Another example of our failure to build community: Jewish organizations apply for almost nothing in local government grants, while the Muslim groups apply for and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars to help their people with arts production, small business, and even housing. Muslim housing bulk leases and their congregants rent from them. Where is our community with housing as our community ages? Where is our community with short term rehab after surgery? For the latter purpose, Providence is the only one with any real willingness to work with patients who aren't wealthy and needing to use Medicare and Medicaid. The Muslim community has legal help? Where is that in our community? And the emphasis on dues in synagogues is horrible. Asing a person who earns $400,000 per year to pay the same percentage as a person earning $25,000 per year is not all right. And there is transportation and event fees, keeping people from being able to participate, with no recognition of disability issues. It's not too much emphasis on Tikun Olam. It's an extreme case of not practicing it in our own community.
There is a saying that people cannot be a light under the nations until they take care of their own people. Too often that has been a problem with our Jewish community, especially in the diaspora. As the rabbi said, we tend to carry our Tikun Olam on our sleeve and is it and has a calling card in liberal and progressive circles. It is also clear then when it comes to Tikkun Olam it is a one-way street that never leads to the Jews. We need to rally around our people and our homeland of Israel only then can we carry out a more noble mission
Well said, Emily and Rabbi Jay. Also, Linda Seltzer 's trenchent comments need to be carefully considered and discussed by Cholent readers and the Jewish community at large.
Other religious communities aid and protect their people more than we do. We have to look at how churches build community and imitate it. In the widespread recessions of 2000, 2005 and 2008, other religions, such as Catholic and LDS, did far more to help people get jobs, whereas our community was missing in action. The Jewish Federation started a Jews in technology group. Workers showed up. Where were the employers? Where were the professors? They didn't care about us. The Presbyterian Church in Seattle had open job networking and career help every Thursday morning. The diocese had regular meetings. But while they had open meetings, they only did actual referrals and placements through managers of their faith with people of their faith. Where were our leaders and professors? Personally, I came to Seattle for a job that turned out not to exist. 14+ years later, still no real, professional job that matches my qualifications and skills, and no one who even cares. I ended up in poverty here. In NJ, the JFS wouldn't help Jewish workers unless you let them write your resume. In other words, take the degrees off your resume and forget about everything you ever worked for. Catholic networking worked with a Jewish career coach whom individuals could also hire. Catholic networking also invited me into an executive professional group in the NY/NJ area, which I am still a member of in NJ. Where is that in the Jewish community for educated Jewish women to participate in? This is not an issue of religious philosophy. It's a need for practical community building and people *genuinely* supporting each other.
Supporting civil rights isn't the problem. Failing to include Jews as a protected minority is the problem. Jewish leadership pretended that we aren't a minority and allowed the civil rights process to go along without protecting us. Employers didn't have to maintain data on whether we are hired or promoted. Employers didn't have to make sure to include our studies programs. Employers didn't have to recruit us to university faculties. The Jewish leadership was self-effacing on behalf of our community. But when you are Jewish and from one of the vast East Coast low-income Jewish neighborhoods, you see it differently. The Jewish community told the US government to go ahead and ignore us. Now there is no US Census data on how many Jewish people are renting, or receiving SNAP, or hired as engineers, or laid off in a mass layoff, or working in each profession. And no one considered the intersectionality of being Jewish + female as an underprivileged minority. The Jews who didn't have parents paying for their college, the Jews who didn't have inheritance, were simply erased. So when a university search committee looks for a professor, it is all right for them to bypass Jews in favor of minorities who stood up for themselves. And now we see the result of our community being self-effacing and not demanding to be counted and included from the start of the civil rights laws in the 1960s.
Another example of our failure to build community: Jewish organizations apply for almost nothing in local government grants, while the Muslim groups apply for and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars to help their people with arts production, small business, and even housing. Muslim housing bulk leases and their congregants rent from them. Where is our community with housing as our community ages? Where is our community with short term rehab after surgery? For the latter purpose, Providence is the only one with any real willingness to work with patients who aren't wealthy and needing to use Medicare and Medicaid. The Muslim community has legal help? Where is that in our community? And the emphasis on dues in synagogues is horrible. Asing a person who earns $400,000 per year to pay the same percentage as a person earning $25,000 per year is not all right. And there is transportation and event fees, keeping people from being able to participate, with no recognition of disability issues. It's not too much emphasis on Tikun Olam. It's an extreme case of not practicing it in our own community.
There is a saying that people cannot be a light under the nations until they take care of their own people. Too often that has been a problem with our Jewish community, especially in the diaspora. As the rabbi said, we tend to carry our Tikun Olam on our sleeve and is it and has a calling card in liberal and progressive circles. It is also clear then when it comes to Tikkun Olam it is a one-way street that never leads to the Jews. We need to rally around our people and our homeland of Israel only then can we carry out a more noble mission
Well said, Emily and Rabbi Jay. Also, Linda Seltzer 's trenchent comments need to be carefully considered and discussed by Cholent readers and the Jewish community at large.
Though American Orthodoxy has its challenges, the reimagining articulated by Rabbi Rosenbaum applies mostly if not entirely to the non-Orthodox.
Other religious communities aid and protect their people more than we do. We have to look at how churches build community and imitate it. In the widespread recessions of 2000, 2005 and 2008, other religions, such as Catholic and LDS, did far more to help people get jobs, whereas our community was missing in action. The Jewish Federation started a Jews in technology group. Workers showed up. Where were the employers? Where were the professors? They didn't care about us. The Presbyterian Church in Seattle had open job networking and career help every Thursday morning. The diocese had regular meetings. But while they had open meetings, they only did actual referrals and placements through managers of their faith with people of their faith. Where were our leaders and professors? Personally, I came to Seattle for a job that turned out not to exist. 14+ years later, still no real, professional job that matches my qualifications and skills, and no one who even cares. I ended up in poverty here. In NJ, the JFS wouldn't help Jewish workers unless you let them write your resume. In other words, take the degrees off your resume and forget about everything you ever worked for. Catholic networking worked with a Jewish career coach whom individuals could also hire. Catholic networking also invited me into an executive professional group in the NY/NJ area, which I am still a member of in NJ. Where is that in the Jewish community for educated Jewish women to participate in? This is not an issue of religious philosophy. It's a need for practical community building and people *genuinely* supporting each other.
Supporting civil rights isn't the problem. Failing to include Jews as a protected minority is the problem. Jewish leadership pretended that we aren't a minority and allowed the civil rights process to go along without protecting us. Employers didn't have to maintain data on whether we are hired or promoted. Employers didn't have to make sure to include our studies programs. Employers didn't have to recruit us to university faculties. The Jewish leadership was self-effacing on behalf of our community. But when you are Jewish and from one of the vast East Coast low-income Jewish neighborhoods, you see it differently. The Jewish community told the US government to go ahead and ignore us. Now there is no US Census data on how many Jewish people are renting, or receiving SNAP, or hired as engineers, or laid off in a mass layoff, or working in each profession. And no one considered the intersectionality of being Jewish + female as an underprivileged minority. The Jews who didn't have parents paying for their college, the Jews who didn't have inheritance, were simply erased. So when a university search committee looks for a professor, it is all right for them to bypass Jews in favor of minorities who stood up for themselves. And now we see the result of our community being self-effacing and not demanding to be counted and included from the start of the civil rights laws in the 1960s.