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SINAI TEMPLE

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

IRVING J. FAIN

SOCIAL ACTION AWARD

APPLICATION

The following materials were developed in December 2002 to describe our Social Action program as it existed then. Some of our programming has since changed, but the general thrust of what we do is still present. There is more to do, but here is a starting point.

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Justice for all seasons –

Social justice in each and every season is the underpinning of Sinai Temple.

For more than a decade, our Social Action Committee has created and implemented

a multi-pronged and on-going program of tikkun olam.

The best way to present the Social Action Program of Sinai Temple is to invite the readers of this application to walk through “the seasons at Sinai” in order to see how the demands of justice present themselves throughout the year.

EREV ROSH HASHANAH – Evening services conclude as the Social Action Committee invites everyone to go home with a cutout of a shoe labeled with the first name and shoe size of a child associated with an inner-city community center. On Yom Kippur, congregants return with shoe boxes containing their gifts of brand new shoes. In place of flowers, the bimah is decorated with upwards of 70 shoeboxes. We call this program If The Shoe Fits.

YOM KIPPUR – The “food van” stands outside our building and congregants bring some five-to-six thousand pounds of food for the hungry.

THROUGH THE FALL – A large number of congregants cook and serve several meals at our local soup kitchen.

CHANUKAH – Every “odd” year (1991-2001), the congregation collects old BOARD games and puzzles for distribution to homeless and needy children. We call this program Get On Board. In the “even” years (1990-2002), the congregation collects used children’s books for local distribution. This program is called Get On Our Case.

LATER IN THE WINTER – A subcommittee oversees two annual award initiatives. The first award was created to honor a prominent Reform rabbi in our community. The Jerome S. Gurland Human Relations Award is a $1,000.00 award given to an individual or agency in the Springfield area engaged in bettering the community. (Past recipients have included the Vietnamese American Community Association, an African-American Summer Literacy Project, and a YWCA Battered Women’s Project.)

The second award program is dedicated to the memory of a congregant who devoted her life to social justice and education. The Susan M. Broh Award began last year. It is open to high school and college students who want to pursue a tikkun olam project during the summer. Last year’s awards enabled three students to: 1. volunteer at the Red Cross, 2. organize a local chapter of COEJL (Coalition On the Environment and Jewish Life), 3. run an art program for Latino children in Holyoke.

              Also during the winter we have a school reading program which takes Sinai volunteers into various Springfield public schools as readers and tutors.

JANUARY – In 1992, our congregation engaged in a commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend with an African-American church, Alden Baptist. Since that time, ten years ago, the Black-Jewish Dialogue with Alden has expanded to include: dialogue groups for both teens and adults, film discussion groups, pulpit and choir exchanges, summer picnics, plus more.

PURIM – Every year at the Megillah Reading we introduce Project Baby to collect items for infants from food to clothing. What we collect is then distributed to low income families. This year we plan to introduce “Esther’s Boutique.” (We will have sample baby items available before and after the Megillah Reading and congregants will be able to “purchase” these items via donations. This should make it possible for everyone at Purim to make an immediate contribution.)

Last year we also borrowed another synagogue’s idea for Purim. In place of the traditional metal gregger, we ask people to bring a box of macaroni and cheese. This became their Mitzvah Gregger. Congregants shook the box to drown out Haman’s name when it was mentioned and then donated the macaroni and cheese after the service to feed the hungry.

We are also developing a Purim project to be called “Esther’s Closet.” This will replace our Cinderella Project which began two years ago. This involves collecting special occasion dresses from our congregants to be donated to inner-city teens before the prom season begins. (Our first collection brought in close to 100 dresses.)

MAY – Every May our congregation sponsors a Mitzvah Day. A variety of tikkun olam activities are available to the whole congregation. Out of a congregation of 600 families, last year 350 people of all ages participated.

JUNE – Several years ago the Social Action Committee learned that donations to food pantries diminish during the summer. As people throughout the community go on “vacation,” they seem to forget the ongoing needs of the pantries. We responded by conceiving of a new way to collect food from the congregation. This became a program called At Your Door. Every year we now send an explanatory letter and shopping bag to congregants asking that they leave a full bag of food by their door on a designated Sunday morning. Our Social Action Committee picks up the bags street by street. In this way, hundreds of congregants participate and hundreds of bags of food are donated to the Springfield food pantries.

              Also in June, we make our distribution from the Isaiah Hunger Fund, which is made up of contributions received throughout the preceding year. We created this fund as a supplement to Mazon because we wanted to give ourselves the responsibility and opportunity of responding to hunger at the local level. The results of the Isaiah Hunger Fund are very positive. Children and adults must become familiar with local needs and then have to make hard decisions about the realities of hunger in our own community. This becomes a direct and demanding responsibility.

SUMMER – In the summer of 2001, we joined forces with two local churches to become part of Habitat for Humanity. The three congregations built a house together during the following eight months. Since that time, we have joined a consortium of ten churches and we have been involved with building two more houses. We are the only Jewish participants in our community’s Habitat. We are proud about the work and also proud about making room for Jews to be involved in this worthy endeavor. We have also joined another housing rehab consortium called Rebuilding Together. We will be working with three neighboring churches to rehab a home in a nearby community.

ALL SEASONS – From its inception, we have been members of the Pioneer Valley Project (PVP), a grass roots community organizing body. We have supported the PVP in such efforts as expanding hours for the public library system of Springfield and invigorating parent-teacher associations in Springfield’s inner-city schools.

              The World Crisis Fund is a creation which brings us much pride. Back in 1991, a devastating famine took place in Africa. People in the congregation were talking about the issue, reading the newspaper and trying to remember where donations might be sent, and often forgetting to do what they said they wanted to do. In order to respond to this crisis and in order to give our congregants a way to respond to future crises in a timely fashion, our Social Action Committee worked, through the Board of Trustees, to create the World Crisis Fund. This fund pays for emergency mailings to the congregation whenever a “world crisis” arises. The mailings invite congregants to send their tzedakah to the Temple’s World Crisis Fund and tell them how and where we will then pass the funds on to an appropriate helping agency. Once the donations have arrived, we send the tzedakah to the chosen agency. We leave just enough money in the WCF for the next mailing to the congregation. During the last decade we have raised and distributed over $33,000.00 to places such as Sarajevo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Kosovo, Mozambique, El Salvador, and India.

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We are applying for the Irving J. Fain Social Action Award because we believe our congregation truly puts Jewish values to work throughout the year. Our programs promote social and economic justice, reach out to those less fortunate, educate and mobilize people, and build alliances with the greater community.

A substantial portion of the congregation is involved throughout the year and from year to year.

Sinai Temple revolves around a commitment to “justice for all seasons.”

**The attached photos and flyers represent some of our activities.

              If The Shoe Fits

              School Reading Program

              Black/Jewish Dialogue

              The Cinderella Project

              Habitat for Humanity

              World Crisis Fund       

              Plus miscellaneous photographs…..

 

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