How do we stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons and funding terror?
End America’s reliance on foreign oil.

Last week, JRF joined several other Jewish organizations in this New York Times ad urging the US government to pursue green energy sources, and end our dependence on foreign oil that can channel funds into the hands of terrorist regimes.

Along with the ad, this petition was included. The petition is to urge US Senators to make energy security policy and climate change national priorities.

This effort was led by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

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.

Each week during JRF's annual Omer Learning Initiative, we highlight resources, teachings, and wisdom gleaned from the Reconstructionist movement and our organizational partners, on topics that cover the major social justice and spiritual activism areas JRF and our member congregations have been working on. In this way we have produced and collected a wide array of resources and have encouraged the sharing of best practices and concrete action for the renewal and repair of the individual, community and world we are part of.

2011 and 2012 Omer Initiative: Integration with Community Life (Omer is now part of the PEARL Initiative: www.jrf.org/PEARL)

2010 Omer Initiative: Tikkun Hanefesh V'Olam - Growing the Soul: Self, Community and World (http://jrf.org/omer/2010)

2009 Omer Initiative: From Study to Action (http://jrf.org/omer/2009)

2008 Omer Initiative: From the Values and Spirit of Tikkun to Community Building (http://jrf.org/omer/2008)

2007 Omer Initiative: Environmental sustainability (http://jrf.org/omer/2007)

2006 Omer Initiative: Hunger and poverty (http://jrf.org/omer/2006/intro)

2005 Omer Initiative: Pirke Avot (The Wisdom of Our Sages) (http://63.115.67.94/pirke-avot/index.html)

Omer Initiative Home Page: (http://jrf.org/omer/home)

AJWS Invites U.S. Jewish Communities to Observe Global Hunger Shabbat, Nov. 2-3, 2012

JRF Hunger and Poverty Resources: http://jrf.org/hunger

AJWS invites you to join us in observing Global Hunger Shabbat—a day of solidarity, education, reflection and activism to raise awareness about global hunger.

Global Hunger Shabbat will be an opportunity for Jews nationwide to unite for this common cause and to raise our collective voices against the injustice that is claiming lives around the world. As Jews, social justice has always been in our prayers and our actions, and this day of solidarity is designed to bring about our deepest impulse for effecting change. This year, Global Hunger Shabbat will take place in the weeks prior to Thanksgiving, linking our work in pursuit of global food justice to this season of gratitude.

To make it simple to organize Global Hunger Shabbat in your own community, AJWS will provide an array of educational tools to suit various groups and audiences. Use them to organize Shabbat dinner, a day of study or a Shabbat-long program in your home, school, campus or synagogue – simply sign up here! You can view the materials from last year’s Global Hunger Shabbat.

2012 Campaign: http://ajws.org/hunger/ghs/ghs_participate.html?autologin=true&utm_source=ghs&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ghs_std 

To help individuals, congregations and communities organize and host their own Global Hunger Shabbat events on March 19th, AJWS has created an online toolkit (available at www.ajws.org/hungershabbat), which includes:

• Talking points about hunger and the food insecurity crisis
• An original prayer and sermon prompts designed for the synagogue or community setting
• A Jewish text study and family activity
• “Solidarity Plates” to designate an empty seat at the Shabbat table meant to represent the 1.1 billion people facing hunger worldwide
• Readings for use around the Shabbat table featuring stories about hunger and the solutions communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America are developing to fight it
• Suggestions for ways that American Jews and their communities can take action
• A poster and a community newsletter ad to help publicize Global Hunger Shabbat

AJWS and its grantess in Africa, Asia and the Americas believe that a local approach to realizing the human right to food will most effectively halt food insecurity worldwide. AJWS implements this approach by supporting grassroots change by and for local people in myriad ways—teaching farmers to grow food using sustainable farming methods; endowing communities with seed banks and harvest storage facilities; founding agricultural cooperatives and jumpstarting profitable local markets; and empowering indigenous communities to advocate for their land and water rights. Global Hunger Shabbat offers the American Jewish community an opportunity to join AJWS and its grassroots partners in supporting these critical solutions.

Global Hunger Shabbat toolkits and more information about the program are available at www.ajws.org/hungershabbat. These materials are part of an ongoing collection of educational resources that AJWS has created on global justice topics.

JRF is encouraging our member communities and people everywhere to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti due to the recent disasterous earthquake there. To expidite donations we are not setting up a separate donation fund, rather encouraging donations to our partner organizations who work directly on the ground in relief efforts.  read more »

Click here for Reconstructionist movement and other general resources for living a sustainable, Jewish life!

http://jrf.org/Sustainable_Synagogue_Resources

http://jrf.org/Jewish-Climate-Change-Initiative

JRF is proud to be a supporter of the Jewish Climate Change initiative- reflecting a an inspiring level of collaboration,between all Jewish movements and Jewish national agencies and environmental organizations that came together May 2009 at the first national gathering of national leadership on Judaism and Sustainability. Prior to this gathering COEJL, JCPA and the Shalom Center had begun bringing key stakeholders together, Jewish religious movements had begun sharing resources and Hazon, COEJL, Teva and other Jewish environmental organizations had begun dialogue about climate change initiatives. The aim of the Jewish Climate Change Campaign is to engage the entire Jewish community towards taking action on climate change. In doing so we will be joining a global movement of 12 world faiths, each launching plans of their own. We invite you to click on the Jewish Climate Change campaign http://jewishclimatecampaign.org/  to sign the pledge and join the campaign, and to offer any further suggestions as to the content of the plan and its recommendations.

 The core of the campaign is as follows:

• Making it clear that Jewish people care strongly about these issues. 
• Making changes in our own lives – and inviting our friends to do likewise.  
• Creating a long-term process for serious change in Jewish institutions.. 
• Introducing the Jewish world to a wide range of resources on the interface between Judaism, Climate Change and Sustainability. 

 Please consider signing and circulating to your community the JRF signed and supported COEJL/JCPA Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/t/2929/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1246. (JRF is a member religious organization of COEJL and JCPA).

Read the environmental commitment made in 1990 by our movement at the JRF Bi-ennial. Sign the pledge and see more resources.

Former Vice President Al Gore endorsing our effort said "I am so happy to see that this initiative will draw upon the new leadership of younger men and women who see in the legacy of Judaism's teachings on stewardship a source of renewal of their Jewish faith..." Click here to read more.

Pushing for Better Wages, Not Necessarily Giving Them: Conservative Leaders Support ‘Living Wage’ and Magen Tzedek, but So Far Little Change at Shul

Published October 07, 2009, issue of October 16, 2009,

Full article at http://www.forward.com/articles/116270/,Excerpt on JRF congregation Adat Shalom, Bethesda, MD http://www.adatshalom.net/, One synagogue that did systematically decide to pay a living wage is Adat Shalom, a Reconstructionist congregation in Bethesda, Md. The rabbi at Adat Shalom, Fred Scherlinder Dobb, raised the issue in 2001 — eight years before Jacobs’ teshuvah passed — when the Washington, D.C., City Council passed a living wage ordinance. Scherlinder Dobb faced opposition from the congregation president at the time, Judith Gelman, who is an economist.

“As an economist I thought it would break the bank,” Gelman said, looking back.  read more »

One.org web site.

About ONE
(See JTA article http://jta.org/news/article/2008/12/03/1001338/thre)

ONE is Americans of all beliefs and every walk of life - united as ONE - to help make poverty history. We are a campaign of over 2.4 million people and growing from all 50 states and over 100 of America's most well-known and respected non-profit, advocacy and humanitarian organizations. As ONE, we are raising public awareness about the issues of global poverty, hunger, disease and efforts to fight such problems in the world's poorest countries. As ONE, we are asking our leaders to do more to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE believes that allocating more of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world's poorest countries.

JRF’s resources (including the JRF Omer Initiative on Hunger and Poverty, and One Sabbath Torah Guide contributions from Larry Bush, Jeffery Dekor, Rabbi Lewis Eron, Abby Weinberg Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, Carol Towarnicky) are now part of the toolkit available through ONE to organize a ONE Sabbath event at your house of worship.

http://www.one.org/faith/jewishgroups.html and http://www.one.org/onesabbath/jewish.html

Also watch the new international multi-faith video ONE has produced with religious leaders speaking on this issue, including the Reconstructionist movement:
http://www.one.org/joinonesabbath/ and
http://www.one.org/documents/faith/multifaith/index.html  read more »

Has Or Hadash always been welcoming to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people? Yes! Has Or Hadash been officially listed as a welcoming congregation so that people searching for a synagogue will know that? Not until now!  read more »