Tikkun Olam Monthly Report

November 2024

General updates and follow-ups:

1. We provided a handout at High Holiday services, akin to that typically provided by Adult Ed, to outline upcoming TO activities and information on how to get involved. Gratitude to the TO chairs and Lisa Korklan (VP Adult Ed), who turned this around in a very short time frame. The handouts remain available on the nametag table in the foyer.
2. Much gratitude to Deb Oppenheimer who coordinated the High Holiday food and products drive (see below), and to Deb, Shirley Hui and Esther Heimberg, who served as liaisons to the agencies we supported this year. Deb noted that though our congregation’s membership has shrunk in size, the amount of contributions has not dropped over recent years. Janet is scheduling a debrief meeting with Deb, Esther, and Beth Schine to document lessons learned to apply for future drives.
3. Shoni and Cantor Vera met with the TO Committee Oct 28 and updated the group about the TO involvement of JLOFT and BeInSpirEd. Jane Brauer, VP Ed. spoke about opportunities for TO committees to participate in BeInSpirEd activities, still in development, which she has proposed will build on TO themes from the Torah and holiday cycle. Those interested in proposing simple projects that might be a fit should contact Shoni and Jane. JLOFT has a robust calendar of TO activities already in process, including the group’s first guided trip to Poland slated for this winter.
4. Following up with Shoni’s suggestion that someone from the ed committee join the TO Committee on an ongoing basis, Jane recommended Hadley Roberts. Janet is working with Hadley’s schedule to arrange future TO Committee meetings at times Hadley can accommodate (likely mornings).
5. Janet, Cantor Vera, and Rabbi Josh met on October 23 to begin a conversation about clergy and political action. Janet and Vera are meeting to continue this conversation.
6. Also in the October 23 meeting, we discussed the rabbi’s proposal for clergy and TO-sponsored activities in the days immediately after the election, given that these were expected to be challenging times no matter the outcome. Janet, Esther Heimberg, and Cantor Vera led drop-in activities on Wednesday, Nov. 6, (meditative drawing, creating soup jars for donation, and fiber arts) all of which were well received. The clergy led singing and discussion on Thursday, Oct. 7.

Antiracism Working Group

Over the past five months, more than 40 people from Beth El, Congregation Or Atid, and B’nai Torah Metrowest gathered to write postcards to empower voters of color in voter-suppression Southern states through the Center for Common Ground’s Reclaim Our Vote campaign. Together, we wrote more than 800 postcards, the last of which were completed on October 14.

In September we resumed our biweekly connection with Greater Framingham Community Church, a predominantly Black church in Framingham. Every other Friday, members of the church and others pack grocery bags for low-income families in the area — folks who might be on food stamps or who need a little extra assistance. A number of Beth El members participate in this service opportunity.

We are planning an educational program for adults and high school students on November 17 featuring Stacey Borden, founder and executive director of New Beginnings Re-entry Services. Stacey will speak with us about how Black and Brown women disproportionately end up in prison, how the criminal legal system fails them, and why she is an advocate for healing over imprisonment. She will also share concrete actions we can take to advocate for justice.

Contacts: Judy Goldberg and Karen Blumenfeld  

Blood Drive

The next blood drive is November 13. Volunteers and donors are needed.

Contact: Shirley Hui

CAST

CAST members continue to act as weekend “Shoah Docents” for the permanent Holocaust exhibit at the nearby American Heritage Museum. Centerpiece of the exhibit is a restored German freight (= cattle car) which gets the immediate attention of museum visitors. We engage with visitors in relation to their interests (and age) on the background to the Holocaust, on antisemitism, and on authoritarianism, answering questions and/or giving a brief description of the experience for travelers in the cattle car. Visitors are invited to place a provided stone on the car to memorialize the victims.

We are about to begin consulting with the museum on the next phase of the exhibit. A report on our activities will be published in the next Massachusetts Antisemitism Synagogues Task Force (MAST) newsletter. Additionally, we continue to share announcements of events and resources, and are beginning planning an interfaith education program on antisemitism. We have also rejoined ADL’s Kulanu (“all of us”) initiative, which guides congregations to act against antisemitism.

Contacts: Martin Brauer and Andy Goldberg

Green Team

John and Janet are slated to meet in the next few weeks to discuss reviving this committee, which was highly active until recently.

Contact John Harper to connect with a Green Team member. Join their listserv by emailing greenteam-subscribe@members.bethelsudbury.org.

High Holiday Food Drive

Beth El’s High Holiday drive supported A Place To Turn, the Food Pantry and the Care Pantry, and Voices Against Violence. Gratitude to Shoni and the youth program for their assistance in preparing donation bags and collecting donations.

Contact: Deb Oppenheimer

Inclusion Committee

• The committee met with Aaron Marans, director of lower school staff, and VPs of school to advise on setting up guidelines when working with students with disabilities, and neurodiverse learning needs. In addition, made recommendations for staff training and in-service resources.
• Attended first meeting of the year with other members of Tikkun Olam and the school education director, Shoni Aronovich. Facilitated by Tikkun Olam VP Janet Strassman Perlmutter, we had open discussion of ways to support and integrate ideas of our own committee into the high school curriculum. These meetings will continue and be held in the next two months.
• At a recent IC meeting on Zoom, current goals were discussed:
  • Increasing volunteers and adding new committee members
  • Overall goals and purpose for this coming year
  • Revisiting accessibility accommodations in the building
  • School support around accessibility and accommodations for students with disabilities. This included discussion on decisions to move more towards mainly advising/supporting school staff and other committees and members. Creating programming and special events will be less of a focus.
• Created/updated instructions to ushers about approaching and supporting congregants during the High Holidays. In addition, the website was edited with any new instructions and added ideas on how to approach those with disabilities was also added.

Contact: Maxine Haron or Carrie Fuchs

Sanctuary Committee

1. We are increasing our aid to CASA (the MetroWest Workers Center) in providing transportation to recent immigrants to court hearings and other official appointments. We continue to welcome people to join us in this; and we make it pretty painless — e.g., it’s OK if you don’t know Spanish; we’ll pair you up with someone who does, and so on.
2. We will be starting to work with CASA on preliminary paralegal help to refugees seeking asylum status. Some training meetings for that are coming up next week, and we’ll be announcing them.
3. We continue to support state aid to homeless immigrants. Massachusetts has retreated on its commitment in this area, and the situation is getting rapidly worse as winter approaches.
4. We’re working on planning our HIAS Weekend at Beth El — this will be the first weekend in February. As in the past, there will be two sessions. One will be devoted to talks by our members. This year the underlying topic will be how we worked to change government policy. For example, the Welcoming Town Resolution in Sudbury; political stand-outs by the Town Hall in opposition to ripping children from their parents at the border. Stuff like that. We anticipate a large variety of different topics. It should be interesting, and at least somewhat unusual compared to the typical kinds of anodyne speeches.

Another session will be more cultural in nature — music, songs, things of that nature. There really are a lot of details that we are considering and nailing down about both of these two sessions. And it should be quite a weekend! There will be a lot more information coming out about this as we get closer to it.

Contact: Carl Offner

Tzedek Scholarship Fund

Beth El scholarship recipient Emelyn Zigue with members of the Tzedek Scholarship Fund Committee. Left to right: Joel Moskowitz, Marilyn Rand, Emelyn Zigue, Janet Buchwald, and Steve Gutherz (click photo to enlarge).

This year’s Tzedek Scholarship Fund recipient is Emelyn Zigue of Marlborough, who was born in Brazil and lives in Marlborough, where she went to high school. She holds an associate’s degree in criminal justice and is working towards a BA with a double major in criminology and psychology at Framingham State University. Emelyn works at Franco’s Trattoria in Sudbury and is also an accomplished practitioner of jiu-jitsu.

Contact: Janet Buchwald