Published in Haaretz October 30, 2006  The Paralysis of the Victim                                                                                                 - Rabbi Michael M. Cohen
The most visible and well known Jewish museum in the United States is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Located in the cluster of national buildings in the heart of Washington, D.C. that includes the White House, Congress, the Smithsonian Museums, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial the Holocaust Museum is the most visited Jewish museum in the United States. Over 24 million people have visited it since its doors opened in April 1993 including over 10 million schoolchildren, 2,700 officials from 131 countries, and 80 heads of state. Impressive numbers. Read more
Last Cheshvan, Susan and IÂ decided to adopt Zamir from Ethiopia.
In celebration of global Jewish Social Action Month, Madonna/Esther has adopted David. Â
There are those of us who have adopted from African orphanages and also believe that the world would be a different place if most American families–and in particular most American Jewish families–would consider adoption from a continent that has been devasted from poverty and now AIDS. Go Madonna!
(but couldn’t you have found an orphan without the entanglements of one living parent? If you need to connect to a spiritual guide on this and related questions, may I suggest my wife at RabbiSusan@aol.com)
New Voices Cover Story, the Premier Issue
Shadows, Voices & Numbers
A Look at the CJF Population Survey
November/December 1991Â Kislev 5752
By Yosef I. Abramowitz
As the American Jewish community basked for the past 20 years in the lights of its growing political power, it did not notice the exiting shadows on the walls of its schools, synagogues, community centers, and other institutions. Naturally, shadows do not speak; so others, young people, have tried to speak for them. Their pleas, like whispers, fell on deaf ears. And another generation disappeared. No one even said Kaddish.
Now it is not the shadows nor the dwindling pool of committed student activists who speak. It is numbers. Read more
From my rabbi, teacher, mentor and fellow Covenant Award winner, via JTA. Excerpts of his new book on social action can be found on socialaction.com. Â
OP-EDÂ Â Social Action Month is a chance to engage young generation of Jews
by Rabbi Sid Schwarz
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (JTA) — For the second year in a row, the Israeli Parliament has declared the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, which began Oct. 24, as Jewish Social Action Month.Living in the United States, a country that declares honorary weeks and months for everything from stamps to dairy farmers, it’s tempting to dismiss the strategy as empty hype. Yet there is cause for Jews to take serious notice: There’s tremendous energy in the American Jewish community around social action that has all the markings of a renaissance about it.
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The ritualistic naming of a month devoted to social action is a good time to assess the phenomenon and encourage its development. Read more
http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=5279
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| Israel declares social action month |
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| Israeli and Diaspora leaders declared a Jewish month for social action.A special Knesset session attended by Cabinet ministers and several senior lawmakers was held Tuesday to launch Jewish Social Action Month in Cheshvan, which falls between Oct. 24 and Nov. 21 this year.Â
The initiative was fostered by KolDor, a global network of young Jewish activists that helps runs the Web sites koldor.org, socialaction.com and cheshvan.org.
Because no Jewish holidays occur during Cheshvan, it traditionally has been seen as a month of sadness.
KolDor’s proposal is that Cheshvan instead be a time of “Tikkun Olam� — repairing the world — and brotherly love.
According to the group, as part of the campaign the UJA-Federation of New York is funding community service and social action projects that include joint youth projects in New York, Israel and Ukraine, creating a wildlife habitat in Long Island and an internship program for teens at the Bukharan Jewish Museum in Queens. |
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Jerusalem Post, Wednesday, October 25, 2006Â
Social activists call to transform Heshvan
Leaders of a host of Jewish organizations, mostly from the Diaspora, called in the Knesset Tuesday for a revision of the traditional Hebrew calendar that would reflect a grassroots push for more worldwide Jewish social action.
These organizations want to transform the Hebrew month of Heshvan, traditionally called Mar [bitter] Heshvan because it is devoid of holidays, into “Social Action Heshvan.� Yossi Abramowitz, a member of KolDor, a global network of Jewish activists behind the initiative, presented the idea to a special joint session of the Education, Culture and Sports Committee, headed by MK Michael Melchior, and the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, chaired by MK Michael Nudelman.
“I am a child of the Soviet Jewry and anti-apartheid movement,� said Abramowitz during his speech. “Jews from all kinds of backgrounds, including the unaffiliated, were involved. We have seen history bend to our will when collective action became normalized among so many. Read more
headlines, more to follow:
Minister Jacob Edry, who chairs the interministerial committee on symbols of the state, wrote a letter read at the beginning of the televised joint committee launch that he blesses and supports the transformation of cheshvan to Jewish Social Action Month, that he will bring it to the ministerial committee and will urge the government to adopt it. This came on the stationary of the Prime Minister’s Office.
A dozen members of knesset, including two Presidential hopefuls, participated in the launch. Education Committee Chair Michael Melchior and Aliya, Klita and Diaspora Affairs Chair Michael Nudelman, presided; sessison concluded with the two committees supporting officially addition “Cheshvan L’rayacha Kamocha” Jewish Social Action Month to the State calendar and for the educational and other systems of the State to ensure that the month is duly celebrated.Â
The room was packed with Kol Dor members, other Jewish and Israeli NGOs and other influentials. Some nice press, including an interview I did on Israeli TV.
more later.
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