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Reform Judaism
Targets Social Action
Washington (JTA) — The
Commission on Social Ac-
tion of Reform Judaism has
held its first conference on
grass-roots organizing and
teaching skills, drawing
over 100 lay leaders and
rabbis from around the
nation.
Aside from addressing the
broader question of building
and strengthening syn-
agogue social action pro-
grams, the conference in-
cluded workshops and lec-
tures on such timely topics
as homelessness and affor-
dable housing, resettlement
of Russian Jews, the envi-
ronment and the AIDS
crisis.
The three-day conference,
held at a satellite campus of
Gallaudet University this
summer, was several years
in the planning, according to
Rabbi David Saperstein, di-
rector of the Religious Ac-
tion Center of Reform
Judaism, a co-sponsor of the
event.
The conference, he said,
tried to address the follow-
ing: the kinds of skills par-
ticipants need for social-
action organizing and syn-
agogue programming; how
to mobilize others, including
con- gregation leadership, to
support their efforts; and
how to integrate other ritual
and educational aspects of
the synagogue into the pro-
gram.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum,
who served for two years as
director of congregational
relations at the Religious
Action Center, said the
weekend validated her
efforts and she was hopeful
for the future of social action
within Judaism.
She spoke of a trend,
reflected in the conference
and its participants, of put-
ting social action programs
on par with other, more tra-
ditional parts of Reform
synagogue life.
Kim Bobo, a grass-roots
trainer at the Midwest
Academy, a training center
for social activists, address-
ed the conference on the
need for local social action
programs to be both win-
nable and effective.
Picking issues and
challenges that are too large
for the group to handle will
lead to people quitting, she
said.
Ms. Bobo, former director
of organizing for Bread for
the World and author of
Lives Matter: A Handbook
for Christian Organizing,
also warned of the "I'm-
prophetic-sc-I-don't-have- to-
be-effective" syndrome.
She implored program
leaders to serve local com-
munities directly, not only
by meeting and brainstorm-
ing about issues, but by ac-
ting. "Being morally correct
is not enough," she said.
A workshop on
homelessness and affordable
housing provided a story of a
local synagogue that has
acted ambitiously in its so-
cial-action efforts by setting
up and running a low-rent
house for formerly homeless
women.
The Micah House, a project
of Temple Micah of
southwest Washington, was
founded in 1989 to provide
affordable, subsidized hous-
ing for a handful of women,
chosen from local shelters,
who are working toward in-
dependence.
The conference will meet
next year in Los Angeles.
Rabbi Saperstein hopes to
make it an annual event.
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Germany Rules
For Laborers
Bonn (JTA) — A court in
the northwest German city
of Bremen ruled this week
that three Jews assigned to
the city as slave laborers for
eight months during World
War II should be compen-
sated 15,000 marks each —
about $9,900.
But the court, in its ruling
last week, sent the case to a
federal court in Karlsruhe to
decide whether the decision
can be applied immediately,
or only when formal peace
treaties are signed between
Germany and its former
adversaries.
The former slave laborers
who took the city of Bremen
to court previously lived in
Hungary, Poland and
Romania. They had been
assigned to construction and
cleaning, including removal
of debris from bombs.
The accord providing for
reparations to Jews who suf-
fered under the Nazis states
that any further claims
against Germany should be
settled only in the
framework of a formal peace
treaty.
According to observers,
this obstacle can be removed
by the federal court in
Karlsruhe.
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