Temple Adath Israel's adopt-a-school program
Congregation provides holiday meals and gifts to less fortunate families in their area.
Congregation “adopts” the Ukrainian Jewish community of the Zvenigorodka shtetl.
An interfaith effort to bridge understanding and cooperation between African-Americans and Jews.
Local clergy work together to create an inter-religious coalition to combat homophobia.
Series of events about gun violence in advance of a local NRA convention.
Initiative to educate community about issues of gun control, safety measures and awareness.
Congregation fundraises to help members of a small Ugandan synagogue.
One congregant realized that many children began school wearing shabby clothes and without school supplies. The Temple created a committee in which families would "adopt" a student and buy clothes, school supplies, and other necessities for the start of the school year.
Congregants pledged to volunteer 18 hours a year.
Congregation built a house with Habitat for Humanity
A synagogue's initiative to aid and assist children who are ill and are in need of support. They host three annual events at a local area Hospital and they encourage as many temple members and children as possible to participate in order to foster one-on-one relationships with the patients.
Volunteers are trained to tutor local students.
The Temple participated in an interfaith youth trip to Nicaragua with a local Presbyterian Church. They helped build homes and spent time caring for the Nicaraguan children.
Creation of a week-long day camp for local homeless and battered children.
Program on the need for Universal Health Care
Synagogue creates a committee to speak about issues involving Church and State.
Congregation Emanuel in Denver, Colorado created a Consultation on Conscience for the local community
Cultivating produce on synagogue grounds to serve at a local soup kitchen.
Temple Sinai in Oakland, CA organized and launched the Consultation on Social Justice modeled after the Religious Action Center's Consultation on Conscience
The Temple put social action as the centerpiece of its culture. By creating on-going programs in many different areas the congregation enables its members to be involved in many different areas of Social Action work.
Congregation “adopts” a school in a poverty-stricken neighborhood.
Grassroots, community-wide advocacy and relief effort to raise awareness about genocidal conditions in Darfur, Sudan.
The High School created a curriculum in which the students learn about the issue of contemporary slavery in Sudan. The program included a slavery teach-in, student rally, and a letter writing campaign to public officials.
The congregation collaborated with the administration of a local inner city school. Congregants tutored students, others provided supplies and money for field trips, while others gave their time during after school projects.
Synagogue works in tandem with a local church organization to provide assistance and resources for homeless families.
A congregation's commitment to Social Action initiated two comprehensive projects. The first was an annual three-day trip for underprivileged students which takes place at URJ Greene Family Camp. The second project, which was done as a fund-raising effort, the committee began offering intra-congregational shalach manot baskets, thereby performing the mitzvah of sending food packages to friends and relatives on Purim. In addition to these projects, the Steering Committee created the Mitzvah Messengers program to encourage the congregation's children to become involved in the community.
Temple Sinai provided a breakfast program for a local public school
Congregants bring the “spirit of Christmas” to needy families through gift-giving and by hosting an annual Christmas dinner.
A congregation's initiative that focused on three programs that have been particularly successful: a homeless shelter for men to assist them and offer support; an AIDS education program; Mitzvah Day program which supported and helped the wider community in meaningful and profound ways.
GUCI campers worked throughout the summer in a Tikkun Olam project facilitated by Keep Indianapolis beautiful. They helped create parks, staffed the Boys and Girls Club, and fixed up neighborhood gardens.
Congregation built a food pantry for a local homeless shelter, decorated their dining room, and assisted in serving meals.
Temple Beth Shaom in Santa Fe, NM has an on-going multifaceted program
A synagogue and an African American Baptist Church united to create an after-school academic enrichment program.
provide food and clothing to immigrant workers in California
Temple Emanuel in Westfield, NJ established a program to help underserved children reach their educational goals.
The Temple created an integrated social action program, where each "Mitzvah of the Month" column educated congregants of various social action programs and other approaches to pursue justice.
The synagogue worked with other inter-faith religious groups to educate and speak out about gun control.
Congregation collaborates with a local church and a local mosque for its annual Mitzvah Day.
The congregation continues to do tikkun olam projects through partnerships with various churches and other inter-faith groups throughout the year.
Congregation creates a safe space for homeless families.
Interfaith program to assist and foster care parents and children.
The Temple created a tuition free learning center that allows the economically disadvantaged to gain important job skills allowing them to move towards economic self-suffiency.
Shul-In educates youth about the special needs of physically and mentally challenged adults.
Synagogue works with an African American Church to ensure racial and economic diversity in the county juries.
A synagogue's Social Action Committee has implemented an ongoing program of tikkun olam. The synagogue creates year-round programs, demonstrating the congregant's unwavering commitment to those is need, at home or abroad.
Congregants prepare holiday gift packages for Jewish seniors.
Congregants organized visits to local cemeteries for seniors who wished to visit the graves of their loved ones.
Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, MO designed a program to teach the community about current issues.
social justice advocacy group on stem cell research
Many congregants’ homes experienced serious destruction. The Social Action committee responded by formulating a plan for the congregants’ immediate and long term needs.
Tzedakah project focusing on the mitzvah of tikkun olam during Chanukah.
The goal of the “March for Dafur” program was, and still is, educating our community about the genocidal conditions in Darfur. Its purpose is to create awareness leading to advocacy.
Congregants worked together with First AME Zion Church to mentor and tutor 4th grade students at Main Street Elementary.
The congregation created a Free Medical Program for those in their community who do not have access to afforable health insurance.
The synagogue created a Mitzvah Day Carnival in which the most vulnerable children received a happy and carefree afternoon at the Temple. Children of immigrants and those with Down's Syndrome partook in the carnival and were welcomed to an afternoon diversion by Temple members.
A synagogue's initiative to infuse the key facets of their congregation's synagogue life, including life-cycle events, youth education, adult learning, worship, and the capital campaign with social justice, learning, and action.
Congregation Rodeph Sholom's reproductive rights taskforce
The synagogue set up an inter-faith conference focusing on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) people.
The Temple works to provide shelter for the homeless and needy one night a week during the long winter months. They provide warm meals, a place to sleep, and breakfast in the morning for those who need to take shelter in the synagogue.
A congregation's community outreach program to support an impoverished community in rural America by using Maimonides' injunction that the highest form of tzedakah is to help people help themselves.
The congregation developed an overall social action program where the values of social justice were included in worship, study, communal activities, and board discussions. From these discussions, they devloped a comprehensive social action program that involved hundreds of congregants during the year.
The Temple seeked "to strip away all the excuses people have for not participating in social action" by offering its members an unusally wide array of social action opportunities.
Congregation B'nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Glenview, IL started congregation based community organizing.
A synagogue's Social Action Committee's partnership with Legal Services to help impoverished clients work towards self-sufficiency.
Three-part program educating the Jewish and GLBT communities about homosexual victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
A congregation's partnership with Pioneer Valley Project, whose aim it is to empower low-income and working-class communities to participate in the economic development of the region at every level, from new enterprise ventures to job retention during plant closings, to city and regional policy making. The central goal within this mission is to revitalize the manufacturing sector of the economy to generate good jobs at decent wages.
Congregation Emanu-el in San Francisco, CA created Project H.E.L.P.
A synagogue's initiative which strives to improve the basic living standards of impoverished families who live in sub-standard conditions in Mexico. Temple members feel motivated to continue this work because providing shelter and helping others work toward self-sufficiency fulfills an important Jewish value.
Central Synagogue in NYC formed a partnership with PS84
A synagogue's initiative to infuse social action to its congregants by compelling the congregants, including its youth, to speak out and become involved in the Temple's activities. Temple members have been involved in an AIDS lunch program, repairing homes, collection of food and clothing projects, as well as various other social action programs and advocacy work.
The synagogue's goals are to dismantle racism and economic injustice. They do this by working with other inter-faith groups, by mentoring at local schools, by helping out at Habitat for Humanity, and in many other ways.
126 New York Congregations worked together to create a New York State advocate for Social Justice similar to the efforts of the Religious Action Center.
The synagogue worked together with other interfaith groups to help those people who suffer from poverty and homelessness. They set-up a tent city as well as created a program to allow the homeless the ability to rent their own apartments.
This congregation worked in partnership with Na Me Res (A First Nations organization) to commit itself to respond to homelessness.
The synagogue worked together with other community members to help revitalize a Day Care Center in the inner-city.
This program helps and assists more than one hundred Jewish families from the Former Soviet Union in adjusting to life in a new country and in reconnecting with their Jewish heritage.
Members of the social action committee at Congregation Gates of Heaven helped a Nursery school
Temple Brith Kodesh in Rochester, NY partnered with a local elementary to provide programs and support
Temple Sinai in Atlanta, GA created a food rescue program.
A congregation's inspiring program to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in the local community and to bring about support, healing, and comfort to those affected. The synagogue's Social Action Committee created a unique Haggadah, enumerating the plagues that hinder liberation from AIDS. This initiative has become an empowering vehicle through which many temple members have put their Jewish values to work.
The congregation along with other religious groups created a day care center for the elderly. The synagogue members help support the community center through money, time, and other efforts.
A congregation's attempt to foster and support the dynamic engagement of the synagogue’s members within the local community via a social action fair.
The Temple partnered with two churches in the South Bronx in order to foster connections between the communities. Through tutoring, blood drives, homeless shelters, and other means, the communities have worked together through iner-faith relations to help make our world a better place.
Congregation sends donations to help support our troops.
Provided free tax assistance for the working poor
youth program modeled after the college Alternative Spring Break
A congregation's commitment to moral and social issues working in a variety of different agencies to raise funds to pay stipends for young people to do volunteer work in various community agencies such as nursing homes, camps, facilities for the disabled, and youth recreation programs.
Temple Committee Against Human Trafficking brought awareness on the issue of human trafficking to the community.
Temple Isaiah in Lexington, MA engaged in congregation based community organizing
The congregation worked together with members of the Muslim community to build a home for a needy family while breaking down the barriers that existed between the two groups.
A congregation's inspiring sense of community responsibility through their devotion to The Friendship House, a homeless shelter for abused women, children at risk, migrant workers, and the working poor, and the Sunrise Community, an agency for the developmentally compromised adults. The community's efforts were focused on three comprehensive projects: La Casa, a thrift store opened to help the Friendship House community become more self-sufficient, Breast Cancer Awareness, and the Annual Christmas Eve/Chanukah Party celebration.
The Temple partnered with other faith groups in order to press a local school district to adopt a new policy on religion and schools. They also created a Diversity Brekfast and sponsored several inter-faith programs.
The synagogue has partnered with a local elementary school to improve the literacy of the students. By donating money for new books, buying books, and creating tutoring programs, the synagogue has shown what it means to be "The People of the Book."
Beth Hillel's Intergenerational Retreat
The Temple created a multifaceted AIDS awareness/action Project. The project provides assistance, support, advocacy, and education for all who are infected, affected, at risk, or concerned about HIV/AIDS.
The Temple revamped its social action program and in doing so, motivated congregants to make commitments and contributions to social action at new unprecedented levels.
A congregation's initiative to enthuse congregants to participate in community service projects. All of the projects, though, served to make Temple members more responsive to the needs of the community and to make the Temple more of a part of the community.
Union Temple partnered with The Hope project to help unemployed adults
The Temple began a program in which congregants teach what they know best to homeless residents at a neighborhood shelter. In addition, the Temple created a library for the homeless shelter and formed a tutoring program.
The Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ, held a one-day (6 hour) event in April 2006 to raise awareness of the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan while simultaneously raising $62,000 for humanitarian aid. Congregants, as well as members of the larger community, mobilized to obtain sponsors and sign up for time on various pieces of exercise equipment in order to walk, run, ride, or jump for Darfur.
The Temple's religious school engaged in a year long project to support Ethiopian Jewry. They sold embroidery, hosted a Ethiopian-themed Shabbat, and created a national photo exhibit.
Temple Dor Dorim cultivated meaningful personal and communal relationships with two local churches, creating the foundation for genuine interfaith collaboration on a series of events aimed at the entire local community and designed to raise awareness of the suffering in Darfur, as well as within our own communities.
Throughout the year, the congregation had a "Mitzvah of the Month" which provided supplies and caring for the Wimauma community of farmworkers.
Social Action calendar was created to allow congregants to choose activities that fit in their schedule.
With a focus on congregant’s social justice interests, synagogue provides numerous programming and advocacy opportunities all year.
Congregation creates a year’s worth of programs and opportunities to think about and do tzedakah.
