J-Serve 2018: Noga Hurwitz

By / March 22, 2018

Each year, J-Serve: The International Day of Jewish Youth Service mobilizes more than ten thousand Jewish teens worldwide around meaningful service programs. Repair the World is a proud partner of J-Serve and supports global planning efforts through a series of web-based trainings for Jewish youth professionals across the country and around the world.

This year’s official J-Serve date is Sunday, April 15 (though some communities pick an alternative service date a few weeks before or after to maximize participation). We checked in with Noga Hurwitz, a high school senior from the San Francisco Bay Area, CA, currently serving as BBYO’s Female Teen Vice President of Jewish Enrichment, to find out how she’s planning to take part in #jserve2018. Check out what she had to say!

How did you get involved with J-Serve? What’s your background with service/volunteering, and how did that experience draw you to J-Serve?

What sort of project(s) will your J-Serve community be working on?
In the Bay Area, teens from BBYO and NFTY have partnered in creating a hands-on day of service with a menu of volunteer opportunities to cater to different teens interests. Throughout the day, participants will engage in direct service projects with one of eight organizations — with options range from gardening at a local social justice garden to creating advocacy artwork with Habitat for Humanity to creating blankets for kids in need through Project Linus. The event will conclude with meaningful community building programming centered around Jewish values. I had the privilege of spearheading J-Serve in the Bay Area last year, and it has been incredibly exciting to see how this year’s leadership team has continued to build out the event in a way that provides teens with diverse interests and skill sets an opportunity to participate in service and better our community.

What has been the most fun part of working on your project so far?
One of my favorite things to emerge from the J-Serve planning process are the conversations that teens around the world are having with each other about their specific community needs. There is significant forethought that goes into planning a community-wide J-Serve experience, and seeing 15, 16 and 17 year old leaders welcome the challenge of narrowing down the injustice that they will work to address is really cool and inspiring. And that’s just the first part! Being part of these conversations as they evolve into full-fledged projects has also been incredibly rewarding, and I look forward to continuing to support our diversity of J-Serve projects taking place around the world throughout the coming weeks.

What’s been the most inspiring part of working with J-Serve as a leader this year?

What do you think makes J-Serve successful in its ability to excite Jewish teens around the world about service? What makes it special?
Unlike other community service events, J-Serve’s “global” aspect makes it feel like teens have the power to better the entire world. It is empowering to know that as I work on a service project in my local community, teens everywhere are donating their time, efforts, and energy to bettering their communities, as well. Each year, participating in J-Serve reminds me that I am a part of an entire generation of young people who are passionate about creating real and tangible change both locally and globally. The value of tikkun olam, repairing the world, is so central to Jewish tradition, and to see teens champion it through meaningful service programming is what fuels my passion for my own Jewish identity. It is remarkable to see how teens are shaping our current cultural and political landscape around the world, and J-Serve offers a concrete example of how our young leaders are making a real, tangible difference.

Why is doing service specifically in a Jewish context meaningful to you personally? What’s uniquely Jewish about doing good and/or giving back?

Keep up with J-Serve at jserve.org, by tracking #JServe2018 on Twitter and Instagram, and via their Facebook page. For more information on how to get involved, contact Rae Williams. 

Liberation And #MeToo Collide At The Seder

By / March 21, 2018

This article originally appeared in The New York Jewish Week on March 21, 2018.

By Hannah Dreyfus

Eric Thurm, a 25-year-old Brooklynite and writer, has been hosting seders for his contemporaries since his college days.

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5 Haggadahs and other Passover supplements to modernize your seder this year

By / March 21, 2018

This article originally appeared in the JTA on March 21, 2018.

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) — Although Jews have celebrated Passover by reading from the Haggadah in one form or another for 2,000 years, Jewish organizations and publishers strive each year to connect the holiday to modern times with fresh Haggadahs as well as supplements.

If you’re looking to give your seder a distinct 2018 flavor, consider these options — they bring up topics ranging from Donald Trump to Ethiopian chickpea matzah.

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Be’chol Lashon and Repair the World Create New Passover Seder Supplements to Connect Biblical Exodus Story to Modern Struggles for Freedom

By / March 15, 2018

New York, NY — To spark conversations connecting the ancient Passover Exodus story to modern struggles for freedom, Be’chol Lashon and Repair the Word are teaming up to offer specially designed seder supplements this Passover (werepair.org/passover). The materials, part of the Passover campaign, #MemoryToAction, encourage seder participants to engage in meaningful, sometimes difficult conversations about how we talk about individual and systemic struggles for freedom in the context of the Passover story.

“Jews are more diverse than many realize,” says Diane Tobin, CEO of Be’chol Lashon, which advocates for the ethnic and racial ​diversity of the Jewish people. “We focus on unique expressions of Passover around the world, while coming together over the universal Jewish story of Exodus. Our goal is to spark conversations, connecting the journey from slavery to freedom to the ongoing fight for racial justice.”

The Haggadah insert, with artwork from illustrator Shane W. Evans, is framed around the seder passage Avadmin Hayinu, Hebrew for “we were slaves.” The resource asks each participant to consider what it means to begin retelling the story of Exodus with the words, “we were slaves,” and leads one to explore today’s “fight for freedom on interpersonal, systemic, global and local levels” through the lens of the seder.

Print-at-home Trivia Place Cards offer a fun, interactive way to celebrate Passover rituals and traditions from diverse Jewish communities while also amplifying the multiplicity of identities and experiences within the American Jewish community. Trivia questions include, “Why do Jews from Gibraltar sprinkle a little bit of brick dust into their charoset?” Answer: “To remind them of the bricks that the Israelite slaves were forced to make.”

People not hosting their own seders, but who still want to use these resources at the seder’s they attend, can sign up to have the resources sent directly to their seder host at weRepair.org/Passover. Others looking to connect Passover with volunteer service, to bring #MemoryToAction, can search for volunteer opportunities at weRepair.org/Volunteer.

Repair the World’s ten-month call for young people to Act Now has included the 2017 High Holidays (Act Now for a Different Kind of Service), Thanksgiving (Act Now Against Hunger), MLK Day (Act Now for Racial Justice); Purim (# ShareHerStory), and concludes with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Repair the World has found that during special times in the calendar people are looking to root their celebration in issues that they care about. Over 223,000 people participated in the digital Purim campaign and nearly 10,000 people participated in service experiences as part of MLK Day’s Act Now for Racial Justice.

“Right now, people across the country, specifically young people, are looking for ways to engage their friends, families, and neighbors in conversations about what matters most to them,” says Laura Belinfante of Repair the World, the largest Jewish service organization in the country. “Holidays, specifically Jewish holidays, are the perfect time to open up conversations about social issues with loved ones. We are excited to see people apply learnings from our history towards action today.”

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Online movement fetes diversity of Jewish women

By / March 14, 2018

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Advocate on March 14, 2018.

By Alicia Landsman

BROOKLINE – Every year during Purim, Jews around the world retell the story of Esther, a Jewish woman of color who saved her people from imminent genocide. Now, thousands of years later, Mizrahi, Sephardi and Jewish women of color can share their own stories through the #ShareHerStory digital campaign. This new campaign is a partnership between the Jewish Women’s Archive, the Jewish Multiracial Network and Repair the World.

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Be’chol Lashon and Repair the World Create New Passover Seder Supplements

By / March 13, 2018

This article originally appeared in e-Jewish Philanthropy on March 13, 2018.

By EJP

To spark conversations connecting the ancient Passover Exodus story to modern struggles for freedom, Be’chol Lashon and Repair the Word are teaming up to offer specially designed seder supplements this Passover. The materials, part of the Passover campaign, #MemoryToAction, encourage seder participants to engage in meaningful, sometimes difficult conversations about how we talk about individual and systemic struggles for freedom in the context of the Passover story.

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Sharing special stories for Purim

By / February 27, 2018

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Chronicle on February 26, 2018.

By Tamara Fish

Traditionally Jews worldwide have shared mishloah manot, little packages of sweets and treats, with their loved ones and friends for Purim. What would the equivalent be for our digital age? Rebecca Katz of Repair the World, a US based organization, asked this very question, and in a brainstorming session with Mikki Pugh from the Jewish Women’s Archive and me from the Jewish Multiracial Network, the #ShareHerStory campaign was born.

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Making an impact – Thoughts on Allocating Jewish Philanthropic Time and Resources in 2018

By / February 26, 2018

This article originally appeared in eJewish Philanthropy on February 21, 2018.

By Larry Brooks

In his book, Good to Great and The Social Sectors, Jim Collins articulated a question many struggled to ask. Namely, how could the nonprofit sector shift its focus from inputs to outputs, which moves us closer to measuring the genuine impact of the organization’s work? Collins’ words paved the way for even more important queries, including not only how does a nonprofit measure impact, but also how does it articulate its impact.

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Jewish Women of Color Highlighted for Purim

By / February 26, 2018

This article originally appeared in The Jewish Exponent on February 21, 2018.

By Marissa Stern

Celebrating Purim is more than just eating hamantaschen and twirling groggers. There’s one famous character whose ethnic identity may get overlooked: Esther.

This year, to add to your mishloach manot goodie bag, Repair the World, Jewish Women’s Archive and Jewish Multiracial Network are honoring the legacy of the Jewish woman who bravely saved her people from the evil Haman in ancient Persia.

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#ShareHerStory Campaign Celebrates Jewish Women Of Color

By / February 26, 2018

This article originally appeared in The New York Jewish Week on February 20, 2018.

By Hannah Dreyfus

Think of her as a modern-day Queen Esther.

Rachel Sumekh, the founder of Swipe Out Hunger, a national initiative focused on ending college student hunger, is a community leader, activist and proud Jew. She is also the daughter of Iranian immigrants and a Persian woman of color.

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