This article originally appeared on Jeducation World on April 14, 2019.
Repair the World has created a roundup of resources that can be used during the seder. Outside the seder, these resources could be used in the classroom to teach the important values of giving and service and to connect them to the Passover story.
This article originally appeared on The JTA on April 16, 2019.
By Josefin Dolsten
SooJi Min-Maranda rarely sees other Jewish people who look like her.
“I often feel very isolated as a Jew of color living in the Midwest,” she said.
Min-Maranda, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and two children, was born in Korea but moved with her family to the United States at the age of 3.
This article appeared on eJewish Philanthropy on April 16, 2019
By Maayan Hoffman
There is less than one week until the Jewish holiday of Passover. You’ve detailed your Seder menu, scrubbed your kitchen and invited your guests. But what Haggadot will you use to share the story of the Exodus from Egypt?
This article originally appeared on The JTA on April 12, 2019.
By Mike Elk
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — For many in this city’s Jewish community, after suffering through a long winter following the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in October that killed 11 worshippers, the return of the professional baseball season has been a welcome mental health relief.
This article originally appeared in The Jewish Herald Voice on April 4, 2019.
By Michael C. Duke
Hillel students from California participated in an alternative spring break program that brought them to Houston, where they spent a week rebuilding a home that was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey.
This piece first appeared on the Schusterman Family Foundation’s blog celebrating National Volunteer Week on April 11, 2019.
As Interim President & CEO of Repair the World, Cindy Greenberg helps make meaningful service a defining element of American Jewish life. We spoke with Cindy to learn why Repair the World focuses on a service-learning approach, how to plan a successful service initiative and the ways service has changed in recent years.
What motivated you to pursue a career focused on service?
Service has always been an important part of my identity and was a defining part of my vision for building Jewish life during the 15 years that I worked for Hillel. The Jewish community I sought, and the one that so many of the students I worked with demanded, was one that is deeply engaged in service.
In 2012, Superstorm Sandy devastated New York City. The Jewish community I was working with immediately stepped into action. In the days and months following the storm, we mobilized thousands of volunteers to care for our impacted neighbors, providing food, supplies, medical care and even respite. It forever shaped my understanding of how compassionate New Yorkers are and how the Jewish community comes alive when it is showing up to support others.
It was also a moment of personal reckoning for me. The people we were serving, my neighbors, weren’t just impacted by a natural disaster, but by systemic poverty, and I was inspired by the power of the Jewish community to make change.
What is service-learning, and why does Repair the World focus on this practice?
At Repair the World, we focus on meaningful service where volunteers learn, act and reflect. If you join us in one of our local Communities to volunteer—for example, if you rescue food that’s about to be thrown out with 412 Food Rescue in Pittsburgh, or you tutor students in Detroit with Brilliant Detroit—you’ll help to address an immediate need in your neighborhood.
And we think it’s important to do more than that. We dig into the systemic issues that cause the need in the first place and we reflect together on what we experienced. We ask hard questions, often grounded in Jewish text, about our responsibility for our neighbors, about whether our service really matters and about how we might create a more just society.
Research shows that this learning and reflection—closely coordinated with the service itself— helps those serving find deep meaning in their efforts, and makes it more likely they will continue to engage in service to create change and to support others.
How does service help people overcome implicit bias?
All of us who consume American culture have deeply internalized unconscious assumptions that we make about people based on their race. Research shows that the most effective way for people to shift their own implicit bias is through individuation, which means increasing the quantity and quality of our relationships with people from historically oppressed groups.
Service that is done alongside neighbors of different backgrounds is a powerful way to build relationships and uproot our internalized biases. And this matters a lot because that bias can inform our everyday decisions about where we live, shop, dine and who we interact with. In this way, our service has the power to not only transform our communities, but to also transform ourselves.
What advice would you give to someone looking to create an effective and meaningful service experience?
My number one piece of advice would be to invest time in partnership. Make sure your service is driven by the needs of the community, and not by the needs of the volunteers. Don’t organize a drive and then try to identify a place to donate it. Instead, invest the time in identifying a partner who is doing quality work and ask them what is needed. Show up to see them in action and get to know them. Make an ongoing commitment. Try to organize the service to work alongside the people most affected by the issue. The best service experiences blur the lines between who is serving and who is being served.
How has service changed over the last few years?
I see two trends in service right now. The first is that we’ve reached a tipping point in our culture in acknowledging that inequity is tied to racism. We’re seeing that our Fellows and volunteers want to engage in learning and discussion about how racism impacts the issues we’re trying to address. For example, when we volunteer as tutors in an afterschool program, the discussion about education inequity leads to deep questions about school segregation and how race impacts education outcomes in our communities.
The second is that since the 2016 election and the growing divide in our country, there’s been a growing number of people seeking out ways to understand and connect with people of different backgrounds, and service is one way to do that. There’s also a growing desire to show up to support communities who are feeling marginalized right now.
Cindy Greenberg is the Interim President & CEO of Repair the World and a Schusterman Fellow. Previously, she served as the founding Executive Director of Repair the World NYC. Cindy lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Dan, and three children, and she has a passion for launching and managing innovative initiatives in Jewish life.
Repair the World engages thousands of people in ongoing volunteer opportunities every week in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Miami, NYC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, and sparks conversations around social justice that lead more people to want to volunteer in their communities. This Passover, check out Repair’s #MySederServes campaign, which includes seder resources for meaningful conversations and volunteer opportunities in your community.
This article originally appeared on the UF Hillel blog on Thursday, April 4.
By Andrew Nissensohn
Spring Break 2019 was such an incredible experience for me. I participated in the University of Florida Hillel Alternative Spring Break, with Repair the World NYC. Five students from the University of Florida Hillel, spent five days in Brooklyn, New York, volunteering with various service partners of Repair the World.
This article originally appeared on The Almanac South Hills Community News on Monday, April 1.
By Harry Funk
If you’re not familiar with the concept of food justice, let Molly Patterson explain.
“At a very basic level, food justice would mean that everyone has access to the food that they need, and not just any food, but healthy food,” South Hills Interfaith Movement’s operations coordinator said.
This article originally appeared on Daily Kos on March 24, 2019.
By Daily Kos contributor
Although the Book of Esther read this past week tells us she was queen —like Queen Vashti before her— the significance of these women is not for royalty. It is for their courage and determination in the face of danger, to refuse to abide by limits placed upon women as less than equal stature human beings.
This article originally appeared on Righteous Crowd on March 22, 2019.
By Righteous Crowd
During this week’s celebration of Purim, we read about Queen Esther, who proudly and bravely stands up to King Ahasuerus, ultimately saving the Jews from the evil Haman. In honor of Queen Esther, we are excited to support Digital Girl, a Brooklyn-based organization that that works with inner city youth, especially girls, to learn and pursue activities and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Read our interview below with Repair the World NYC Fellow, Maya Hawkins.
