustinstitute.org.
The Haggadah is available online, from the Shalom Center.
