Digesting the Jewish media: Are Jews ready to fight poverty?, A shul for the deaf in D.C., Jerry Spr
I know you're caught up in the VP picks, presidential conventions and the looming start of the NFL season... but here's what's in the Jewish newspapers this week:
- Despite recent JCPA efforts, is the Jewish community really ready and willing to take on the poverty issue?, asks the New York Jewish Week.
- A Reconstructionist shul in Washington is seeking a $250,000 grant from the Covenant Foundation to start a congregation for the deaf. It would be one of the few such congregations that have ever operated, reports the Washington Jewish Week.
- The Orthodox Union joined a coalition of faith-based groups supporting California's Proposition 8, which would overturn the state's decision to allow gay marriages, reports the Forward.
- After the Solomon Schechter school in Cranford closed because of financial difficulty – the second New Jersey Schechter to do so in the past year – Schechter of West Orange is absorbing the majority of its faculty and student body.
- The ADL leans on quid pro quo lawyers for legal support, says the New Jersey Jewish Standard.
- In Cleveland, the Center for Social Justice assists financially strapped law students who wish to pursue careers in social justice, says the Cleveland Jewish News.
- Young charity givers were on display in Philadelphia, reports the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
- Former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin, the first Jewish woman governor of a state, will give the keynote speech at next week's opening of the Jewish Book & Culture Fair in Milwaukee, which is part of the Adelman Political Awareness Series of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation's Women's Division, according to the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
- On the flip side, Jerry Springer will be the keynote speaker at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival in November, the St. Louis Jewish Light reports. Springer is the child of Holocaust survivors who escaped from Nazi Germany in 1944.
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digesting the Jewish papers
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Jewish foundations are giving money all over the map but if you did a study of the biggest Jewish foundations, you would undoubtedly find that most of their funding does not go to Jewish causes at all. Then drill deeper at both foundations and big Jewish donors and find that most of the money goes to things like their kids schools and colleges, for better access; their local arts and music institutions which give them tickets and lots of honors; even money to the local hospitals are given to ensure better treatment when they need the place.
They are not giving to feed the hungry and help the less fortunate.
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Robert G
09/01/08 02:01 PM
The Jewish community is in denial about poverty within its own people. People don’t want to believe that just blocks or miles from their luxurious homes/apartments live devastatingly poor families struggling to feed and care for their children. Most of them probably work low paying jobs but for those living in big cities USA, the rent is consuming 75% of their income. Richer Jews think they don’t have to give because government will pick up the tab but then they want to pay lower and lower taxes. Middle class Jews are getting squeezed themeselves by the high cost of housing and healthcare and now food and gasoline. So the Jewish community basically looks for a free ride when it comes to helping the poor among us. New York City seems to be the only place that actually has an organization helping Jews but I would bet it’s mostly government money that pays the bills. Still, I would like to see my hometown of Chicago focus more and Jewish poverty and the same for where I live in Los Angeles too.