TIKKUN Wins 2015 Fain Award!

We're thrilled to announce that TI Teen Ed has been awarded a 2015 Fain Social Action Award in recognition of our MNS class & Lobby Day program, "TIKKUN: To Take on the World!" The Fain Award is given by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and recognizes innovative, meaningful social justice programs of Reform institutions nationwide. We are honored by this award! Kol hakavod to the more than 40 students who have participated in TIKKUN since its launch in the fall of 2013.

Below is a clip (approx 2 min) of this year's TIKKUN D'var Torah, including the announcement of our Fain award, given at TI's Qabbalat Shabbat service on Friday, March 6, 2015. Click here to see the full sermon (approx 19 min).

Post by TI Teen Ed.

Teen Perspective: Abby Rosovsky

         "Urban Immersion" and the Two Feet of Social Justice 

by Abby Rosovsky, TI Teen Ed Class of 5776

           

          This past summer, I led a group of nine high school freshman girls to live in Boston's Chinatown, in a church basement, on minimum wage, for one week. We called this program "Urban Immersion." Coming from a privileged school, I always felt like my school, Newton Country Day, wasn’t the real world. I was aware however, of all the injustices that happened around me in the city of Boston. I was sick of hearing people say “you shouldn’t throw that away, there are starving children in Africa.” There are starving people right next door to us, too. This is why I chose to help form what became Urban Immersion 2014.

            The program lasted Sunday to Thursday. The structure of the program was that the first day we went shopping for food on a minimum wage budget. I split the girls into groups and they were each tasked with making dinner for one of the nights we were there. The girls found it very difficult to buy what they liked to eat - a healthy and nutritious meal - for less that twenty-one dollars. After shopping we drove the girls into Chinatown to introduce them to their home for the week. They described it as “urban camping” sleeping on the floor, sleeping bags, and, of course, lack of air conditioning.

Each day we went to different community service sites: soup kitchens like Rosie’s place and Women’s Lunch Place, childcare facilities for families in poverty like the Ellis Memorial School, and elder care facilities, like Hearth and Boston Health Care for the Homeless. In our social justice-dirven mission, advocacy was as important as service, so at night we had speakers from the Massachusetts Housing and Society Alliance, some of whom had experienced poverty as youth or as adults. The girls took away a variety of messages from those speakers, but specifically, that homelessness can affect anyone and that it is happening everyday all around us.

The last day of Urban Immersion we went to the Massachusetts State House to share with and advocate to our representatives about the things we’d learned that week. We shared with them the outline of the program, the stories of the people we’d talked to, and the ways we urged them to help. We explained to them the importance of subsidized housing and how the government is paying a significantly larger amount of money on emergency shelters than if they would help place families in homes. We then heard about what these representatives were doing to help end hunger and homelessness in the Boston area. To be able to connect what we’d learned that week to actually making a difference in the State House was a moving moment in the program.                 

After completing my second Urban Immersion program this summer, I think I gained a tremendous insight into how lucky I am for my health and for the health of my family, for my education, and for the food on my table and roof over my head. I have started to take notice of and be more grateful for the little things I used take for granted every day, before Urban Immersion. I learned that even if I cannot stop on the street and give someone money, that just looking in their direction and acknowledging them means the world to someone who is so often invisible.

I was moved by so many stories throughout the week at Urban Immersion. Two in particular stories moved me especially. Becca came to share her story with us as a young child who had experienced homelessness. Becca lost both her parents by age 15 and struggled with mental health throughout her life as she couch surfed her way through high school. To see the courage and strength that Becca had to move through the obstacles in her life with no support from parents is so inspiring. Now Becca has just been approved for section 8 housing and will continue to live in her own apartment.

            Another story that moved me was Batman’s, Batman is a man I met while volunteering at Common Art last year and who I was delighted to see and talk to this year again. Common Art is a program where homeless men and women are invited to a church next to the Boston Common and urged to express themselves through art. Last year when I talked to Batman he did not have his own home and he was never quite sure where his next meal was coming from. This year Batman seemed to have had his spirits lifted, he told me he was due to get off a waiting list for subsidized housing and told me to “cross my fingers.” Batman and I talked for about an hour and a half and I found out that he used to be a camp counselor for a camp up in Maine. When I told him that this summer I would be a counselor in training for my own camp in Maine, his face lit up. It meant the world to me to make this connection with someone whose story is too often dismissed or unheard.  

            People often ask me what it’s like to be the “Jewish girl” at a primarily Catholic school. The Urban Immersion program is a perfect example of my answer. During Urban Immersion there was no religion; there was God. Urban Immersion may have been run through a Catholic school but it was rooted in the Jewish values I grew up learning at Temple Israel. Starting from barely eight years old I was given money every Sunday not to buy myself a bagel but to put it in the Tzedakah box for someone else. I became so passionate about social justice and community service through what I learned in my Tzedakah project before I became a Bat Mitzvah. It was then at the mere age of twelve that I began to want to change poverty and homelessness in the greater Boston area. My passion for the Urban Immersion program and all the work I put into it was a direct connection to my Jewish values and the values of the community of Temple Israel - a connection I felt both when performing direct service at a soup kitchen, and when advocating at the State House.

I recently heard someone tell me they were, in a way, against soup kitchens, because people don’t have to take a stance on them like they do with other kinds of social justice matters. This person told me that often other places of worship (not Temple Israel) don’t engage in the same social justice that we do because it’s too “political.” I in every way understand the point that the people who volunteer at soup kitchens are only providing a temporary fix - however, I disagree with the idea that this "temporary fix" is a mistake. Think of a human: a human needs two feet to walk; to balance. I think social justice has two feet, too. The first foot, I believe, is direct service, helping people survive the crisis they are currently in. The second foot is social change - removing the causes of a crisis through advocacy and empowerment. Social justice, like a human, needs both of these feet to balance, and although yes, a soup kitchen is only a temporary fix, it is ultimately just as important as social advocacy and the more “political” part of social change. This idea of the two feet of social justice was another key component in the Urban Immersion program.          

             It was an honor and privilege to have been able to help make the Urban Immersion the annual program it has become today. I feel humbled and grateful that I was able to achieve my goals of informing privileged girls the injustices that are occurring everyday around them. Urban Immersion really exemplifies the steps and importance of social justice. The actual direct service we do is the first step towards realizing the problems and injustices that we then advocate about on a State level. Urban Immersion may not be the reason Batman is given housing or a family finally gets above the poverty level but it is the reason that this year those nine girls have the same passion and drive to work towards social justice I do. This passion and that drive is what will raise minimum wages and get more families subsidized housing and food stamps, and their new-found awareness will make them all the more grateful for everything they have in their lives, this is what Urban Immersion will do.

Teen Perspective: Mariel Ehrlich

#BlackLivesMatter in Boston, TIKKUN, and an Insider's View on a State House Legislative Briefing

Mariel Ehrlich, 5775 RYFTI Senior Co-President

            The unjust and disturbingly recent murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have sent much of America into turmoil, as people grapple for an opportunity to change the rampant injustices that are still present in our society. On the night of Tuesday, November 25^th I attended the “Indict America” rally hosted by the non-profit group Black Lives Matter, with fellow RYFTI members (Charlotte Borden, Talia Putnoi and Ada Levine).  It was incredible to witness so many different people coming together around an issue that not only disproportionately targets young, black men in America but which plagues the entire country as every person is affected by the many intersections of all forms of oppression. I stood in Dudley Square for a moment of silence, passed vigil candles among the strangers surrounding me, sang songs of respect and hope, chanted “No Justice! No Peace! No Racist Police!,” and finally marched through the streets of Boston. The night was incredibly moving and inspiring, because I knew there were thousands of people beside me, all of whom have entered the same fight to end racial oppression.

            After being a part of the collective voice of countless citizens of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to see how action is being taking at the state level to address the problems of police brutality and racial profiling in Massachusetts. During RYFTI’s fall semester at Temple Israel, I took a social justice action course called “TIKKUN” at Monday Night School. TIKKUN culminated with a trip to the State House, where each teen participating in the course met with their local state senators and representatives to lobby on behalf of issues we are passionate about. This MNS elective showed me that the legislation in Massachusetts is important to become involved in, because I have the voice of a constituent who can influence the issues my local leaders choose to address. Through this lobbying experience, I was invited back to the State House to attend a briefing, as an honorary member of the staff of my state senator, Sonia Chang-Diaz, on Wednesday, December 17^th. At the briefing, Boston leadership of the NAACP and ALCU, and State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz addressed three new bill proposals that may be introduced in the upcoming legislation session in light of the recent events in our nation. These bills discuss the availability of data regarding racial profiling, potential body cameras for police and continuing to promote a police force that should reflect the racial composition of our city. It was so interesting to witness politicians, non-profit organizations and interested individuals from all across the political spectrum taking the time to ask each other questions and learn from one another. The fact that so many influential people worked hard to attend this meeting truly demonstrates how important this issue is to our society and the great lengths and efforts people will contribute to affect change.

            Experiencing the responses to injustice in America both on the ground and in the State House, it is clear that the actions taken by those today may finally stand a chance at significantly affecting the future of our country and creating beneficial change.

TIKKUN Lobby Day 5775 - December 8, 2014

On Monday, December 8^th, after having spent the day in preparation at TI on Sunday, ten TI teens visited the MA State House for lobby meetings with their own State Senators and Representatives. The group included Abby Rosovsky, Rosa Stern Pait, Ayden Mallory, Ada Levine, Petra Huang, Sarah Groustra, Daniel Lebedinsky, Mariel Ehrlich, Lily Sher, and Noah Solomon, and it was accompanied by TIKKUN teachers Andrew Oberstein and R’ Matt Soffer, and Teen Ed Director Mike Fishbein. The students toured the State House, and then met with legislative aides of Rep Sanchez and of Sens. Chang-Diaz and Creem, and directly with Sen Brownsberger and with Reps Coppinger, Balsar, and Smizik. They lobbied for reproductive rights, early childhood education, training and education on self-injurious behavior, and mental health support and care. They brought these issues from their own interests and passions, shared their stories, and were powerful advocates. In the coming weeks, these students will deliver a d’var Torah at a Shabbat service, in which they will share their experiences and reflections with our community – keep watch for that date!

Read the original TIKKUN program introduction, from the 5774/2013-2014 school year...

View the 5775 TIKKUN Lobby Day Promo Page...

Read the 5774 TIKKUN D'var Torah...

Read the 5774 L'Taken D'var Torah...