Thank you again to all who assisted in both donating and unloading food at the GillespieCenter. Your
contributions are greatly appreciated and this year, unlike years past, we will have at least one other food
drive to help those in need.
As mentioned last month, we continue to support the EdisonSchool in Bridgeport. If you are interesting in tutoring or in helping in other ways, please contact Jennifer Blankfein at blankfein@att.net.
And, we will continue our monthly collections. This month (November) we will be collecting men’s winter clothing. Jeans, hooded sweatshirts and underwear are most urgently needed. During the month of December, we will be collecting new pajamas for both men and women. The collection bins are located on the right hand side immediately after you walk in the main doors to TempleIsrael.
As part of our new Green Initiative, we are putting together a subcommittee to tackle issues big and small, and to come up with creative ways to educate our TI families about the importance of being responsible stewards of the environment and to adopt responsible practices at TI. If you are interested in being part of this effort, please contact Helaine Klasky at helaine.klasky@yale.edu.
During her Rosh Hashanah sermon, Rabbi Mendelson further underscored the absolute necessity for our community, for the security of Israel and for the betterment of the world to become better stewards of our environment. Rabbi Orkand called on all of us to read Ron Wolfson’s book, God’s To-Do List, and to talk with our families about ways in which we can “do God’s work on earth.” In his book, Wolfson discusses the various way that we all can help make the planet a little greener. In chapter 7, he discusses “fixing the world one step at a time” and suggests 10 ways in which we can all work toward repairing the world. These include:
“conserve water, plant trees and gardens, recycle, take care of the environment…reduce fuel consumption. Ride a bike. Walk. Use a more fuel-efficient vehicle.” These are but a few examples. We hope you will join us as we embark on this journey.
By David A.M. Wilensky As readers of Reform Judaism magazine will recall, the RJ magazine's summer 2008 issue included a series of important questions regarding the Reform Movement and their answers as given by 30 adult members of the Reform...
The floods in the Midwest have displaced hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed billions of dollars of crops and business and the clean-up is only beginning. Rabbi Lane Steinger is the regional director for the Union's Midwest Council. Between filling...
By Mark YoungI recently had the honor of being included in several chapters of the RJ Guide - Reform Judaism 30 Stories. If you didn't yet make it all the way to Section VI-Making a Difference, here is part of...
This week the j. jewish news weekly of northern california published a story about how Congregation Sha'ar Zahav was instrumental in expanding health care coverage to thousands of people in the city of San Francisco. How did they do it?...
By JanetheWriter This morning, a friend emailed me to relate the less than menschleichkeit goings-on she'd witnessed during her bus ride to work. The key players were a blind man, his companion and a woman who, among other bus etiquette...
By dccMy dad is a science guy and likes to explain things like floods, earthquakes and mega-storms in terms that none of us can understand. But last week, at the height of the Midwest flooding, he handed me his...
By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie(First posted as an op-ed on Israel News)The time has come to engage in dialogue with our Muslim neighbors and to educate ourselves about Islam. Dialogue is especially critical now. We live in a world...
By Emily GrottaWhat brings younger Jews "into the fold?" According to the New York Jewish Week, it's outside-the-box social justice groups like the Progessive Jewish Alliance. Outside-the-box social justice groups like PJA are responding to a communal establishment that has narrowed...
By Rabbi Warren Stone "In a world where matters of faith seem so often and so tragically to divide us, there is no issue which aligns us more deeply than our shared dependence upon and sacred responsibility to this tiny...
By Emily Grotta Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post has been observing the dialogue between members of a synagogue and a mosque in the Washington area. She writes: Such dialogue is often a balancing act: hopeful yet guarded; genuine yet...
At a meeting of URJ Camp directors in early March the Reform Jewish summer camps took the first steps as a system in partnering with FUSE (Faiths United for Sustainable Energy) to work to make camp "greener." Since that time,...
By Rebecca Blake Chaikin(Cross Posted with the RACBlog)The National Abstinence Education Association is in the midst of launching an aggressive campaign to drum up support among parents for sex education curricula that teaches abstinence only until marriage. They are hoping...
Micro-philanthropy is changing the way causes raise money. Naomi Abelson, manager of Congregational Relations for the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, heads the Union's Nothing But Nets campaign. Raising money for insecticide treated bed nets, this project has...
By JanetheWriterToday's New York Times carries a front page article about Nothing But Nets, the initiative to eradicate malaria that recently has exploded in popularity, making charity "cool," particularly among young people. As the daughter of a parasitologist, I have long...
By dccToday at 2:15 pm EDT, Rabbi David Saperstein will take part in a press conference about Climate Change Legislation on Capital Hill. Senators John Warner (R-VA) Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) will take part in the conference...
Send mail to webmaster with questions or
comments about this web site.
