Join the “Nachshon Challenge”: Support Courageous Leaders
We invite you to help us honor modern day “Nachshons” – people who are taking brave steps toward creating social change. Make a donation by June 30th and JFSJ board member Mark Bernstein will match all new gifts 100%, doubling the impact of your gift. Read why Mark is making this challenge grant.
Help JFSJ raise a total of $20,000 (Mark has pledged $10,000 plus your collective $10,000) for our next group of social justice leaders from across the United States. Every gift will be matched dollar for dollar, so please give generously. Thank you for your support.
Meet the modern day Nachshons we are funding through our Selah Leadership Program, Seminary Program and the Cornerstone Awards. Read on to meet six modern day Nachshons JFSJ is supporting.
Rabbi Stephanie Kolin
Rachel Micah Jones
Rev Calvin Keene
Rebecca Epstein
Kevin Kleinman
Ericka Smith
Rabbi
Stephanie Kolin revolutionized rabbinical training. When she was
a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, New York, Stephanie Kolin
teamed up with a rabbinical student at JTS and a JFSJ Seminary
Program teacher to do something remarkable. Together, they created a
course to train future rabbis in the art of community organizing. Seventy
years after Saul Alinsky invented the field of faith-based community organizing,
and three years after helping introduce that first course, Rabbi Kolin has created
a path followed by more than 100 rabbinical students at six seminaries across
the country. Her actions are planting the first seeds in a new field of
rabbi organizers. Today, Rabbi Kolin helps to lead the largest Reform synagogue
in New England, Boston's Temple Israel, as it takes action with interfaith
partners through a powerful organizing network.
Donate now.
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Rachel Micah Jones is giving a fighting chance to Mexican immigrant workers. In 2003 Rachel graduated from American University Law School and could have gone on to any top law firm. Instead, Spanish-speaking Rachel chose to take up the cause of Mexican-born workers who are exploited in the work place in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor, workers from Mexico are 80% more likely to die on the job in the U.S. than workers born here. Rachel founded Centro de los Derechos del Migrante based in Zacatecas, Mexico to provide a much needed way for workers in Mexico to seek legal recourse when they have suffered on the job injuries and oppressive conditions. She was a participant in the 2007 cohort of JFSJ’s leadership training program, Selah. Donate now.
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Reverend Calvin Keene saved his neighborhood. Rev. Keene left a career as a successful businessman to become the pastor of Memorial Baptist Church in the Oliver neighborhood in East Baltimore, where he grew up. Working with BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development), Pastor Keene has been a driving force in the renewal of the economically depressed Oliver neighborhood, which gained notoriety through the HBO series The Wire. Along with other members of the community, Memorial Baptist acquired adjacent houses and parcels of land to create a foundation for the area’s redevelopment. JFSJ is working in close partnership with Rev. Keene, BUILD, The Reinvestment Fund, THE ASSOCIATED: The Jewish Federation of Greater Baltimore, and other members of the Baltimore Jewish community, to revitalize the area and develop hundreds of lots for new homes and businesses. Donate now.
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Rebecca Epstein is fighting for change. Rebecca is the Chief of Staff for The Management Center in Washington, DC where she helps some of our nation’s leading progressive organizations build strong management practices that get results. A former community organizer with Blocks Together, a grassroots group in Chicago, Rebecca has mobilized low-income residents in campaigns for affordable housing, property tax reform, safety, and equitable public services. She has worked on issues of social and economic justice with various nonprofit organizations, including the Brookings Institution, the Brennan Center for Justice, Demos, and the Advocacy Institute. A member of JFSJ’s Selah Leadership Program, Rebecca is motivated by a “deep belief that we are judged by our deeds, by who we are and how we choose to live our lives and, fundamentally, by how we treat others.” Donate now.
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Kevin Kleinman is using his rabbinate to lead social change. As a fourth year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in New York and a Fellow in JFSJ’s cross-denominational class on organizing, Kevin has combined his passion for social consciousness with his new organizing skills. Kevin led a joint effort with school administrators to reform the seminary students’ access to quality, affordable health insurance and child care. Kevin will apply his organizing skills at his future synagogue in order to develop strong relationships among congregants and work towards bringing about social change. Donate now.
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Ericka Smith is Tackling Poverty in South Los Angeles. Ericka is the Executive Director of SCOPE, a community based organization created after the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles to address problems of poverty and underdevelopment in the inner city communities of South Los Angeles. A 2007 grantee of JFSJ, SCOPE works to generate social and economic opportunities, particularly through strategic workforce development and civic participation. Among the many projects she has initiated, she helped launch Workforce Hollywood, which links people in underserved communities to job opportunities in LA’s entertainment industry. Ericka is leading SCOPE with a strong strategy of “building power from the bottom up.” Through SCOPE’s training and engagement with community, political and business partners, people are able to “engage as actors to change their own destiny.” Donate now.
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If you enjoyed reading about these Jewish social justice leaders, read about our 2008 Cornerstone Award winners, who are four outstanding domestic Jewish leaders chosen from hundreds of applicants.
Join us for the Cornerstone Awards in New York City on May 29, 2008.
