3/29/2002 Atlanta Jewish Times: It’s Not Easy Being Green : Without a central organization, can Atlanta’s Jewish environmentalist movement take root? [PDF]

8/25/2011 Matthew Arbeit Lowe: “The Religion of Reason…”

Jewschool

The Religion of Reason (but still a fair amount of Faith)

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

This guest post is by Matthew Arbeit Lowe. Matthew teaches theology and philosophy at Prozdor Hebrew High School. He is also the founder of the Moishe Kavod House â€œFabrengenâ€ club, an egalitarian monthly gathering for teaching, singing, and drinking. He blogs regularly at theemptythrone.blogspot.com.

Before critiquing Judaism: Religion of Reason by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, the founder of Mesorah Heritage Foundation (mesorah.org), I should say that I am unfit to write this review. Despite my various degrees in philosophy, Judaism, and religion, Ill admit that my command of Hebrew (all kinds) and Aramaic is severely lacking, and so (by his own rules) I cannot â€œopen a Talmud and explain Tosfos and Rashi.â€ (295) If I cannot read Tosfos and Rashi then I cant read Talmud; and if I cant read Talmud then I cant read Torah; thus I have no traditionalist basis for critiquing Rabbi Ben-Chaims interpretations in the book. Similarly, some of my objections to his interpretations are based on my belief in science; but here too I must admit my inadequacy, since â€œwe cannot talk about any science without years of study.â€ (256) With that warning out of the way, here I goâ€¦

The author wrote â€œJudaism: Religion of Reasonâ€ in order to demonstrate that

â€œIntelligence is the sole faculty that can enable an appreciation for the Written and Oral Torahs.â€ (8) As an Orthodox thinker in the rationalist tradition of Maimonides, Rabbi Ben-Chaims book targets two groups as ranking among the deluded un-intelligentsia: unbelievers, and those who subscribe to superstition/pop kabbalah. As I am a member of the first group and a scoffer of the second, my experience reading this sizable (435 pp.!) compilation of articles was mixed.

In the introduction, the author cites an anonymous â€œwise Rabbiâ€ who defines idolatry as â€œassuming a causal relationship when it does not exist.â€ (14) Rabbi Ben-Chaim deftly wields this definition against the pop kabbalists, denouncing red-string bracelets, mezuzah blessing, blessings from â€œRebbes,â€ paying for prayers at the Kotel, etc., as ignorant and pernicious, antithetical to the rational nature of Judaism and Gods Torah. Superstitious practices such as these are out of touch with reality, and exercising our human ability to reason protects us from such nonsense.

Of course, as an unbeliever, I was often tempted to accuse the author himself of such idolatry. As a Maimonidean, he asserts that prayer does not directly act upon God to produce results; rather, prayer provides an opportunity to introspect and align ourselves with Torah, and through repentance we become more subject to divine providenceâ€”that is, God involves Himself more directly with the Godly. While this explanation superficially abjures magical thinking, I do not find it persuasive, since â€œdivine providenceâ€ does not hold any weight in the scientific community (the people I trust most to make claims of causality).

I will give one example that offended me both as a believer in modern science and as a feminist. In the chapter â€œRabbis Blessings,â€ Rabbi Ben-Chaim explains that another persons prayer cannot, no matter how righteous the person, induce God to act on your behalf. In actuality, only your own prayers, by helping you become a better person and thus meriting greater divine involvement in your affairs, can help. Case in pointâ€”Rachel asks Jacobs to pray for her on account of her infertility. Jacob refuses, and Rabbi Ben-Chaim explains why. So what can Rachel do to overcome her infertility? â€œShe is the one from whom God has held back children, the one who can introspect, determine a flaw, improveâ€¦ and thereby merit children.â€ (192) This is the kind of humiliating advice, ignoring all of medical science, that only a religious â€œrationalistâ€ could give. I sincerely hope that no infertile individuals take this message to heart, blaming their spiritual states for their biological (possibly congenital) conditions.

Rabbi Ben-Chaim, drawing on Maimonides, teaches that there are three sources of knowledge: our senses, our intellect, and the Torah. As a philosopher reading this book, my biggest complaint is that he does not make clear the relative weights of these three sources. At times, he calls upon our intellect to overcome the temptation to read supernatural occurrences in the Torah and Talmud literally. At other times, he tells us that Gods Torah is the only basis for truth, especially in matters of morality. (336) As an unbeliever, I believe one could say that his first two sources (senses + intellect) may be considered to constitute the scientific method. While the Rabbi pays lip service to science, he clearly favors the Torah and Rabbinic modes of its interpretation, leading him to claim things like â€œit was the natural grain of sapphire in these two stone Tablets, which formed of the Ten Commandments,â€ (sic) meaning, the words on the tablets formed due to the natural properties of sapphire (and not by Gods â€˜hand)! This is reasonable religion?

Lookâ€”as a polemic against magical thinking that extends beyond the traditional supernaturalism of Judaism, I recommend this book. I appreciate his mission against magical thinking, especially insofar as mystical quacks use it to take advantage of fearful, un-cynical people. But if you are reading as a liberal or secular Jew, do not expect to be convinced. The rabbi has very strong opinions about who gets to interpret tradition and how, and absolutely no respect for Wissenschaft des Judentums (the 19th century â€œScience of Judaismâ€ school) and its legacy. He favors oral tradition over material evidence, and only readers who find that kind of thinking reasonable will be convinced.

In the final analysis, however, dont listen to me. Im a heretic, and as the rabbi knows, theres no use debating with a heretic because â€œmost probably because they are more adept at perverting quoted texts.â€ (132) With my blind-ish faith in scientific method and my openness to non-rabbinic interpretation of Torah, we clearly hold different criteria for establishing truth. I would love to find room for dialogue, but our differing metaphysical commitments trouble that hope. I suppose I should not expect a response to this review; as the rabbi advises at the end of one chapter: â€œKnow how to answer the heretic, but as the Talmud teaches, do not engage the Jewish heretic.â€ (135)

P.S. If you want to see the Reform Jewish attempt at the exact same theme, read Hermann Cohens 1919 classic â€œReligion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism.â€

Original web link: http://jewschool.com/2011/08/25/26802/the-religion-of-reason-but-still-a-fair-amount-of-faith/

5/2011 Jewish Advocate Spotlight on Moishe Kavod Community Simchas

Web link: http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/documents/Simcha/flip pages 9-11

2/2011 Matthew Lowe: “Secular Spiritual Judaism”

The New Humanism

Secular Spiritual Judaism
by Matthew Lowe

My passion for Judaism had always been based on a passion for Godâ€”and so my realization last April that I am an atheist engendered both a personal and professional crisis in my life.

The personal crisis passed quickly. Besides my religion, Judaism has always been my culture. I belong to a young, progressive Jewish community in Brookline called the Moishe Kavod Social Justice House, and there I can enjoy many dimensions of my Jewish identity without ever really needing to confront my disbelief. Regardless of the non/existence of God, there is so much apparent wisdom in the Jewish tradition, and so much to appreciate in the Jewish lifestyle and life cycle, that I am quite certain I will remain in the Jewish community for the rest of my life. The question of how my partner and I will raise our future kids, with what level of Jewish literacy and observanceâ€”that is a personal crisis for another day.

The professional crisis remains. The most difficult aspect of my dilemma is that I am really good at Jewish education. I have been a Jewish educator in one form or another for over half my life. At 13, I won a B’nai B’rith International programming award for my Friday night service and meditation for teens and their parents. At 18, I created Bible Survivor, a game in which teams attempted to “vote out” out-dated books of the Jewish Scriptures. At 24, I invented “Speed-Debating the Proofs of God,” in which teenagers debated the traditional proofs of God’s existence in a “speed-dating” format. With my extensive background in Jewish living and learning, and my talent for informal education, I have often day-dreamed about “saving” the Jewish supplementary school (AKA “Hebrew School”), an institution known primarily for being boring.

But in some sense, I have been in a professional crisis ever since 2002, when I first learned about biblical criticism as a student at List College of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Following my loss of faith in divine authorship, I found myself compelled to teach Bible as literature rather than as history. Instead of teaching the attributes of God, I began teaching metaphors for God, and God as a metaphor. No longer able to teach theology as a source of absolute truth, I taught theology as a source of human truth, as a testing ground for human visions of the nature of reality, the ultimate, and the sacred. In talking about and exploring the concept of “God,” many people find an easy and compelling entry-point to thinking about themselves deeply, as individuals, as community, and as a world. As I continued to struggle with my own belief in God, I capitalized on the psychological-philosophical value of theology in order to continue to create educational spaces for pursuing wisdom and self-knowledge.

I believe now that my professional mission has always been just that: creating educational spaces for pursuing wisdom and self-knowledge. As a believer, I had always thought of God as the key to these pursuits. With my faith shaken, I created classes for supplementary school students that continued the mission through struggling with the concept of Godâ€”classes like “The Shapes of God,” “Theology for Skeptics,” and “Judaism vs. Idolatry” all explored how God-talk develops our sense of self and values. Now, as a non-believer, I am inspired to continue my mission outside the walls of religion, in the secular world.

Currently my best bets are in education or counseling psychology. I could teach at an institution for practitioners, and thus influence others to promote my mission for an educational space for secular spirituality. And yet I still toy with the idea of remaining in Jewish educationâ€”doesn’t the Jewish world need humanistic teachers too? My newest class is called “Judaism Beyond Belief,” and it explores one’s options for Jewish identity after God (spoiler: the options are assimilation, Yiddish culture, Zionism, Leftism, and Humanistic Judaism). It’s a great class and a noble venture, but I don’t think it’s my professional future. I am teaching about secular Judaism because it works for me personally; I am not inspired to advocate it for all people, and I can’t say yet that I have a desire to devote my life to the growth of atheistic Judaism. I want to believe that I can best serve humanity by crafting a message (and an educational vehicle for that message) for all people. It remains to be seen where such a message and vehicle will be supported.

These days, I daydream of a time when secular humanism has developed supplementary community schools. That would be perfect! However, this will not be a reality for a long time, and I am searching for a career right now. I am constantly searching for fields of study that would sponsor my goal of “wisdom and self-knowledge education”â€”which I have been calling “secular spirituality.” (I know “spirituality” is normally a metaphysical term, but I use it naturalistically, in the sense of the phrase “greatness of the human spirit.”) Because it is atheistic, secular spirituality does not fit into religion. Because it is concerned with directly influencing the life of individuals and communities, secular spirituality does not usually fit into institutionalized philosophy, despite philosophy’s nominal love of wisdom.

Secular spirituality education could be considered a combination of psychology and education, something like the promotion of human development and flourishing; and yet, there are few venues where this combination is allowed to see the light of day. Most professional psychology interactions happen in one-on-one or group therapy, not in classes. Once, when I was a second-grade teaching assistant, the school counselor came in to share a lesson on recognizing and communicating difficult emotions. Unfortunately, in secondary and higher education, counselors are not often invited into the classroom to assist in human development. In high school I learned many lessons about life from my English and History teachersâ€”but that was a fortunate coincidence, not an intentional aspect of school culture. Some well-funded schools (public or private) have philosophy classes, but these classes are always the side-project of a full-time teacher of another subject. Is there any full-time work for the teacher who is solely devoted to education for greater self-awareness? An educational pursuit of wisdom and self-knowledge deserves a place in the secular world.

Original web link: http://www.thenewhumanism.org/authors/matthew-lowe/articles/secular-spiritual-education

10/2010 Margie Klein Chosen as 2010 Jewish Community Heroes Semifinalist

To see a video about Margie and Moishe Kavod, just click play:

MKH-and-Margie-Klein

9/8/2010 Governor Patrick visits Moishe Kavod House

Brookline Patch

For Young Jewish Advocacy Group, Governor’s Visit is More Validation than Campaigning

Five-year-old Moishe/Kavod House hosts Patrick Campaign stop.

By Robert Van Dam Email the author

September 8, 2010

Gov. Deval Patrick listens to members of the Moishe/Kavod House during a Labor Day campaign stop. Credit Eric Haynes / Deval Patrick Campaign

Gov. Deval Patrick address members of the Moishe/Kavod House during a Labor Day campaign stop. Credit Eric Haynes / Deval Patrick Campaign

When Deval Patrick entered, the young crowd packing the hallways, stairwells and public spaces of the Moishe/Kavod House ignited in a show of raw enthusiasm, not only because the Governor had arrived, but because they had.

Patrick’s appearance, constructed more like an exchange of ideas than a campaign stop, marked the coming of age for an activist group that started just a few years ago with a handful of like-minded friends meeting over Sabbath dinner and dreaming about changing the world one day.

“Here we are five years later, and the governor is in our living room, listening to our ideas of how to create change,” founder Margie Klein said.

The living room in question is on the second floor of the Moishe House Boston: Kavod Jewish Social Justice House, located near Washington Square in Brookline. Part of the national network of Moishe houses, it’s home to four of the group’s leaders. Many of the group’s 99 other formal members and hundreds of associates stop by on a regular basis for a mix of peer-led worship and activism.

That balance is reflected by the building’s busy, yet fastidious interior. On a shelf a few feet from where Patrick spoke, a bookshelf provided a little window into the group’s thinking. “Down to Earth Judiasm” and “The way into Judaism and the Environment” sat inches from “Building Powerful Community Organizations” and “Bridging Divided Worlds.”

Upon entering, up the narrow staircase and past the hand-drawn “Funky Young Jews” sign in the door, the governor thanked them for their leadership and joked that, when he heard one of them say “Can I get an Amen?” he was reminded of his own traditions.

What he didn’t know was that, a few minutes before the ceremony began, that very “amen” had been carefully rehearsed. At least one person present even referred jokingly to borrowing from African-American churches.

It was just one of the myriad details in the exhaustively choreographed presentation, one which showed just how seriously Moishe/Kavod takes the “organizer” part of “community organizers.”

After singing in Hebrew with the group, Patrick opened with a few familiar campaign messages, notably his upbringing on the South Side of Chicago and what he sees as the progress the commonwealth has made in education, innovation and infrastructure during his administration.

“We have to step up and do things, make sacrifices that may not be convenient for us in the moment, but have in mind our own children and, more importantly, children who we will never meet, but to whom we have a responsibility,” the governor said.

In exchange for his attention, Patrick asked Moishe/Kavod members to visit his campaign website, give the campaign their contact information and participate in his re-election effort with donations of money, time and social connections.

After the governor ceded the floor, Moishe/Kavod members arose one-by-one to deliver prepared speeches from a makeshift podium set in a doorway, driving home their own talking points and asking for Patrick’s response.

The speeches served as an abridged history of the group, touching on the progress they’d made in each of their major social justice efforts.

The group, who describe themselves as early leaders in the effort to improve Jewish-Muslim relations in Boston, began by thanking Patrick for “standing with us for religious freedom for all faith communities throughout the country.”

“We’re proud to have a governor who has always stood for engagement and never been scared to have a relationship with the Muslim community,” one Moishe/Kavod representative said.

The next speaker asked for Patrick’s help “to change the larger system that makes it challenging to buy healthy fresh foods from local farms.” It’s part of an effort to build on their “Farm to Shule” campaign, which has connected local Jews with farmers and community-supported agriculture.

In response, the self-styled “foodie” governor invited the group to nominate someone to the state food policy council he would be forming, and told them about his efforts to increase access to farmers markets through food stamps and state financial support.

Spanish teacher Riana Good spoke next, chronicling the group’s four years of anti-foreclosure and tenants’ rights efforts, many of them in partnership with City Life Vida Urbana.

Good challenged the governor to “provide more funding” for innovative programs such as City Life, which she said “has been so popular and so successful that it used up most of its funds in the first three weeks.”

Even Good was momentarily surprised by the governor’s disarming reply to the request for money, a simple “How much?”

Patrick then deftly promised to do what he could to support the program, while cautioning that he guessed it had gotten its original funds from one-time federal stimulus money.

To wrap up their presentation, the Moishe/Kavod crew unleashed a topic that seemed to spark the governor’s imagination: Their anti-usury campaign.

At present, banks can (and do) incorporate in uncapped states like Delaware, freeing them to charge rates far above Massachusetts’ 18 percent limit, Moishe/Kavod’s Adam Greenspan said. As part of a larger effort by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, Greenspan said the group has committed to changing federal legislation to make banks abide by the interest-rate caps of the states in which they’re doing business, as they did previous to a court ruling in 1978.

At noon on Nov. 17, GBIO hopes to attract press and bank attention by closing 500 bank accounts at Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Chase Bank and Bank of America, including at least 45 accounts owned by Moishe/Kavod members and friends.

With their presentations coming in ahead of schedule, founder Margie Klein took the stage to caution the assembly against complacency.

“Now Governor Patrick, I think, is listening to us. So actually, our responsibility now is to work with Governor Patrick to create the change that we’ve all been talking about. And that starts with working on the election, so we can’t just feel good that we’ve had this eventâ€”we actually have to work together.”

“I definitely think this moment was, for us, a sense of crystallizing where we’ve come in the past five years,” housemate and GBIO liaison Annie Fox said. “We’ve gone from just a house that was going to host events sometimes to a dues-paying, formalized membership structure with an elected board that really has a stake in local politics, and a relationship with our local legislators that is really connecting local Jews to social justice opportunities in a meaningful and powerful way.”

Before the Governor’s car had left Winthrop Road, members of the house were already rounding the troops to a post-meeting “eval.” There, they would dissect the event and figure out what went right and what went wrong, presumably so that they’re ready for the next world leader to walk through their doors.

Patrick faces Republican Charlie Baker, Independent Tim Cahill and Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein in the November election.

Original web link: http://brookline.patch.com/articles/for-young-jewish-advocacy-group-governors-visit-is-more-validation-than-campaigning#photo-1549168

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Jewish Advocate

Governor Patrick makes a house call
Moishe/Kavod sees visit as reflecting its growing influnce
By Leah Burrows Special to the Advocate

Patrick spent part of Labor Day afternoon at Moishe/Kavod House, which
is on a residential street a few blocks from Washington Square.

The event was noticeably laid back for a governor in the midst of a
re-election battle. Patrick seemed at ease in the group home, with its
pictures of smiling 20-somethings tacked on the walls, simple
furnishings and large pink bulletin board plastered with
announcements.

He arrived with little fanfare in a black SUV, with a few security
guards. Some 80 young adults surrounded him in the living room as
staffers waited inconspicuously in the hall or outside.

In his 20-minute talk â€“ part stump speech, part off the cuff â€“ Patrick
said, â€œMembership in a community is seeing a stake that everyone has
in not only our own dreams and our own struggles, but in our neighbors
as well.â€

Moishe/Kavod members talked about how they were putting those words
into action: bringing local produce to schools and synagogues; helping
students pay off debt; and working with families whose homes have been
foreclosed.

The Moishe/Kavod organization is made up of Jews in their 20s and 30s
who work with politicians, community groups and interfaith
organizations. Four of them live in the house, where they host Shabbat
dinners and services.

Although the organization is small â€“ only 100 members â€“ and entirely
volunteer run, Moishe/Kavod has been attracting the attention of other
non-profit organizations, according to Anne Fox, leader of the houses
social justice team.

â€œSince the Obama campaign, the energy and passion of young people
cant be underestimated anymore,â€ said Fox, 26.

Many at the event noted that the governors visit proved how far the
organization had come since its founding five years ago by Margie
Klein.

â€œWe feel that the fact that Deval Patrick came today is a testament to
the power of young people to affect change and the power of Jewish
people to put out a set of values that can inspire us and our elected
leaders,â€ said Klein, 31, who is studying to be a rabbi.

Patrick stayed more than 30 minutes after the hourlong event ended,
shaking hands and schmoozing with the audience.

The governor is the only gubernatorial candidate to have appeared at
the house, although others have been invited.

The Moishe/Kavod house is part of the larger Moishe house
organization, which has some 30 branches as farflung as New Orleans,
Beijing and Johannesburg.

2/10/2010 New York Times Spotlight on Moishe House

The Four-Bedroom Kibbutz

By FRED A. BERNSTEIN

Published: February 10, 2010

REBECCA KARP, Brian Cohen, Danielle Hardoon and Alissa Worly, all of whom are in their 20s, share a spacious red-brick house in Philadelphia. It rents for $3,200 a month.

But they pay only a fourth of that. Every month, an organization in California sends a check for the lions share of the rent â€” $2,400 â€” directly to their landlord.

Their benefactor is Moishe House, a nonprofit group founded in 2006 to help Jewish 20-somethings create communities. Its model is simple: Moishe House subsidizes the rent of groups of three to six residents, in exchange for their promise to organize events for other Jews in their 20s. Just four years old, it now has outposts in 29 cities, including Beijing, Cape Town and Warsaw.

Picture â€œReal Worldâ€ â€” the MTV series â€” with challah.

Moishe House is run out of a rented office in Oakland, Calif. Its founder and executive director, David Cygielman, who is 28, said that its budget, provided through donations, is now about $1.35 million, or â€œabout that of a medium-sized synagogue, and for that we do about 225 programs a month.â€

Like â€œReal World,â€ MoHouse, as it is sometimes known, thrives on diversity.

Emily Donati, a visitor to the Philadelphia house for a recent Friday night dinner, described herself as a pizza-bagel (her father is Italian).

One of the founders of the Los Angeles Moishe House, Anthony Rogers-Wright, who is African-American, sometimes wears a yarmulke over his dreadlocks. (Born to parents from Sierra Leone, he converted to Judaism about 10 years ago.) During a recent dinner at that house, the guests included an Ã©migrÃ© from Belarus and a lawyer from an Iranian-Jewish family.

Some activities are purely social â€” from dodgeball and drinks in Portland, Ore., to a tapas cooking class in Orange County, Calif. Others have a more activist bent. The Boston house is dedicated to, among other causes, improving Jewish-Muslim relations. Its founder, Margie Klein, who is 27 and studying to be a rabbi, said that the goal is to help young people â€œsee the Jewish roots of their political commitments.â€

One thing all the Moishe Houses have in common is that the residents take lots of photographs of activities, which they post at the organizations Web site, moishehouse.org. Its their way of reporting back to the national office, and to one another. The result is an online scrapbook of everything from pumpkin carving, in Cleveland, to â€œa Chanuka-themed housing foreclosure workshop and celebration,â€ in Boston.

Mr. Cygielman said that he is determined to avoid the top-down organization of many Jewish charities. In that he has a kindred spirit in Lynn Schusterman, a 71-year-old philanthropist in Tulsa, Okla., who has pledged more than $1 million to the group. Mrs. Schusterman, a widow whose husband, Charles Schusterman, made a fortune in oil and gas, said that she was attracted to the Moishe House model because it doesnt lay out one way of doing things.

â€œIts totally important to let young adults shape their own programs, and not try to inflict my views on them,â€ she said by telephone from Tulsa. â€œLet them work out how they want to celebrate a holiday.â€

And so, on a recent Friday, the four members of Moishe House Philadelphia (who, in addition to their rent subsidy, receive a $500 monthly grant to buy food and drinks for events) did exactly that: it was Tu BShevat, a festival often associated with the planting of trees in Israel. One form of the celebration, derived from 16th-century Kabbalistic teachings, involves comparing four categories of fruit (those with edible seeds and skin; with edible seeds and inedible skin; with inedible seeds and inedible skin; and with inedible seeds and edible skin) to different types of people. So the group celebrated by dipping various fruits â€” strawberries in the first category, kiwis in the second, and so on â€” into melted chocolate, fondue style.

The Tu BShevat seder was followed by a vegetarian dinner, which itself was followed by a lot of schmoozing. Conversation topics included Tay-Sachs disease, the fortunes of the Trenton Thunder minor league baseball team and whether white chocolate is really chocolate.

Residents agreed that the house is something like â€œReal World,â€ except that there are no hidden cameras or communal showers. And â€œwe have real jobs, not some job that we all do together,â€ said Ms. Karp, who is an executive of the American Jewish Committee in Philadelphia and a freelance graphic designer.

Upstairs in the Philadelphia house, each of the four large bedrooms reflects its occupants personality. Ms. Hardoon painted large desert murals to remind her of the year and a half she spent sleeping outdoors while studying environmental education. Mr. Cohen hung a giant banner for Habonim Dror, a Zionist youth movement.

In the world of Orthodox Jews, unmarried men and women dont live together, which is a reason that residents tend to be from Reform and Conservative families, although Mr. Cygielman said that some Moishe House regulars do identify themselves as Orthodox. A few houses keep kosher; those that dont have come up with creative ways to satisfy the needs of visitors who do.

Mr. Cygielman had the idea for Moishe House while working for Morris Bear Squire, a philanthropist and artist based in Santa Barbara, Calif., whose Yiddish name is Moishe. Mr. Cygielman said that his goal was to do something for Jews who are too old for college organizations but in most cases dont yet belong to synagogues.

With the backing of Mr. Squires Forest Foundation, he opened the first house, in Oakland, in January 2006, and another house in San Francisco three weeks later. The priority was to open houses in places with relatively small Jewish communities, which is why there are houses in Budapest and Buenos Aires, for example, but not in New York City, though Mr. Cygielman said that that could change as Moishe House expands.

Most participants learn about the program through word of mouth, he said, and the average stay has been about two years.

The organization dodged a bullet early in its existence. In 2008, Mr. Squire realized that â€œhe wasnt going to be able to fund the whole thing anymore,â€ Mr. Cygielman said. (Mr. Squire did not respond to several telephone messages.)

That, Mr. Cygielman said, made him realize the folly of relying on a single donor. â€œIt wasnt fair to the people in the houses â€” if that person changed his mind or, God forbid, passed away,â€ the whole program would end. So he incorporated Moishe House as a 501(c)3 charity, meaning it can seek grants and tax-deductible donations.

His benefactors include Mrs. Schusterman, who said, â€œI am fortunate that I could step up to the plate very quickly,â€ and the Jim Joseph Foundation, of San Francisco, endowed by a real estate magnate.

Mr. Cygielman said that there is a waiting list of people who would like to open Moishe Houses, but that he is taking things slowly, making sure to find funds before adding new houses.

The program may be novel, but some things about Moishe House are universal. One resident of the Philadelphia house, Ms. Worly, a 2008 graduate of Cornell University, began dating Elliot Jerud, a medical resident at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, after Mr. Jeruds sister attended a Moishe House function last fall and thought that the two of them would hit it off.

But matchmaking isnt the goal of Moishe House. Johannah Lebow, a nurse at Methodist Hospital in South Philadelphia, who attended the Tu BShevat seder in Philadelphia, said: â€œI love coming here because its not a singles group where theres pressure to meet and mingle. Its just a place to hang out with people I like.â€

A version of this article appeared in print on February 11, 2010, on page D1 of the National edition.

Original web link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/garden/11moishe.html?pagewanted=1

9/29/2006 JTA: Boston house as ‘radical Chabad’

Boston house as â€˜radical Chabad
By Sue Fishkoff · September 29, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 29 (JTA) â€” Bostons Kavod Jewish Social Justice House is quite different from the other Moishe Houses. It was founded last fall by Margie Klein, a rabbinical student at Bostons trans-denominational Hebrew College, co-founder of the activist youth community Jews in the Woods and former head of Project Democracy, a nonprofit that mobilized college students to vote in the 2004 election. Kleins religious and political interests set the tone at Kavod House, where residents combine social action with an understanding of the Jewish roots of their political commitments. Klein was inspired by Chabads successful outreach to young, unaffiliated Jews. â€œAs a grassroots organizer, I traveled around the world. Everywhere I went, Chabad provided an address for my Jewish life, a warm family opening its doors, with good Jewish food on the table,â€ she says.

But as an â€œegalitarian Jew,â€ she says, she couldnt make her home in the Lubavitch community. So she took their model and combined it with her own progressive politics and egalitarian practice, experimenting first with a now-defunct house in Washington, then founding the Kavod House in Boston. The impetus came right after the 2004 presidential election, when she sat up all night with some other friends equally despondent over the Democratic Partys defeat. â€œHow could we revitalize the Jewish community for our generation? How could we make our generation understand its our responsibility to create a politics we can believe in?â€ she asks. â€œWe thought, lets use the model of Chabad, not to get people to a certain observance level but to create a Judaism that is fully engaged in repairing the world.”

Early funding for the Boston house came from the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel alumni fund and the Jewish Life Network. Joining the Moishe House network in June strengthened programming, as has the houses close relationship with Hebrew College. Rabbinical students came over at Tu BShevat to teach young Jews how to do text study on environmental topics. The house also sponsored a blind tasting of tap and bottled water in Harvard Square to encourage people to drink free, local water. That stunt landed them on NBCs â€œToday Show,â€ where Klein says â€œwe emphasized we were a religious group doing this out of moral conviction.” Kavod House has about 100 regulars and more than 250 frequent visitors. As more people began coming to activities, Klein has broadened her view of what the house can provide. â€œPeople come for all reasons,â€ she admits. â€œSome just want a Jewish home. Some want to explore their spiritual practice.â€ They now offer cooking classes and â€œpoetry as spiritual practice,â€ taught by a national poetry slam champion who happens to be Jewish. The four residents have become facilitators, mentoring sub-groups that are creating a house minyan, a social action-oriented beit midrash, or Torah study group, and an organizing arm that can mobilize crowds of young people for particular causes.

Three of the four residents are Sabbath-observant, and to satisfy their various dietary needs the house maintains three sets of dishes: one vegetarian-organic, one kosher vegetarian, and one for anything else. They call the system â€œkosher possible,â€ and view it as a way for people to live together without compromising their values. As the Moishe Houses grow and mature, Klein says, theyre trying to figure out together what it means to build Jewish identity for their generation. â€œIn some ways were creating a new Judaism. In another way, its always been there,â€ she muses.

Original web link: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2006/09/29/14499/Bostoncommunalhous

7/19/2005 CNN on Moishe Kavod’s Work to Repair Jewish Muslim Relations

“Kavod House” July 2005, New Voices by Miriam Felton-Dansky

â€œGod gave you your whole life. The least you can do is give him one minute of your time,â€ said a black-clad, peyos-sporting preadolescent perched in a Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Mobile. He was scolding a passerby for an inadequate response to the questionâ€“â€œYou Jewish?â€â€“that many New Yorkers face at certain times of the yearâ€“usually from Chabadniks, and often ones who are leaning out of Winnebagos plastered with pinups of Rebbe Schneerson. Yes, Chabadâ€“the ubiquitous Orthodox group that maintains Jewish houses around the globeâ€“has enjoyed a monopoly on the Jewish outreach game for years, providing programming to Jews everywhere, and in some places serving as the only Jewish presence around.

But Chabad had better watch its back. A group of recent graduates are cooking up a plan for a new kind of Jewish outreach houseâ€“and this one is grassroots, youth-run, and progressive. â€œThe idea of Kavod,â€ explains Margie Klein, a recent Yale graduate and one of the projects five founders, â€œis to create Jewish communal houses that would welcome a diverse group of Jewish twenty-somethings for Shabbat dinners and other types of programming.â€ The groups preliminary plans for the houses include such events as â€œradical Jewish thought potlucks,â€ fundraising parties for progressive Jewish causes, and late-night singing and prayer on Shabbat. Most importantly, the group will devote significant efforts to reaching out to other progressive and unaffiliated Jews by attending political, social justice, and cultural events and encouraging new acquaintances to join them at Kavod. â€œOriginally Kavod was called Radical Chabad,â€ says Klein. â€œWe liked Chabad because it welcomes people for programming and more Jewish involvement. But their political message was not as fulfillingâ€“we want to use their model of outreach to fit our values.â€

Kavods founding members took their inspiration from experiences with Fruity Jews in the Woods, which Klein explains is a â€œpluralistic, artsy, social justice-oriented gathering which meets in the northeast once or twice a year.â€ Klein loved the independence, lack of institutionalization, progressive politics, and Jewish spirit, as did Joseph Gindi, Frances Kreimer, Benj Kamm, and Zach Teutsch, and they began looking for a way to recreate Fruity Jews activities and attitude in â€œthe real worldâ€ and year-round.

The project speaks to the organized Jewish communitys concerns about high levels of unaffiliated younger Jews. But Kavod will be different from the array of programming seeking to engage this demographic, because it is not only conceived for young Jews, but by them as well. It seeks to tap into existing communities of progressive, unorthodox Jews who currently have few networks and no home base. â€œWe do not fall along traditional denominational lines, and are attracted to pluralistic models that bring together Jews of different backgrounds,â€ explains its mission statement. â€œWe want to take ownership of our own Jewish life.â€

The Kavod houses are still in their early development stages: â€œIts not a 501c(3),â€ explains Gindi, â€œits an idea with legs.â€ The Kavodniks hope to launch a test house in Washington, DC next year, and once that house is functioning, the group will fine-tune its mission and methods and seek broader financial support. After that, â€œI think we would like to see growth to other cities,â€ says Gindi, but most importantly, Kavod will retain its member-defined mission and its openness to all who seek it out. New Voices commends the Kavod founders, but strongly urges the group to consider a bulk purchase of Mitzvah Mobiles, which we believe to be the true key to successful Jewish outreach.

(appears midway down the page at: http://www.newvoices.org/cgi-bin/articlepage.cgi?id=369)

Media

The Four-Bedroom Kibbutz

By FRED A. BERNSTEIN

Published: February 10, 2010

A version of this article appeared in print on February 11, 2010, on page D1 of the National edition.