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.  read more »

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.  read more »

From constructing new buildings out of recycled materials, to installing a compact-fluorescent ner tamid; from joining together in song, to discovering what musar can teach us about solving global climate change, 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 ...

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

• A teaching by Rabbi Shawn Zevit of JRF
• Links to environmental material on the JRF website
• Notes from the Sustainable Synagogues Conference Call, held on June 6, 2007
• A derash by Cantor Eric Schulmiller, from the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore
• News clippings about the new building constructed by the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL - the greenest synagogue in America
• The "Green Year Initiative" instituted by Congregation Shir Hadash in Milwaukee, WI
• Urban Environmental Sustainability programming
  created by Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia, PA.

As you read through the teaching, feel free to add comments on this page about your own experiences or use the listserve or web page to ask questions.

April 29, 2008 - 2:18pm — Rabbi Shawn Zevit Questions for Sustainability
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Rabbi Shawn Zevit wrote:

Q. 1) If you imagine yourself at the end of this year, what action(s) do you most want to change in your personal lifestyle to include a
sustainability consciousness? What about as a faith community?

Q. 2) What ideas included in the Sustainability packet inspire or challenge your current personal and communal way of life and your impact on the local and larger eco-systems of which you are a part?

For additional resources on the Omer Learning Initiative or Greening Synagogues, go to our environment page at http://www.jrf.org/climate

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.  read more »

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

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.

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.  read more »

When: August 17-21, 2009
Where: Camp JRF in South Sterling, PA.
Post-B’nai Mitzvah teens and their parents are invited to share a week working together to make a difference. Space is limited! Enrollment is currently open for a group of 15 adult-teen teams. Teens must be post b’nai mitzvah age (13 or older) and be accompanied by at least one parent.  read more »

Get more information and download the registration form!

Last week Muslim scholars from the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations issued an open letter to the Jewish Community calling for dialogue and understanding.

In response the leadership of the Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative Jewish Movements in North America made the following statement:  read more »

We deeply appreciate the hand extended in a letter from Muslim scholars at The Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, and we clasp that hand willingly. That we have much to learn from and about each other is clear – sometimes painfully clear. We look forward to the shared work of thoughtful dialogue.

There is exciting activity happening on the reauthorization of the PEPFAR AIDS legislation. (PEPFAR = President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).

JRF is a partner with the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) in the Jewish Coalition Responding to HIV/AIDS in Africa.

The PEPFAR legislation will be "marked-up" in the House foreign affairs committee on Wednesday, February 27th at 9:30 am (and may be televised on C-SPAN).

There are two important action items:

1. A conference call with Ruth Messinger on Monday, February 25, 2-3pm
2. An email action alert

More details follow below:  read more »

CBCO as a Reconstructionist approach to living a Godly life

The Jewish Funds For Justice has published a new pamphlet that highlights the involvement of Reconstructionist communities in congregation-based community organizing (CBCO).

Click above for the full article, in order to download the PDF attachment.