A group of teens from IKAR, a spiritual community in Los Angeles, just returend from a JFSJ-organized trip to New Orleans. We worked with Our School at Blair Grocery, a fabulous organization, and learned a lot about the history of New Orleans and Katrina.
By Miriam Liebman, JFSJ Service Learning Program Leader
Just over a year ago, I fell in love with New Orleans because, despite all of its tragedies, New Orleans has joy and pride like no other city I’ve been to. Last weekend, November 5-9, the General Assembly (GA), a conference of thousands of North American Jews, gathered in New Orleans. The Jewish Roundtable, in which Jewish Funds For Justice is a key player, helped organize the GA’s Day of Service. After spending a number of hours clearing yards in the Lower 9th Ward, I was charged with the responsibility of leading a bus consisting of mostly Hillel students on a service learning experience.
Back on the bus, the first text we read was one each of us has heard hundreds of times: the story of the burning bush. It is not until Moses is faced with this miraculous scene and told by an angel to look at the bush that he realizes God’s presence. I once heard a story of a philosopher in Germany after the Holocaust who rode a train and watched fellow passengers. Everyone was looking forward, no one was looking out the windows. Whether the lesson of the burning bush is truly to teach us of God’s presence, we will of course never know. But like both God’s presence and the passengers on the German train, we shield ourselves from inequities in our own neighborhoods. It takes more strength to look out the window and act than it does to stare straight ahead.
While clearing lots, I had a conversation with a young rabbinical student from Yeshiva University. Why, he inquired, was it necessary to bring 600 Jews to clear lots with the local organization, Beacon of Hope, when the Jewish community could have simply donated money to the organization to purchase equipment that would have completed twice what we did in half the time. I hold no ultimate answers, but I strongly believe that it is equally as important for people to look out the window and understand inequalities that exist in our country as it is to put in both the time and money to repair them.
The GA’s day of service touched only the surface of inequalities in New Orleans pre- and post-dating Katrina. After serving for a few hours, students were tired and satisfied with the afternoon commitment they had put in. The main focus of participants was not on studying and discussing the text and the service work, but rather on making their way to the hotel for whatever lay ahead of them that evening. Yet, while I continue to struggle with much of what the Jewish community rallies around, I am both proud and inspired by the accomplishments of the Roundtable and enthused by the incredible commitment of the greater Jewish community to serve New Orleans, a city I care deeply about.
Great work! So excited that an org like Uri L'Tzedek exists! We're going to be working with them on some of our service learning trips to LA this upcoming year. Very exciting.
A few months ago, JFSJ sent service learning participants to spend a few days with Ms. Dorothy McClendon, President of Soria City Civic Organization in Gulfport, Mississippi. Through the Civic Organization’s afterschool program, JFSJ volunteers spent time with local youth; bowling and tutoring in the historic black community. Recovery here has been slow since Hurricane Katrina and now the Soria City Civic Organization is in a dispute with the City over the right to run their afterschool program and community center from a building that the City initially let them use.
I interviewed Ms. Dorothy to get her take on what is happening with the City and what inspires her to keep fighting.
Hey you! The Service Learning Department is looking for a few good people to lead our service learning trips that focus on the intersections of Judaism and social justice. The trips could be with families, teens or college students and could land you for a week in the Gulf Coast, LA or Balitmore.
Every year we send over 200 participants on Jewish Service Learning trips to communities in need. One of our goals is always that they will feel the desire to return home and continue their work in some way. And often groups do maintain a connection to their trips, either by keeping in touch with community members they met, or even raising awareness about the injustices to which they were exposed. But one school has been inspired to go a step further. After returning from an Alternative Winter Break trip with students from five CUNY schools, Insight Fellow Justin Rosen decided the work had to continue. He recognized the needs that exist in New York and saw a way of keeping his students connected to their New Orleans experience and their hometown. Thanks to Justin’s vision, this Sunday, April 25th marks the first Social Action Sunday: An Intercollegiate NYC Day of Service. Together with a committee of students from CUNY, NYU and Columbia, Justin and his team have created an opportunity for students from schools all over the city to do some much needed work in their communities and learn about other opportunities for social justice involvement from here on. There’s still space to be part of the action – register today!
On the second to last day of my service-learning trip to the Gulf Coast, I stood in a circle with my fellow volunteers and waited my turn as we went round and shared our final reflections. I stood there and tried to find something meaningful to say about all the work that still needed to be done, even five years after Hurricane Katrina. About little Boothville in Southern Louisiana, a town that made Poughkeepsie look like a gleaming metropolis, and that had, thanks to Hurricane Katrina, spent several weeks literally underwater. About the young family whom we’d helped a bit towards creating a viable living space out of a broken and beaten old trailer. About all the empty lots in Boothville to which families might want to return, though they lacked the means to do so, and about the rows of deserted homes in New Orleans with writing on their walls—writing that had been telling the same story since the first volunteers set it down—what it was that they’d found inside in the initial aftermath of the storm.
There is a growing consensus in the Jewish community that the Jewish service learning movement - along with other efforts to engage Jews with the broader social causes of our time - is doing its part to help restore a sense of purpose and meaning to Jewish existence. It is successfully and powerfully answering the call to provide a compelling way to live a Jewish life in our global culture.
Millennia of Jewish values tell us that this work is inherently part of the Jewish mission. These are the very values that rest at the heart of a relevant and meaningful Jewish life.
In a recent article in Commentary, Dr. Jack Wertheimer, Provost of JTS, sees things differently. Service to others is a luxury we cannot afford as long as Jews are in need of service, and Jewish institutions remain out of reach for even the middle class. Wertheimer would have us turn inward, to throw up our shtetl walls once more and care only about "our own" as he narrowly defines this term.
This perspective runs counter to teachings, going all the way back to Isaiah, to be a "light unto the nations." But maybe Jack is right, and despite our long tradition, turning outward as part of our identity is a mistake. If we follow his lead, a few more people might observe certain rituals, pay their synagogue dues, and send kids to day school.
In a world of endless options, where he narrowly asks "how do we afford to be Jewish?" the more relevant question to answer is "why be Jewish?"
All B’nai Mitzvah would receive a formal invitation to Passport for Service, which would include at least one free service-learning immersion experience on a program of their choosing, either with their families or independently. They would participate in pre- and post-trip programming, and, upon their return, would make a commitment to continuing their social justice work in their local community.
These activities would be reinforced with an electronic “passport,” in which each young activist would accumulate “stamps” indicating their community service experiences and the other seminal events on their Jewish journey. Each passport would represent a path to Jewish adulthood defined by ongoing contributions to the world.
The nuts and bolts of creating such a program could take many forms. We could establish an umbrella organization to coordinate trips conducted by practitioners. We could organize it locally, giving Jewish Community Centers or synagogues a fresh opportunity to engage a core constituency. We could bring together key service organizations to pilot the project in ten cities and then scale it up later for national implementation. Or we could create a funding share, pooling money from foundations, individual funders, JCCs, federations, and synagogues. Similar to Birthright, this fund would ensure that every B’nai Mitzvah has an immersion service-learning experience of their choosing.
Inspired participants, eager to stay connected, would seek out ways to serve and act together. Synagogues and grassroots organizations would connect this transformative experience to their programming and engagement opportunities. Our community, and our local partners in social change, would be poised to engage thousands of young Jews hungry to change the world.
Jeff Prussack is a program leader for our service learning trips. He also happens to live in New Orleans (where many of our service learning trips go) at the Moishe House.
Jeff just sent me pictures of the awesome chicken coop he built at the NOLA Moishe House. Having raised chickens myself and built two coops, I know they can be a pain to build. The two I helped with were super bulky. This one is so sleek, practical and cool looking. It’s the home to four laying hens- Pearl, Rose, Bubs and Girdie.
I’m in full support of all us city-dwelling Jews raising chickens. It’s actually really easy and rewarding. You can even order them in the mail! Fresh eggs everyday and if you’re really cruel (like me) backyard, organic chicken dinner for a special occasion. What do you think?
(Oh and for those who don’t know, Moishe House provides subsidized housing for young adult Jews to do cool things in a group home with and for Jews. There are 28 houses in 10 countries.)
If you want to talk chickens, Moishe House stuff or even because you want him to build you one of his cool coops, get in touch with me and I'll get you in touch with Jeff.
