Service 
Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 12:24:08 PM EST
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At least in California, where the Governator is elevating volunteer coordination (and disaster response philanthropy) to a cabinet level position. Seems this son-in-law of the peace corps is leading his state to be the 1st to truly make service a way of being. It will be interesting to see if this catches on around the country.
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Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 17:01:26 PM EST
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The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. God heard their moaning and God remembered God's covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.Exodus 2:23-25
After 400 years of slavery, the Torah teaches that the Israelites cried out. This cry, explains the Ramban, is in response to their recognition that the new King of Egypt was even more wicked than the previous king. In the midrash the Israelites say, Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone; we are doomed (Ezekiel 37:11). After years of suffering from oppression, the Israelites have finally reached their limit and in this pit of despair their cry is heard by God. This begins the Torah's telling of God's appearance to Moses at the burning bush and his enlistment as prophet, teacher and leader. God finally takes note of the Israelites and it seems to be spawned by their crying out.
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Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 00:55:36 AM EST
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Today I'm in Philadelphia, where our fine friends at Spark are training the future leaders of our Jewish service learning trips. This afternoon, we spent a fair amount of time talking about the kinds of games and activities that help illustrate economic realities. One classic exercise involves balancing a working family's income and expenditures (Q: If you make $700 every two weeks, how do you pay for health insurance, rent, gas, electricity, car, and groceries? A: You don't). Our group agreed that ten years after a trip like this, you might not remember the name of the town you saw or the texts you read, but a simple exercise might stick with you. This brought on a sudden memory:
I was in sixth grade. My middle school principal came into our all-school assembly with a big bag of fresh cinnamon buns. (Clever educator - she had my attention already.) She divided the entire middle school into groups representing the populations of various continents. I was sent to South America, where I stood patiently with my hungry comrades. My principal then went around the "world" distributing cinnamon buns according to the amount of wealth that existed in each continent. My fellow South Americans and I each received a little shred of cinnamon bun and watched with anxiety as she passed out the rest of the cinnamon buns among the other continents (maybe she'll take a second pass and give me a little more?)
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Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 19:29:56 PM EDT
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Some reflections from Adam Rothstein, JFSJ Program Associate, on his recent trip to the Gulf with a student group:
Recently, I returned from a JFSJ service and learning program in New Orleans and Boothville, Louisiana. For five days, a group from University of Michigan Hillel joined the post-Katrina/Rita rebuilding effort by sweating, praying, bearing witness, hammering, learning, and listening. After a couple of work days, a few of the participants observed, as all astute individuals on our service and learning programs do, that their short-term, inexperienced labor was ultimately inefficient. If they wanted to make a real impact on the communities in which they volunteered, perhaps the thousands of dollars they spent in transportation to Louisiana could have been better-used helping to create longer-term, local jobs. If this is true, why then, do we bring individuals from all over the country to volunteer on the Gulf Coast?
This question has multiple responses, but I would like to focus on one in particular. When volunteers from all over the United States travel to Mississippi and Louisiana to work along-side Gulf Coast community members and leaders, unlikely relationships and alliances are inevitably established.
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Tue Sep 25, 2007 at 16:24:49 PM EDT
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Jewish Women Watching is out with another provocative campaign, this one for Sukkot. The theme, in their own words:
This Sukkot, as you leave your home and enter a temporary dwelling... Go beyond your comfort zone and demand real change. What's welcome in your Sukkah? Embrace The Treyf.
I found two of the posters/Sukkah decorations particularly interesting. Dividing items between Kosher ("pitying others, playing it safe") and Treyf (confronting ourselves, taking a risk), the first labels "Building houses in New Orleans during Spring Break" Kosher, while "Building the movement against gentrification in our cities" is Treyf. The second labels "Distribute meals at a soup kitchen on Mitzvah Day" Kosher, while "Distributing our resources so all families can provide for themselves" is Treyf.
The dichotomy represented by these examples is not necessarily about pitying others vs confronting ourselves, but it definitely does reflect the classic split between service on the one hand and advocacy/organizing/systemic change on the other. Although the implication is NOT that the kosher items are "bad" or unworthy, it does emphatically state that they are insufficient (ie: if you want "real change" look behind door number two). Kosher is good, but Treyf is great.
Ah, yes, treyf IS great, as those folks who eat treyf never tire of telling me.
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Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 11:51:41 AM EDT
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A must read cover editorial in the latest Time magazine that makes a pretty dramatic and profound case for a voluntary national service program. They start from the premise that something is very wrong in our civic culture today, and more siginificantly, directly connect that problem to some of the injustices of our time:
A republic, to survive, needed not only the consent of the governed but also their active participation. It was not a machine that would go of itself; free societies do not stay free without the involvement of their citizens.
Today the two central acts of democratic citizenship are voting and paying taxes. That's basically it. The last time we demanded anything else from people was when the draft ended in 1973. And yes, there are libertarians who believe that government asks too much of us -- and that the principal right in a democracy is the right to be left alone -- but most everyone else bemoans the fact that only about half of us vote and don't do much more than send in our returns on April 15. The truth is, even the archetype of the model citizen is mostly a myth. Except for times of war and the colonial days, we haven't been all that energetic about keeping the Republic.
When Americans look around right now, they see a public-school system with 38% of fourth graders unable to read at a basic level; they see the cost of health insurance escalating as 47 million people go uninsured; they see a government that responded ineptly to a hurricane in New Orleans;
We should note that this topic of service has been pretty hot in Jewish circles of late, including here at JFSJ. Thanks in no small part to the leadership of a few key instititutions
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Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 16:51:44 PM EDT
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A big hello to everybody as I join the blogging team at Jspot. Today is my first day as JFSJ's Deputy Director of Communications. To begin, I wanted to share a little bit about my own background.
My consciousness of social justice was extremely slow to form. I grew up in a suburban white neighborhood in North Carolina and attended private schools from preschool through 12th grade. My first school demonstrated its commitment to social justice through events such as its Martin Luther King Day program: a half-day of lectures, gospel performances, and the like. Sadly, I only remember resenting that I had to be at school, unlike kids at other local schools, who had the day off.
In retrospect, I see why my school's efforts failed to get me excited about activism.
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Mon Jun 04, 2007 at 08:29:37 AM EDT
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I just returned from a JFSJ-organized service learning program in Biloxi with a group of 20 college students from Habonim Dror North America, a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement. It was a fascinating experience, with lots of hard work on housing, greenery, and even animal projects, workshops about values of community, action, and privilege, and really wonderful people.
Some things I learned about post-Katrina Biloxi:
- Because of the history of poverty and oppression in Mississippi, people often don't feel they deserve benefits, especially from the government and thus often have trouble standing up and asking for them.
- The question, "Should we rebuild?" is only relevant for some people, ie, low-income people. There are 6 huge casinos that have been rebuilt since the storm on the coast - no one asked if those should be rebuilt, commercial interests just did it and no one complained because they will be profitable.
- There has been no assistance for renters in Biloxi, all the housing help has been for homeowners only. So renters (including in Section 8 housing) left during the storm, came back to nothing or damaged apartments, their landlords fixed them up and sold/rented them at much higher rates. Property values have skyrocketed and many middle-income people who used to be able afford property by the beach have been pushed further north.
- This is the first time there has been assistance provided after a hurricane other than food and water immediately after the storm.
- The federal government has granted $6 billion to the state of Mississippi for assistance, but they have only released one round of checks. The people we talked to from the Steps Coalition - a JFSJ grantee and diverse group of organizational leaders in Mississippi - blamed the corruption and ineffectiveness of state leaders for that.
- Biloxi is a different story than New Orleans. There were and are no levees, the water came in and went out in a matter of 3-6 hours. So everyone was affected equally, whereas in New Orleans, the low-income neighborhoods were hit hardest. Those with weaker homes and fewer resources had more work to do afterwards, but the levels the water came in at were the same everywhere.
- Mississippi is a conservative place and for a while, people believed President Bush's commitments to rebuilding. It was only about a year later that people began getting disaffected and radicalized by the lack of governmental action.
- Immigrants face a tougher situation. There is a significant Latino and Vietnamese community and they live in fear of harassment and deportation, like everywhere else. They are brought in to the area by subcontractors with the promise of work and housing and receive no housing and no pay. They have worked to remove the debris from Katrina, construction, and in shrimping, the long-time industry there. We heard a story about one Latino man who went out to go grocery shopping and didn't return. His wife called the Latino/Hispanic Ministries who then called around to hospitals and police departments to try to find him. The wife was scared and didn't know who to call. Turns out he had been pulled over for a missing headlight and was at the police station.
Everyone was so grateful to us coming down there and helping out. Not only did we actually accomplish quite a bit with 25 people working for 3 long days, but we saw how much in the area had been done by people like us and how everyone we talked to thanked us so much for coming down. This really is revolutionizing service work.
I highly recommend that everyone think about spending some time in the region, individually or with a group you're a part of. Remember the powerlessness you felt watching the Katrina floods in September 2005? This is a direct antidote to that.
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Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 11:25:57 AM EDT
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If anything like this every happens on a trip organized by the Spark Center at Jewish Funds for Justice, I promise to post the pictures. From the always hilarious folks at The Onion:
What was intended to be a week devoted to charitable activities in a region still recovering from Hurricane Katrina quickly spiraled into a conventional, alcohol-fueled spring break this weekend, community sources reported.
Housing construction and cleanup projects were marred by dozens of arrests for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, as well as widespread reports of public urination and indecent exposure.
"Alternative spring break rules!" said Michigan State University sophomore Nate Sherman, part of a student group who traveled to Waveland, MS to help a local family rebuild its three-bedroom home. "[Nick] Torcello made this wicked beer bong out of some flexible ducting and a paint can, then we had a caulk fight and took bets on who could punch the biggest hole in the drywall with his head. We didn't get back to the work site until, like, 2:30 the next afternoon."
Full story here.
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Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 20:57:10 PM EDT
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In January, 25 eighth and ninth grade students from New York City traveled to New Iberia, La (an area devestated by Hurricane Rita) with Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and Jewish Funds for Justice to combine Jewish and political learning with service at a project run by a local JFSJ grantee (the Southern Mutual Help Association). One of those students, Michelle Edelson, came back and penned a great op-ed, published by The Jewish Week. In part:
On Sunday we went back to the house and continued our work. We climbed tall ladders to prime the outside. I got the chance to speak with the owner of the house, known as Pops.
Pops' stories of the destruction affected me in such a way that I wanted to do more than we were already doing. He told me that he and his son owned homes on the same property. One of the homes had been uprooted from its foundation and blown so far back that it hit the shed in the backyard.
Every damaged home in Louisiana was assigned a FEMA number for record keeping. As we were scraping the exterior of Pops' house we scraped away the FEMA number, which hit me hard. Eighteen months after the storm FEMA still had not helped Pops or his neighbors to rebuild their homes. It took a group of eighth and ninth graders from New York to help Pops' house become livable again.
In the coming months, JFSJ will begin to provide more opportunities for folks to take similar trips. Lenny, hopefully this will help to fill your void...
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