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Koret Foundation Sh'ma Book Reviews

Letters to the Editor

A New Initiative: The Sh'ma Salon

Topic Discussion Guide

A new Artistic NiSh'ma

Sigi Ziering Sh'ma Ethics

Taube New Visions

The Balcony by Ruth Calderon

Torah Commentaries:
Erica Brown
Nechama Leibowitz
Mekor Chaim

Past Issues

Copcoming: Haredi Judaism An interview with Artscroll’s Nossom Scherman The music and dress of ultra-Orthodox women Blogging anonymously as a Hasid Chabad’s Divine Sparks Sephardic ultra-Orthodoxy power in Israel The “shift to the right" in Orthodoxy and others... Sponsorship opportunities available

End World Child Hunger!
Tell your friends about Project Manna, a new multi-faith cyberactivism campaign that takes only a minute.

Synagogue Organizing

Jonah Pesner: The pages of this issue of Sh’ma tell the story of a revolution in the way the Jewish community is pursuing justice. They are tales of teaching seminary students to lead in public life; of synagogue leaders being trained to engage in strategic campaigns to create networks of relationships inside congregations; and of serious Jewish engagement with broad-based organizing efforts that cross lines of race, class, and faith to act powerfully and effectively for social change.
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Marshall Gans: What can Hillel’s three questions teach us about congregational leadership, community, and work in the world? I began my journey as the son of a rabbi and teacher in Bakersfield, California, found myself called to public work in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, discovered a vocation for organizing, and, in the fall of 1965, joined Cesar Chavez for 16 years in his effort to unionize farm workers. After 28 years “in the field,” I returned to Harvard where I now teach a rising generation of students how to turn their values into the power we need to repair ourselves, our community, and our world; this is the work of organizing.
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Elizabeth Richman interviews Dov Linzer on including a class in congregation-based organizing at his yeshiva, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.
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Benjamin Ross: I had spent ten years organizing for tenant rights and advocating for immigrant rights with Black, Latino, and immigrant communities. At that time, I had little or no contact with synagogue life. But through synagogue organizing, I began a very public and powerful relationship with Torah as a living story. Stories came alive, no longer static words in an ancient scroll. Rather than advocating for others, I became a leader as a Jew for justice.
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Quote of the Month

"We will only have the capacity and confidence to write an authentic Jewish narrative when we organize with others — Jews and non-Jews.  If we can’t change our surroundings to make it easier to do fundamental things like raising children, balancing work and family, and helping seniors age with dignity, how can we figure out what God wants of us?"

Meir Lakein

Sh’ma and the JCC of San Francisco Present a Public Forum focusing A Jewish Lens on Immigration Policy
March 26 8:00 pm
For more information, contact Rabbi Yoel Kahn, 415-292-1272
Free and open to the public.
RSVP requested: JCCSF Box Office - 415-292-1233 or www.jccsf.org

Sponsored by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund

Our Mission
Sh'ma serves as a gathering place for independent dialogue -- rich conversation of differing positions presented in an honest, respectful, and sacred conversation. Our readers, like our authors, are intellectually sharp, seeking, concerned and literate. Sh'ma is a publication of Jewish Family & Life! JFLMedia.com