And You Shall Love the Stranger: Mobilizing Our Community for Refugees
Congregation B’nai Jehudah followed a multi-pronged approach, seeking to impact the community through education, the broader non-Jewish community through education and advocacy, and the refugee community itself through support.
Community Contact Information
The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah
Overland Park, KS
Goals
- Educate the Jewish and general communities of Kansas Cities about refugees and refugee resettlement
- Advocate for continued refugee resettlement in the Kansas City area
- Support local refugees
Partnerships
- Jewish Vocational Services
- Catholic Charities
- Della Lamb
- KC for Refugees
- Individual refugee families
- Two state representatives
- HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
Implementation
January 2016
Board makes unanimous commitment to education, advocacy and support
Congregation B’nai Jehudah (CBJ) endorses a petition to Missouri Governor
Rabbis and President sign a refugee support letter to Kansas Governor
February 2016
B’nai Jehudah joins the HIAS Welcome Campaign
May 2016
B’nai Jehudah is a founding supporter of KC for Refugees
June 2016
Rabbi Kirzane represents B’nai Jehudah at a Global Table and World Refugee Day; these events are hosted by Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), a local resettlement agency
July 2016
CBJ strategy session to outline the following six months of refugee programming
August 2016
Rabbi Kirzane teaches on refugee resettlement at Day of Discovery (local Limmud-style program of community learning)
September 2016
Yom Kippur sermon dedicated to educating about refugee resettlement supplemented with afternoon study session giving more background information plus hands-on tips and tools for how to advocate for refugees in our area
Rabbi Kirzane and a lay activist from the community co-teach an elective in our middle/high school religious school program on refugees
October 2016
Su-coat Drive for Refugees
November 2016
Refugee Resettlement Forum Co-sponsored with JVS
December 2016
Annual religious school “Mitzvah Marketplace” welcomes JVS as a new agency
February 2017
Refugee Birthday Party
May 2017
CBJ hosts a New Roots for Refugees in Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), pairing our community with a local refugee family
Results
- Support: Hundreds of coats collected and distributed. Hundreds of refugees celebrated with a birthday party.
- Advocacy: More than 100 community members informed about refugee resettlement. Opinions shared and discussed in the local Jewish newspaper. Kansas City highlighted by HIAS for refugee work.
- Education: Important partnerships forged with Jewish Vocational Services, KC For Refugees, and other related groups (Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom, Catholic Charities, Della Lamb, First Baptist Church of Blue Springs, and more). Email list of forty interested community members maintained. Dozens educated in synagogue classes offered for children and adults. More than 1000 reached through sermons on the topic.