Somewhere on a small lake in the woods of Connecticut (a.k.a Isabella Freedman) an unusual group of 120 Jews, young and old with a common goal of bettering the world through environmental action and social justice got together. Coming from all corners of the world they embarked on a journey. Exploring their common ancestral origin, faith and homeland. Learning there is still much to bridge between themselves in this complex world on the way to repair it - Tikkun Olam. About: Siach is an Environment and Social Justice Conversation that launched on May 2011, acting as a global network of experienced Jewish environment and social justice professionals, as well as highly dedicated lay leaders, from Israel, North America, and Europe. Its goal is to connect and foster collaboration based upon a … Continue Reading
Volunteering + Values: Connecting the Dots
by Jon Rosenberg and Lisa Eisen Opportunities to shift fundamentally the Jewish communal landscape and deepen our collective impact on the world do not arise every day. But as it happens, one has been making headlines within and beyond our community over the past few weeks. With the release of Volunteering + Values: A Repair the World Report on Jewish Young Adults, we received a roadmap for helping young Jews bring Jewish identity and values into the forefront of their efforts to serve the common good. Why is this important? Because today we are blessed with a generation of young Jews who believe deeply that they can - and should - have a positive impact on the world. They are volunteering in droves and are full of passion, especially about eradicating poverty and illiteracy and preserving … Continue Reading
California Teenagers Win Tikkun Olam Awards
The Helen Diller Family Foundation and The Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties today announced the 2011 recipients of the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards. Nearly 125 teens from across the state of California were nominated and considered for the award - five recipients were chosen to each receive $36,000. Each Diller honoree has initiated an innovative social action project exemplifying tikkun olam. These volunteer projects have truly made a difference in today’s economically world. The teens will be recognized at a celebratory luncheon in San Francisco later this summer. This is the fifth year the awards have been given, and a special commemoration of past recipients and the impact their efforts have made in the world will also be … Continue Reading
Social Change Does Not Happen Overnight
Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation of Greater Washington Awards Record $100,000 in Grants to Nonprofits The Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation of Greater Washington (TOWF) marked its sixth grantmaking year with a record $100,000 granted in support of nine organizations to programs effecting social change for women and girls. The Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation has renewed their support of many of these organizations because of the ground breaking work being done to improve the lives of women and girls. TOWF’s local grantee organizations include The Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (JCADA), Jews United for Justice, The Jewish Council for the Aging, Empowered Women International and CASA de Maryland. Grantee organizations in Israel include The Mahut Center for Employment and Guidance for … Continue Reading
Israel’s Complicated Relationship With World Aid
In the face of international crises, nonprofit veteran says Israel needs to increase its involvement in worldwide aid. by Sharon Udasin One of the most gaping holes in the Israeli nonprofit sector is a strong presence in international aide arena, contributions toward causes and communities completely unrelated to Israel and world Jewry, according to Dr. Mike Naftali, who is trying to repair this dearth through his nonprofit organization Brit Olam. “Nobody in Israel really cares about international affairs because we are so self-absorbed in our own dilemmas,” said Naftali, suggesting that government policy is perhaps most responsible for the lack of charitable investments abroad. Naftali, a social worker by profession with three decades of experience in the Israeli nonprofit sector, … Continue Reading
Study Finds Israel Program for Teach for America Deepens Commitment to Social Justice
Repair the World, a national organization dedicated to making service a defining element of America Jewish life, will host a call today with Teach For America and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation to announce results of a new study that finds the REALITY Israel Experience for Teach For America Corps Members - which provides an immersive leadership experience in Israel for Teach For America corps members - had a significant impact on participants’ commitment to social justice and on their leadership abilities to advance educational equity. While the majority of REALITY participants were Jewish, the success of the program has wide implications for secular and interfaith service communities looking to deepen their members’ commitment to service, namely: ground service in your … Continue Reading
Andrew Silow-Carroll on Tikun Olam and Peoplehood
by Andrew Silow-Carroll There are few things more satisfying than finding out that something you’ve been saying for years is actually true. In a number of columns, I’ve written about the rise of tikun olam as a Jewish way of saying “social justice.” Although the concept of “repairing the world” has been in the Jewish vocabulary for centuries - especially among kabalists - I’ve confidently asserted that hardly anyone talked about it before the early 1980s. Google’s nifty “Ngrams” tool confirms this. Plug in any word and Google will chart how often it appears among the millions of books in Google’s on-line database. I entered “tikkun” (the most common spelling). Google generated a hockey-stick shaped graph that shows few if any examples of the term before 1980, then … Continue Reading
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