Have you ever held a great social justice program and no one came?
Do you want your temple to respond effectively and powerfully to the systemic causes of injustice?
How would it feel if your congregation acted together?
Congregation-Based Community Organizing enables synagogues to address these questions through internal conversations and work in powerful coalitions across lines of race, class, and faith.
Across the country, congregations of all faiths have engaged in a transformative social justice model based on the principles of community organizing. They have expanded their social action programs, increased their memberships (both in size and commitment), and strengthened their leadership. By applying the congregation-based community organizing model, synagogue leaders are trained to think strategically about how to engage significant numbers of others by conducting intentional relationship building campaigns. Through house meetings and one-on-one conversations, issues of shared concern emerge, and leaders conduct significant actions that engage their members in addressing the systemic causes of social justice issues.
CHICAGO (CBS) ― An effort to bridge the gap between cultures and communities drew more than a thousand people to a South Side church Sunday. Local Jews and Christians gathered there, as CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports, with a lesson the two groups are hoping to learn.
The members of the two congregations want to put the love and peace they both learn from their faith into practice – not just today, but in their everyday lives.
One weekday morning in 1981, when he was new to Baltimore, Arnold Graf descended into the basement of the Enon Baptist Church. The steps took him into the midst of 60 skeptics. They were the black ministers whom Mr. Graf, a white Jew, was trying to persuade to join him in community organizing.
Congregation Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco was transformed - at least briefly - into City Hall last week when it was the site of a major announcement about the city’s universal health care plan. The progressive Reform synagogue was a perfect place for the June 18 announcement, since its members played a significant role in the city's decision to expand the plan, called Healthy San Francisco.
Across the country, congregations of all faiths have engaged in a transformative social justice model based on the principles of community organizing. They have expanded their social action programs, increased their memberships (both in size and commitment), and strengthened their leadership. By applying the congregation-based community organizing model, synagogue leaders are trained to think strategically about how to engage significant numbers of others by conducting intentional relationship building campaigns. Through house meetings and one-on-one conversations, issues of shared concern emerge, and leaders conduct significant actions that engage their members in addressing the systemic causes of social justice issues.
