Social Action

Recycling — it’s all in the Torah

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:57:48 +0100

Recycling, green energy and conserving water have their roots in Jewish, Muslim and Christian texts, according to a new book.

Rabbi Natan Levy — social action consultant to the Board of Deputies — contributed the Jewish chapters to Sharing Eden, a Conservation Foundation project.

Other contributors were David Shreeve, the foundation’s director and environmental adviser to the Archbishops’ Council, and Harfiyah Haleem, an expert on Islam and the environment.

Rabbi Levy traces Jewish thought on the environment back to Adam entering the Garden of Eden “confronted with the task of sustainability... Do not let the world remain barren, do not accept brokenness. That is the message that God wished to impress upon Adam, and through him to all of humanity.”

Launched last week at the Royal Geographical Society and supported by the Board of Deputies, Sharing Eden examines religious thought on waste, water, energy, natural resources, climate change, food and biodiversity.

Ruth Messinger's social action plan to bring in Jewish youth

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:54:11 +0100

Activism on international poverty and human rights is bringing British and American Jews back into the community, the head of the American Jewish World Service said in London this week.

Ruth Messinger, the Democratic New York mayoral nominee in 1997, joined AJWS a year later and has spent the past 14 years putting international development on the top of the charitable agenda for many young American Jews. Grants have gone to more than 400 grassroots organisations in 32 countries and 400 volunteers are sent out annually.

She sees the growth of AJWS as an example of engaging more young Jews in charity work on both sides of the Atlantic.

“It is a very popular way of bringing young people back into the community, although, of course, we are doing good work on the ground.”

Ms Messinger has worked closely with British charities such as Tzedek and World Jewish Relief. “We say to each other: ‘Tell us what you are funding. How are you responding to the famine in the Horn of Africa?’”

Although her most high profile campaigns have been on Darfur and aid after the Haiti earthquake, Ms Messinger said the core of AJWS’s work was not “genocides or disasters. We had been working in Haiti for a decade.
“We get attention when we respond to the genocide in Darfur, but the work we do is also long-term on behalf of women farmers fighting for land rights in Pakistan. Our presence is an opportunity to show some countries who Jews really are.”

During her visit, Ms Messinger launched New North London Synagogue’s tikkun olam centre, lectured at JHub and the London School of Jewish Studies.

Gap years in Israel...and Africa?

Jessica Elgot — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:03:14 +0100

New Tzedek chief executive Jude Williams wants young Jews on gap years to gain a more rounded experience by visiting both Israel and a developing country.

Ms Williams — the former director of young adult group Jeneration — wants to take the international development charity “into every home of the Jewish community”. That includes putting it on the agenda of people looking to do volunteering and seeking a meaningful Jewish experience.

“It would be wonderful if there was a project where you could spend time in Eastern Europe, Israel and in Africa as well,” she said. “Three different ways to experience being Jewish. Israelis who go travelling are now having these profound Jewish experiences outside of Israel.”

Tzedek will move out of the Pears Foundation’s start-up space JHub this summer into new premises. The plan is to continue to grow. “We are perceived as a young persons’ charity. We want to work more with professionals and retirees,” Ms Williams explained.

Poverty action on the menu

Jessica Elgot — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:57:20 +0100

Choreographer Arlene Phillips is among Jewish anti-poverty campaigners who have spent this week existing on a food budget of £1 or less a day to draw attention to the plight of the world’s poorest people.

Ms Phillips has tweeted about her experience of surviving on cabbage soup, rice, tins of beans and crackers —forgoing her favourite espresso. The former Strictly Come Dancing judge has raised £3,800 in sponsorship for Malaria No More.

Filmmaker Lara Smallman and Oxford University postgraduate student Asia Lindsay also spent five days on the £1 budget — the amount 1.4 billion people worldwide have to exist on.

Ms Smallman, 25, from Hendon, has raised more than £400 for the Positive Women charity, supporting women with HIV in Swaziland. “I didn’t expect it to be this difficult,” she said. “I thought that being Jewish it would be fine to restrict what I ate because we’re used to having rules governing what we can and can’t eat. But by day three my energy had totally gone. The most delicious thing I ate was egg fried rice,
using a quarter of an onion.”

Ms Lindsay, 24, who is completing the challenge with friend Phil Bull, accepted that it could not replicate the lifestyle of those starving in the Third World, but wanted to experience how people in poverty in the UK had
to manage.

“We planned our budget very precisely and went to three different supermarkets to get the best deal. No real family would have time to do that.

“What struck me was how unhealthy everything was. We bought some frozen vegetables and a tin of mushy peas but you can’t buy anything fresh.”

The duo have been raising money for Health Poverty Action and are currently the top of the league of Oxford University participants, having raised £650.

Green activists hoping to harness pedal power

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:59:33 +0000

An initiative to get Jews on their bikes has won the support of London's best-known cyclist, Boris Johnson.

On Tu Bishvat, the Jewish Social Action Forum's Big Green Jewish campaign will launch the Year of the Bicycle.

It follows the food-themed Year of the Bagel, where the focus included promoting community spaces to grow food and using eco-friendly produce and crockery at Jewish organisations.

This time, green transport-based events will include a "rabbi relay" bike race from Land's End to John O'Groats, a campaign for a "cycle superhighway" through the Jewish areas of north-west London and "walking bus routes" for primary schools. It is also running Get Behind the Bikeshed, encouraging charities and businesses to adopt cycle-to-work schemes.

UJIA already operates a popular cycle scheme among its employees and JSAF co-ordinator David Brown hopes others will follow the charity's example.

"The Year of the Bike seemed a natural theme," he said. "It's an Olympic year, so the focus is on getting fit and healthy and we wanted to add a green spin to that."

Michael Leventhal, organiser of the Gefiltefest food festival, has been recruiting rabbis for the relay ride in June. "We're hoping to raise £100,000 for food redistribution and poverty charities," he said. "And the rabbis will be able to direct half the money they raise to a charity of their choice."

Riders will cover 60 miles a day. Participants range from keen cyclists such as Alyth's Rabbi Mark Goldsmith, to beginners like the Gloucestershire Liberal community's Rabbi Anna Gerrard. Golders Green Synagogue's Rabbi Harvey Belovski - who will be riding from Birmingham to Leeds - said he was keen to involve congregants in his training. Cycling "helps to reduce unnecessary emissions, noise and congestion, all of which are quite popular causes in Golders Green".

Also joining the ride will be Board of Deputies president Vivian Wineman. Movement for Reform Judaism chief executive Ben Rich and movement rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner will ride on a tandem.

Rabbi Gerrard said that "having enthusiastically signed up for the Weston-Super-Mare to Gloucester leg, it suddenly occurred to me that I have not actually cycled for years and do not own a road-worthy bike. So I have started spinning classes and, when the weather warms up, I plan to borrow a bike to start cycling to work.

"Rabbis have a public voice and do speak out on important issues - and you can only speak out on an issue meaningfully if you at least try to practise what you preach."

Rabbi Goldsmith noted the camaraderie between the ministers he saw cycling around north-west London, among them Shenley Synagogue's Natan Levy and New London's Jeremy Gordon, who are also taking part in the relay.

"Across the denominations, a rabbi's job is remarkably similar and a bike is a shared tool we use, like a sefer Torah." His synagogue runs a Sunday cycle club and collects old bikes for Habonim Dror, which restores them for refugees.

Fight against climate change is uphill ride

Luciana Berger — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:59:33 +0000

Many communities, commentators and politicians agree that climate change is the single greatest challenge facing humanity. To combat it requires people, business, government and international bodies to work together to make changes that will safeguard our planet's resources and enable our economies to produce sustainable growth and new green jobs.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio, the United Nations summit which put man-made climate change on the global political agenda for the first time.

The summit led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which was proudly signed by the then labour government.

In government, Labour led the way on the international stage. We were the first nation to call for a UN Security Council meeting on climate change. We passed the Climate Change Act - a world first, legally binding the UK government to reduce carbon emissions by a third by 2020.

David Cameron says he wants his government to be the "greenest ever". But he has failed to make a single speech, or attend a single conference on climate change. The funding for carbon capture and storage has been quietly shelved. The Green Investment Bank delayed yet again. The Coalition's disastrous handling of their changes to the Feed-in-Tariff for solar power has put thousands of jobs and businesses in the solar industry at risk and will exclude nearly nine out of 10 families from having solar power.

In this context, it is inspiring to hear of community groups pressing ahead and taking action. I am thrilled to endorse and support the Big Green Jewish Year of the Bicycle - a year of activity and activism engaging the Jewish community with efforts to make all of our transport more sustainable.

I am particular heartened by the ambitious and cross-communal rabbi relay ride. It is grassroots community initiatives throughout our society that should remind the Coalition of the leadership they need to demonstrate. It serves as another example of the role faith and community groups can play in tackling the biggest challenge of our age.

Limmud meets special needs for learning

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:39:35 +0000

Volunteers who helped adults with learning disabilities to lead and participate in Limmud conference activities say the initiative is an important example of giving those with special needs greater involvement in community events.

Limmud 2011 co-chair and Norwood Jewish cultural manager Shoshana Bloom organised a day-long Limmud experience for 15 adults with learning disabilities, most from Norwood and Langdon.

"We wanted to show they have as much to contribute and teach as anyone else," she said. "It's a wider project. We want to make sure adults with learning disabilities can volunteer, do public speeches and teach in community events. They can do mitzvahs on Mitzvah Day as well as be recipients.

"We are organising a Birthright trip in March for people with learning disabilities. They should to be able to do everything that we expect to do as Jewish adults. And that's what Limmud's about too - everyone's a student, everyone's a teacher."

One Norwood service user, Rachelle Adler, had told her Limmud had been "one of the best days of my life".

Limmud L'Am volunteer Abigail Jacobi said preparation was key to ensuring the Norwood and Langdon adults were able to fully contribute. "We felt Limmud is such an enjoyable, infectious atmosphere that we wanted everyone to enjoy it equally. We wanted them to be involved in as much of normal conference as possible. Some went to sessions we had chosen, with the best, most interesting lecturers. Some chose for themselves, with volunteers and support workers with them. It was amazing. They were all really engaged.

"We did kosher sushi-making, storytelling, took part in kosher gospel and some participants lit the Chanukiah in the evening."

As part of the Judith Trust's Inclusion Campaign, two of the Norwood participants, Ms Adler and Naomi Mushin, both from Hendon, helped lead a session on how to better integrate people with disabilities into Jewish cultural life. Others fronted a session on jewellery making. Some are now planning to apply as full-time volunteers for Limmud 2012. The Judith Trust's campaign project officer, Sharon Daniels, feels that although "most Jewish organisations are welcoming to people with learning disabilities, they just don't know how to do outreach and approach them. The service users themselves won't necessarily take the initiative and many support workers are not Jewish."

Ms Daniels said the trust was planning an online resource for carers to help get their service users involved in Jewish activities. It also plans to work more closely with youth movements, synagogues and the Jewish Community Centre. "We are trying to make sure inclusion is on people's agenda," she said.

Interview: Dan Berelowitz

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:43:17 +0000

When Dan Berelowitz was appointed Tzedek director four years ago, he was the international development charity's first paid employee, despite Tzedek having been operational since 1990.

He leaves the charity with a staff of 10, ready to move into their own offices, having raised more than £700,000 over three years. Mr Berelowitz - also chair of the Jewish Social Action Forum - is quitting to develop his own charity. But he will still feel "a really close attachment. You can't work in the charity sector without absolutely believing in the cause."

A trip to India to see one of Tzedek's partner projects is among his fondest memories. "We have supported 1,400 women over 10 years with small loans to start businesses," he reported. "In one generation, you can see a huge improvement in standards of living.

"Micro-credit does not work for the very bottom two per cent of people. But these women who we had helped were putting aside a few pennies into a communal pot to help the very poorest pay for housing. We were developing civil society, creating a whole social infrastructure. It's not glamorous, it has taken 10 years, but the difference is amazing. I love nothing better than that."

Mr Berelowitz said that in the wake of the Live Aid concerts in 1985, "people thought: 'Why is the Jewish community not doing anything?' And that's how Tzedek started. When I joined it was still small, earning about £50-60,000, with very committed volunteer trustees. It was like a start-up, but with 20-30 passionate volunteers."

It had been "easy" to convince the community of the value in helping impoverished communities in Ghana and India, sending Jewish volunteers on gap years to the areas and organising education and twinning with Jewish schools. "We are going to schools talking about Maimonides's ladder of charity - Oxfam will not do that. And we are giving people the opportunity to have a Jewish experience in the developing world. That's really important, because these people are on gap years anyway. "

Although fundraising had become more difficult, Tzedek's income was rising year on year. In March, it will move out of JHub, the Pears Foundation's subsidised space for emerging Jewish charities and organisations. "They are ready for us to go. We are a success story of the Hub.

"I like starting new things. I like good ideas that take seed. I've taken Tzedek so far and someone else will take it to the next level."

He explains his new project, the International Centre for Social Franchising, as "just like commercial franchising. It means good, charitable ideas can be replicated by different individuals. Charities like Food Bank have done this already. Now they have around 140 locations across the UK."

A board is being assembled and Mr Berelowitz hopes to begin with consultancy work, having already won a contract with Big Society Capital. As a new father, "I would not have handed in my notice without a pretty solid framework and pledges of support".

He leaves Tzedek at the end of the month and the JSAF will hold elections in the spring for a replacement chair. Mr Berelowitz will become chair of JSAF's advisory board. New campaigns planned for JSAF include one to encourage community organisations to adopt the Living Wage campaign for their employees.

Your guide to Xmas volunteering

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:32:54 +0000

Communal charities will co-ordinate hundreds of volunteers over the Christmas period.

Jewish Volunteering Network has opportunities including helping out with arts and crafts for vulnerable adults at Holy Cross Centre Trust in Kings Cross.

It is also seeking volunteers - especially drivers, doctors, hairdressers and entertainers - for the Crisis at Christmas homeless shelters. Also wanted are volunteer DJs over Christmas for Radio Lollipop, a station for children in Great Ormond Street Hospital, and for children's hospitals across the country, including Glasgow and Manchester. Volunteers are further required on weekends to earn charity cash by wrapping Christmas presents at St Anns Shopping Centre, Harrow. JVN's Joanne Bell said that "for individuals who may not have family to see or are not at work over the period, it can be a lonely time.

"The other side of the coin is that many charities find it very hard to operate with depleted staff and volunteers. So bringing the two sides together makes perfect sense."

Tikun is running its Light Up A Life programme featuring "chocolate drops" at hospitals, baking treats for the emergency services, volunteering at Jewish Care centres and lighting Chanucah candles at Jami, which helps those with mental health problems. Options also include events like ice-skating and bowling with disabled people over the bank holidays.

Help is additionally needed to pack food parcels for impoverished families through Gift.

Tikun will send volunteers on soup and tea runs for the homeless with the Simon Community. Co-ordinator Jo Hyams said: "All volunteering makes more difference than we realise, both to the volunteer and the recipient."

Soup run is serving up some seasonal goodwill

Jessica Elgot — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:32:54 +0000

Carrying vats of homemade tomato soup and hundreds of rolls, soup run volunteers head out into some of London's most expensive streets to feed the capital's poorest people. It is the kind of activity Jewish volunteering charities are keen to get community members involved in during the festive period, when many have time to spare.

Volunteers with the Simon Community go out twice a week to Marylebone, Aldwych and Waterloo, handing out hot soup, tea and coffee and sandwiches to the homeless and impoverished. Recipients are generally quiet and polite, engaging in small talk with the volunteers in the back of the delivery van, who ladle the soup into polystyrene cups.

Some recipients are groups of Eastern Europeans, where one generally communicates in halting English for the rest of the group.

A few women come for a warming cuppa, often watched protectively by a male companion. One elderly lady in a headscarf and carrying a golf umbrella fills her bag with sandwiches, which she gives to poor people in her area.

In some cases, beneficiaries have made their way from the outskirts of London, not just for the food, but for the company of familiar volunteers.

One man in a red waterproof arrives at the soup stop near Aldwych and then walks to meet the volunteers at their next stop near the National Theatre. He enjoys the conversation.

Esther Marlow from Hendon volunteers with the Simon Community via Tikun, which runs a volunteering programme over Christmas and the New Year - Light Up A Life. A single mother-of-two who is financial director of a clothing company, Ms Marlow observed that many of the volunteers "don't have much themselves. Everyone is busy, whether they are a stay-at-home mum or a high-powered businessman. But I came out for three hours this month. Who can say they can't do that?

"Sometimes you see older people out in the dark and rain, queuing for food, and you think: 'How can this happen?' An old lady queuing for food cannot possibly fill in a 19-page form to get what she is entitled to."

Directing operations on the street is long-time volunteer Cynthia Jameson, now vice-chair of the charity. "People come from all walks of life," she said. "I'm an engineer.

"Some volunteers are ex-homeless people. Many people come regularly. You get so much out of it if you know the people. We also run a street café on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. It can be 120 people at one stop. It can be chaotic. People think they are unsavoury, all drug addicts. Actually many are really lovely people. But new volunteers are often quite intimidated."