www.npr.org

“The best piece of advice I ever received was from Mark Zuckerberg, Founder & CEO of Facebook: ‘If you always try to please everyone, if you always try to be liked, you’ll never say anything that matters.’”

“Last year, during a turbulent time of religious unrest in our partnership region of Mateh Yehuda-Beit Shemesh, the Jewish Agency for Israel and The Jewish Federation’s Partnership 2Gether program seized the opportunity to bridge the connection between the Ultra-Orthodox and secular communities…four grass-roots initiatives were selected to receive grants for projects designed to enhance religious tolerance and promote mutual respect.

This week, our Greater Washington community welcomed the creators of one such initiative (the Women’s Film and Dialogue Project) who are paving the way for future Mateh Yehuda – Beit Shemesh generations through film. Hila Timor Ashur (a secular woman from Mateh Yehuda) and Chaya Yosevich (an Ultra-Orthodox woman from Beit Shemesh) use film-making to bring together members of their communities that rarely interact and often clash. Earlier this week, the creators and four other participants of the project screened their film, which shows the diverse meaning of Jewish life in Israel today.” - Taken from JFGW Donor Connection – January 11, 2013

More information on Bridging Beit Shemesh

Women’s Film and Dialogue Project creators, four film participants and Anton Goodman, DC area Schaliach, conducting a panel at the DCJCC screening on January 13, 2013.

A recent study on the impact of giving circles nationwide conducted by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers indicated that giving circles have boomed in the last decade, becoming a philanthropic force all their own. Jewish giving circles have been part of this trend. 

The personal element of giving circles makes recruitment informal. “You pick up the phone, call a friend, say, ‘Hey, want to join something awesome?’” explained Julie Sissman, the board chair of Hekdesh, the giving circle of Dorot Fellowship alumni. The group, currently made up of 67 alumni from around the world, “isn’t meeting in the living room anymore,” said Sissman. To accommodate the diffuse membership, almost all board and chair meetings are held online.

The “personal” element of giving circles also allows the philanthropists to be more selective about their projects. “We have a very specific niche, and we’re focused on filling it,” said Sara Rose Gorfinkel, 32, director of Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation of Greater Washington (TOWF). “We’re Jewish women fighting for women.”

The women’s foundation, funded both by an endowment and by member contributions, focuses on local Jewish women’s organizations, women’s organizations in Israel and low-income immigrant communities in the D.C. area. Over the past seven years it has granted over $500,000 to to 37 discrete projects. Twenty women joined in the last year, and more than half of them were under 35. 

Read the rest of the article here.

1. TOWF Director, Sara Gorfinkel, contributed to a great blog post on Kveller.com, a new Jewish parenting site, on the Jewish Women’s Collaborative International Fund
2. Tablet senior author Allison Hoffman published an insightful article on mikvah use for the  21^st century – highlighting TOWF grantee, Adas Israel Community Mikvah, and mentioning TOWF’s funding at the end of the article.
3. eJewish Philanthropy highlighted the Jewish Women’s Collaborative International Fund (JWCIF) in U.S., Israel Jewish Women’s Foundations Partner to Promote Gender Equality 

This exposure is a wonderful start to our new year and we are excited to continue sharing it with you!

Below is a D’var Torah for this week’s portion, Behar-Bechukotai, by trustee Amy Kaufman:

“This week’s Torah portion deals with the tremendous responsibility each Jewish person has to practice Tikkun Olam, and perform mitzvot.  Rabbis discuss we should be a “rodef shalom” – a pursuer of peace.  They specify a pursuer of peace – not an “oseh shalom” – a maker of peace.  Why?  What is the difference between a pursuer of peace and a maker of peace?  A maker of peace implies that peace was achieved – but is peace ever really achieved?  As pursuers of peace, we continue to strive towards peace, in an ongoing process.

As I thought about this and what all of this means, it seemed fitting that this parsha would follow the week after Mother’s Day.

I thought about who originally instilled the important values in me to address when considering myself as a pursuer of peace:  to put others before myself, to be a leader in my community in my endeavor to practice Tikkun Olam, to do mitzvot.

Of course, it was from watching my own mother.  From a young age, I always saw my mother as a pursuer of peace and watched my mother selflessly give herself to others.  She always put my sisters and my needs above her own, she donated her time and volunteered in many organizations, and she provided a leaning shoulder to her friends as they needed her.  I watched my mother be the first to deliver food to a friend in suffering, the first to volunteer for the most unwanted committee heads, and the first to unite her group – whether our family, or her organization.

As we celebrate the mothers and other great women in our lives (our grandmothers, our aunts, our sisters and friends), we reflect upon the impact they had on shaping our lives and teaching us the importance of giving back to the community and to the world.  We also hopefully consider how our own actions influence our daughters and sons, and our grandchildren.

As we finish up our site visits, and consider which grants to make, we pursue peace in several avenues.  We listen and learn from others about what peace and success means for their cause.

• Domestic trafficking- Can the programs we fund empower immigrant women to live peacefully in the DC area?

• Agunah rights –Will this program help educate women and girls so they can appropriately and peacefully be granted a Jewish divorce?

• Local lesbian and gay rights- can we provide a program that helps teenage girls be part of a community where they feel safe and can emerge as leaders?

This week’s parsha reminds us of the importance to continue to pursue peace for our social issues; even though the results may not be immediately achieved, this is an ongoing process and pursuit.

As women and as mothers, we play a significant role in shaping the values in our families.  By being an active member of Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation, we can all be confident, that not only are continuing our personal road to be a rodef shalom, a pursuer of peace, but we are setting an example for our children.”

- Amy Kaufman, presented May 15, 2012

“This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol, the last of the four special shabbatot that precede Passover.

It is called “Shabbat HaGadol”, the Sabbath of The Great  because of the last line of the Haftarah, at the end of the book of the prophet Malachi, which reads: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord”

It discusses something rather unusual the final day of judgment. Nowhere in the Torah is the final judgment mentioned, and in general, the idea of final judgment is not often found in Judaism.

But we find it here, and we are told, before it arrives, Elijah the prophet will appear. Elijah will come and will close the generation gap–return the hearts of sons to their fathers, and the hearts of fathers to their sons, or else a terrible calamity will befall the land.

This Shabbat is also called Shabbat HaGadol because of the connotation of great as in “large”, or better yet, all grown up.  Where we as a people “grew up” to leave Egypt.

Up to this point in the Torah, all the miracles and all the action had come from God alone.  He sent Moshe to save us, He performed all the plagues upon Egypt.  We were pretty much bystanders to the whole production.

But now at this point in the Torah, it was OUR turn to act, to step up and prove our loyalty to G-d and our faith in Him. In fact, not every Jew was up to the task; many never left Egypt. But those who did go through with this act of defiance were ready for liberation and statehood.

And so it was with Moshe himself. Twice the Torah says, “Vayigdal – and Moshe grew.” The first is in the physical sense; the baby grew into a mature man. But the second reference comes when Moshe throws in his lot with his Jewish people and kills the cruel Egyptian. That was a true “coming of age,” an active decision to define himself.

What a “Gadol” or Great thing  that we are doing today with the Foundation.  Like Elijah, we are closing the Generation Gap – amongst the many young women and older women here today – and helping the world become the better place for that final judgment.

And as a Foundation we are “growing up” and “coming of age”  like Moshe, as we expand our reach with more trustees, new grantees, more funds, and a nationwide group of like-minded Foundations to partner with.

Great work ladies, thank you so much.”

- Marcy Wolf, presented March 28, 2012

By: Batya Kahana-Dror, Mavoi Satum

The media storm over ‘exclusion of women’ holds our interest primarily through high profile events and the public debates which follow them. Few of us living  in an open society can say that manifestations of the  ’exclusion of women’ really affect our lives directly or personally.

For many women, however, (statistically one in four) who come into contact with  the Rabbinical Courts the situation is very different. For them, whose future often depends on the decision or whim of a particular dayan, the ‘exclusion of women’ is very real and personal. Their voices are routinely silenced by the representatives of religion empowered by the State of Israel to perform marriages and to dissolve them – The Rabbinical Court.

The struggle for Jewish women to be valued as human beings with full rights, to be seen and heard, is taking place most palpably in the heart of the  religious establishment, in the institution that has received a mandate from the State of Israel to have free reign over the most personal and intimate areas of people’s lives. From the moment a woman marries in Israel, she ties her fate to the religious establishment and to the Rabbinical Court.

There in the court sit three bearded men wearing black hats and black coats. Who are these men? Do they see the woman who stands before them? What world do they come from and what world does she come from? Does anyone there understand what she is talking about and what she wants? Will her voice even be heard? And if it is, can they really listen? Does a meeting take place at all?

We want to change all this. We want to give that woman back her voice. Her voice resonates for us in everything we do. It makes no difference to us whether she is religious or secular or ultra-orthodox. It is irrelevant whether she was forced to stand before the Rabbinical court or she has come before them believing faithfully that this is a place of justice. She may be aware that they are depriving her of her rights or she may accept their ruling submissively. In all cases, we are there to help her.

The challenge that this woman poses is not just an individual one. The woman who stands before the Rabbinical Court demanding justice in her own case challenges us all.  It asks us to examine our attitude to women, to the administration of justice and to the protection of the rights of all citizens in this country. It forces us to think about the future of the State of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.  That is why:

We support women struggling for their freedom from an unwanted marriage by representing them in the Rabbinic and Civil Courts, thereby hoping to build a better society.

We empower women to help themselves, to strengthen themselves, to resist the forces that oppress them and to stand up for their right to freedom.

We promote a ‘different’ kind of Judaism. A Judaism that sees all its members through equal lenses.  A Judaism in which justice and equality are the foundations of its court system.  A Judaism that will enable us to continue living here in a Jewish state.

We call on young couples to protect themselves, to become partners in the official marriage process by signing prenuptial agreements and empowering private courts to uphold them.

Our political struggle to prevent injustice and discrimination against women being denied a divorce does not stop with proposing legislation. It extends to the battle for the appointment of worthy judges who are essential to bringing about change. We are fighting to include women on the committee that appoints these judges. We know that appropriate religious judges can help rectify the insufferable imbalance in the divorce process.

This is not a fight against the ‘exclusion of women’ in the queue at the health clinics in Betar Illit or on the streets of Bet Shemesh alone. It is a struggle over the heart of the religious establishment. It is a battle for equality and social justice for women in this country and for the image that the State of Israel presents to the world. This is an issue that threatens the delicate fabric of our existence here as a Jewish and democratic state.  Our survival as a cohesive society depends on the ability of the State to integrate the values of human rights and equality for women into its character as a Jewish state.

Join the Tikkun Olam Women’s Foundation, AWARE and the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse this Sunday, February 26 for our first ever Community Event on teen dating violence: Power off Dating Abuse. The event will take place from 2-4 pm at the JCC of Greater Washington in Rockville, Maryland. On-site registration begins at 1:30 pm.   

In recent weeks, the event has made the headlines of the Washington Jewish Weeek and the Baltimore Jewish Times. The program, geared toward teens and their parents, is just one way we hope to spark important conversation within our community around the issue and prevention of teen dating violence.  

Below please find links to two news articles, a direct link to pre-register for the event and an extended blog post explaining more details of Sunday’s programming:

• “A New Abuse” by Meredith Jacobs of the Baltimore Jewish Times
• “Raising Awareness on Teen Dating Abuse, Violence” by Meredith Jacobs of the Washington Jewish Week   
• Click here to pre-register for the event
• Click here for event details

AWARE, the prevention initiative of Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, is hosting “Power Off Dating Abuse: a frank conversation for teens and parents” on teen dating abuse. Keynote speaker, author Patrick Jones, will share his perspective on teen dating abuse and abusive behaviors. Jones is the author of “Things Change,” an honest examination of unhealthy teen dating relationships.

Jones will be joined by two top experts on teen dating violence: Debbie Feinstein, Assistant State’s Attorney, who specializes in the prosecution of felony domestic violence and physical child abuse, and Julie Baron, a licensed clinical social worker with expertise in treating adolescents and their families and works with parents and teens on bullying and technology safety.

Attend and learn: 

• The signs and red flags of an abusive relationship
• How you can help yourself or a friend who is caught in an unhealthy relationship
• Everything a parent should know about today’s teen dating relationships
• How to stay safe on the internet

Following the keynote speaker and experts, you will have the opportunity to participate in a series of follow-up workshops:

• Learn stress management strategies while making an AWARE stress ball
• Create a Gary Rosenthal Mezuzah representing “Shalom Bayit (Peace in the Home)” – $40/first mezuzah, $35 for each additional

CALLING ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: You can receive 2 hours of community service upon attending this event! Parents – we encourage you to share this with your teens.

Event Details: 

Sunday, February 26, 2012

JCC of Greater Washington, 6125 Montrose Rd, Rockville, MD

2-3 p.m: Panel Discussion, 3-4 p.m: follow-up workshops

Cost: In advance: $8/family, or $4/teenager, at the door: $10/family, $5/teenager

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER 

Questions? Contact: aware@awarenow.org, 301-315-8040

Event information:

Sunday, January 22

1:00-5:00 pm

American University, Ward Circle Building

Important links:

Registration

Article in Washington Jewish Week by event co-chair, Rabbi Sid Schwarz