Jewish families help repair the world
By Gary Band
The Jewish Advocate
Volunteers at a home in Cumberland, Md., as part of the "Tikkun Olam Family Work Project." Service projects see an increase in popularity.
In the wake of Hurricane Rita last year, Nahma Nadich led a service trip to New Orleans with a group of parents and teens through the Jewish Community Relations Council's teen service learning program, TELEM, after Chanukah. As the group worked to remove piles of debris, a homeowner came out and asked who they were. When someone said they were a Jewish group from Boston, the homeowner said, "I never knew Jewish people did this."
Steve August of Beverly, who related this story, believes that comment speaks to a great and growing need to create more mechanisms for Jewish community service in general, and family service projects in particular. A Boston attorney and father of Ben and Sarah, ages 15 and 17, August doesn't just talk about this need but invests his ideas, time and energy into making it a reality.
His "Tikkun Olam Family Work Project" will embark on its second family service trip this August when he, two rabbis and 30 parents and teens from Greater Boston – and even one family from New York – trek seven-plus hours to Limestone, Maine, to repair houses in cooperation with volunteers from a local Methodist Church. Last year's trip was to Cumberland, Md.
"They say idealism is for young people, but I don't really believe that's true," August said.
His interest in family service projects began after his son's bar mitzvah when they wanted to do some kind of service project together. Unable to find a Jewish-based program, they signed on with a Baptist mission to Oklahoma. Upon their return, Steve asked around his synagogue, Temple B'nai Abraham, and the president Deb Willwerth suggested he organize a similar trip.
Some believe that 12- to 17-year olds would be turned off to such an idea. But August said he found the sales pitch was more of a problem with the parents.
"Kids get very excited," he said. "When you're a teen, you want to help save the world. Parents can be less enthusiastic."
He said kids, even teenagers as old as 17, look to their parents as role models and place much more value on what parents do than what they say.
"By our actions, parents are a living example of the types of values we want to pass on to the next generation. People need to live their ideals and not just talk about them," he said.
"Steve really walks the walk," said JCRC's Nadich. "As soon as Katrina happened he called and suggested doing a family service trip. When we put the word out, folks were only too happy to do something with their kids rather than writing a check."
August said these trips not only provide an opportunity for parents to spend meaningful time with their teens, but the chance for them to interact with people and communities outside their familiar worlds. Trying to avoid the clichéd word "empowering," August said these trips make ambassadors out of the participants. "It's a way for us to say we care and live Jewish values," he said. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, these experiences are a weeklong picture."
As evidence that interest in Jewish community service is growing, 14 service programs in 2001 formed the Jewish Coalition for Service in New York. Using seed grants from the United Jewish Appeal in New York and Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, they launched the Web site Jewishservice.org. Two years and a number of grants later, the coalition was incorporated in February 2003.
According to JCS Executive Director Simha Rosenberg, "We see service as a means of educating people about social issues and their underlying causes so they can be lifelong informed citizens on these issues. Service is a central expression of what it means to be Jewish."
With a dramatic increase in "unique visitors" and "click-throughs" over the past few years on the Web site, Rosenberg said participation in all areas of service is of great interest.
Rabbi Barbara Penzner of Temple Hillel B'nai Torah in West Roxbury was on last year's trip to Maryland and is going again this year to Maine with her 12-year-old son.
"People are telling us all over the country that there are no Jewish groups doing this work," she said. "The main idea is that we do this with our kids; we pray with our hands and we pray with our feet. And, as we say, we're repairing the world one house at a time."
