SAVE THE DATE 
Temple-wide
MITZVAH DAY
Sunday, May 18, 2008 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Give blood
• Donate gently worn business clothing
• Clean up Prospect Park
• More chances to do good than ever before!
Please e-mail beatricehanks@hotmail.com
if you’d like to volunteer, or just SHOW UP and PITCH IN!
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TIKKUN OLAM: Repairing the World
Traditional Sources and Contemporary Applications
Saturday Mornings, 9:00-10:20 AM - Breakfast is served.
Join our wonderful Shabbat morning study group. This year Rabbi Goodman will lead the group in hevruta style learning (small group independent study, followed by large group discussion), with texts from the Bible, Talmud, Mishneh Torah, Zohar, and contemporary thinkers. All texts will be studied in English translation. Come occasionally, or come every week - whatever is convenient for you! Discussions are always animated and engaging, and everyone is most welcome and encouraged to join us as we explore one of the central precepts of Jewish mission and practice, Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world”).
TIKKUN OLAM: Repairing the World
When we look out at others in the world, what do we see?
How far do our responsibilities extend beyond our immediate community?
Are we responsible for the environment?
What ARE our responsibilities for “repairing” this world?
We will address these questions and more, with a special session on forgiveness as
tikkun olam on September 8, as we prepare for the Days of Awe.
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2007 Irving J. Fain Social Action Awards
Union Temple has received this prestigious award in recognition of the work of the congregation in behalf of Social Action – a commitment to helping others, to tikkun olam. When congregants have invested countless hours in bringing a worthwhile program to fruition, they deserve some kavod – public recognition and honor. That is why the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism instituted the Irving J. Fain Awards – to grant public recognition to those congregations whose programmatic efforts in social action have been exemplary.
Union Temple has partnered with Hope Project – a Brooklyn based non-profit that teaches unemployed and under-employed adults job skills necessary to move them out of poverty. The congregation collected gently used business clothing, taught workshops, provided one-on-one mentoring and literacy tutoring and hired HOPE students as both interns and full time employees. more on The Hope Project
(l to r) Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Jean Shaffer; Bea Hanks; Zeva Roschko; Jane B. Wishner, Chair URJ Commission on Social Action; Rabbi Marla Feldman, Director of URJ Commission on Social Action.
About the Irving J. Fain Social Action Awards:
Active commitment to social justice is a hallmark of the Reform Jewish community. That commitment has inspired Reform congregations across North America to develop and pursue a wide range of activities and programs that help l’taken olam, to mend the world. By reaching out to the needy and the downtrodden, by forming coalitions of concern across religious and racial lines, by advocating for equity and justice, and in countless other ways, it is the congregations of our Movement that stand on the front line of the long, hard struggle to realize the vision of the prophets, to create communities informed by that vision.
Irving J. Fain, who died in 1970, was a passionate proponent of social justice and of the Reform Movement’s active commitment to the work of tikkun olam, and served for a decade as Chairperson of its Commission on Social Action. The Fain Awards, established in 1983 in his honor and memory, are awarded every two years to congregations whose work in the area of social justice is exemplary. Specifically, awards are presented to congregations that have successfully involved large numbers of congregants in their social action programs or that have developed genuinely innovative and/or particularly effective projects.
The Fain Award winners fully meet the high standard the Awards are meant to advance. We hope and expect they will inspire others to embark creatively and energetically on the road to justice. Indeed, all the programs submitted for consideration offer proof that congregations large and small, in every region of North America, are daily bringing Jewish values to bear on the world around them. In so doing, the ethical teachings of our tradition find expression in the lives of their members, thereby linking the Jewish past and the Jewish present - and, God willing, will serve as a text and a testament to future generations.
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