Creating a new project with Sarah Rabin Spira, Director of Family Enrichment and Community Outreach

By Dr. Marion Usher
DCJCC Interfaith Connections, and Director of Jewish Interfaith Couples

(Cross-posted from JewishInterfaithCouples.com)

There is nothing that brings a bigger smile to my face than a gurgling baby.

So when Sarah and her beautiful daughter came into my house last Monday, I was delighted to see them both. In a nanosecond, we were settled around my kitchen table, and the baby was cooing away and batting her precious little hand at the toy suspended from her carrying basket. What a wonderful way to start the week!

Sarah and I were meeting to see how we could do some programming together. She is now the DCJCC’s Director of Family Enrichment and Community Outreach, and she was very interested in providing more services to the interfaith families that use our JCC.

I was thrilled to hear of her interest.

After reviewing many ideas and options, we settled on doing a “hands-on” project for families that included both the parents and the children, had a learning component, and also a “take home” for both the parents as well as the children. I love these kinds of projects, where the activity will be appealing to families that already use the DCJCC AND also to new families who have not yet stepped into the building.

With that in mind, we brainstormed about all the social media available to us including the DC parent list-servs, blogs, Google ads, our own DCJCC website, my website and many other web locations that might get to our target audience of interfaith families.

Here’s to more great collaborations and programs that reflect the beautiful diversity of our Jewish community!

 

Make Room For Matzah
Families Together Learning about the Passover Seder
March 17, 2013 |10:30 am–Noon
Ages 2 and up

Come and learn how to create a fun Passover experience for your family!

Parents will leave this experience with new ideas to implement and a complete book of tried and true recipes. Children will take home special hand make objects to use during the Seder.

We welcome all families with young children, especially interfaith families.

Facilitated by Sarah Rabin Spira, Director of Family Enrichment and Community Outreach and Marion L. Usher, Ph.D., creator of “Love and Religion: An Interfaith Workshop for Jews and Their Partners.”

(Learn more and register)

New Podcast: Meghan McCain

Enjoy this podcast from 2012 of Meghan McCain speaking about her book,  America, You Sexy B**ch, co-written by comedian Michael Ian Black.

Republican Meghan McCain and Democrat Michael Ian Black road-tripped across America with a unified purpose: to see if two people with radically different political beliefs could find common ground. Their narratives reveal how their biased expectations evolved into genuine respect for people who they initially thought were quite opposite from themselves.

Click to listen (podcast will begin automatically). To download as an MP3, right click and select “Save Link As.”

McCain Podcast

New Podcast: Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin

Enjoy this podcast from the 2012 Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival of Joy Ladin in conversation with Susan Weidman Schneider, Editor-in-Chief and founder of Lilith Magazine.

Joy Ladin made headlines around the world when she returned to Yeshiva University to teach literature as a woman after having received tenure as a man. With humor and unsparing honesty, Ladin, the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution, takes readers inside her transition as she changed genders and, in the process, created a new self.

Click to listen (podcast will begin automatically). To download as an MP3, right click and select “Save Link As.”

Joy Ladin

Who Gives?

It’s the end of December,
the clock’s running down
and your inbox has pleas
from each non-profit in town.

“We need your donation!”
“Make your year-end gift now!”
“Our mission relies on you,
Don’t let us down!”

We aim for your wallet,
Via the head-to-heart axis,
And if that doesn’t work
Well, it helps with your taxes.

From charities and orgs
The appeals, they are legion
Theaters, schools, causes
From all over the region.

Each cause it is worthy
But the asks are so many
One might click “delete”
And give no one a penny.

But please take pause,
Before going back to your biz,
To answer the cynic,
Who’s snarking, “Who gives?”

Who gives matters more,
Than how much or how little
From the upper most classes
To those of us in the middle.

For behind all the asks,
Beyond the quotes from Hillel,
Are people and causes
Just trying to do well.

To make the world better
More beautiful, more healthy,
To make sure that 100% of us
Are spiritually wealthy.

Here’s the inevitable pitch:
(It should come as no shock)
We’re asking for money,
On the 2012 clock.

The gifts will still matter,
Made in January or June.
But we’re asking today,
So we hope you give soon.

Given to us or elsewhere
End-of-year asks are sincere
The need goes on long
After 2012 disappears.

So pardon the pile-on,
Do-gooders need cash too.
It’s part of the job
We don’t like it any more than you.

So Happy New Year.
Thanks for paying attention.
We’re lucky to do what we do,
And for the DCJCC’s mission.

(Did we mention gifts are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law?)

Where Is A Jew?

One reason I love my emails of headlines from the Times of Israel is that every once in a while there’s something so ridiculously cool I don’t quite know what to do with myself.

Of course, I generally feel like I’m the only one who thinks it’s so cool, but I try not to let that small factor affect my overall enjoyment learning about something new. One of my favorite topics to read about is what can be dubbed “Jews from Unexpected Places,” i.e. not places we often associate with Jewish communities, such as the US, Israel, or Europe, which appears every so often at the bottom of the headlines.

Today I was clicking my way through the ToI website and found an article about the Jewish community of  Jamaica. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about Jewish history, including the Jewish migrations to the Western Hemisphere, but I had no clue there was ever a Jewish community in Jamaica, let alone one that is active today in Congregation Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom, the island’s only remaining synagogue. Given the long history of Judaism and roles Jews have played as merchants over the centuries, Jewish communities in other places shouldn’t be, well, surprising.

So much of American-Jewish culture (which often means Ashkenazic culture) is focused on Europe and Israel that I think we often forget how much of a global reach Judaism has had. Most of the Jewish-American traditions I know best come from Eastern Europe and New York; and like a lot of American Jews, those are my personal family traditions.

But our knowledge of Judaism should be wider. Last year while in Israel I met a Jew from Kenya, a place I had no idea has a Jewish community at all, let alone a strong one. I read an article in September about the Jewish community of Uruguay. A few months ago I had dinner with a woman who works with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and with a Jewish Community Center in India. A Jewish man from Uganda is studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem this year, and every time I go to the Israel Museum I find at least one object I never would have dreamed of, especially in the Costumes and Jewelry exhibit. And the Washington Jewish Film Festival will be screening a documentary about the Jews of Nigeria. These places have their own traditions, histories, and, of course, food, all made unique by the combination of Judaism and other local customs.

There’s a whole world of Judaism out there to explore, Jewish communities in all parts of the world, and we can honor those communities when we remember:

1)      that Jews are found in cultures all over the world, and speak be’chol lashon – in every tongue!
2)      that Jews come in every color!
3)      not to ask Jews of color if they have converted, or other exclusionary questions.

Though Jews have been living on Jamaica since 1577, maybe even since Columbus’ first trip in 1492, the community is getting smaller; it’s down to about 200 people. But it is a strong, diverse group of Jews by birth and Jews by choice, many of whom have converted back to their family’s Jewish roots. They are maintaining what is possibly the oldest Jewish community in the Western Hemisphere, and a wonderful reminder of the beauty that is the multi-faceted Jewish culture.

Are My Holiday Traditions Yours Too?

Ah, holiday traditions. ‘Tis the season for them, no matter where you’re from or what you believe.

Chanukkah is over, unless you’re like my family and waiting for everyone to come home around New Years to celebrate together, and most people are putting the chanukiot and dreidels away and bemoaning the piles of latkes leftover in the fridge. Still, Jews have another holiday with its own traditions coming up. No, you didn’t forget one; it’s merely Sleeping In, Chinese Food, and Movies Day, or what most of the world considers Christmas.

Okay, so maybe not every single Jew does the Chinese Food and Movies thing, but I know plenty of people who do, and I’ve yet to meet someone who disagrees with the widely-accepted popular culture stereotype. I’ve been doing it happily since I was allowed to go to the theater without my parents. I don’t recall missing a year since, I have a regular partner-in-crime back home in New Jersey, or at least I do when we’re both in the same state at the same time, and if I’m away it’s not too hard to find someone to go with. (I don’t count last year because December 25^th is no big deal in Israel.)

This year, I’ll be adding something to my Christmas Day plans: participating in the DCJCC’s annual December 25^th Day of Service, which brings together over 1,000 volunteers to bring some warmth and cheer to over 10,000 DC, Maryland, and Virginia residents.

 

EntryPointDC and a grand group of good-hearted young professionals will be at Change Inc., a social services organization in Columbia Heights, throwing a party for children of local, low-income families. Not only will we bring gifts, but we’ll have snacks, art and crafts projects, and maybe, if they’ve been good, a visit from Santa. It’s a couple hours out of a day when we’re not at work anyway, and what mitzvah to bring some holiday cheer to kids who may not get it anywhere else! (And no one said anything about not getting Chinese food and seeing Les Miserables after…). You can sign up here to join us, spaces are still available!

Any other interesting December 25^th traditions out there?

 

 

 

 

 

Something Beautiful

Grace here.  I wanted to share something beautiful today, so here is this picture from the newspaper.

It’s a picture of Johanna, the director of Apples from the Desert, from today’s Washington Post article about the upcoming Middle East Festival.

I love the picture because it captures so much of the play’s themes of hope, healing, and reconciliation. With all the terrible things that have happened in the news today, I needed to see something that reminded me of all the promise and beauty that exists in the world. I understand that different people find beauty in different things, but here are some more things that I find beautiful, and I hope you do too.