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PRESENTS

New Forms Of Charity
Are Evolving

YE: ILJDA

CHAI

_SRAEUS LEADING POET

RE ADING SELECTIONS FROM HIS
WO R K AN SPEAKING ON HIS C R F

SU DAY, OCTOBER 17, 1993
9.30 A.M.
HANDLE A A Hk_,L
NO CHARGE
TEMPLE 3ETH EL
7400 TELEGD A DPI ROtA\ •
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48301

Endowed by the Theodore and Mina Bargman Fund
for promoting education programs at Temple Beth El

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New York (JTA) — Laura
Solomon, her husband and
two other couples are plann-
ing a tzedakah collective,
through which they will
jointly decide how to
distribute their charitable
dollars.
The three young couples
are good friends who met
through their Philadelphia
synagogue and have several
reasons for wanting to try to
pool their efforts.
"The whole is greater than
the sum of the parts, and
everyone brings to the table
new possibilities," said Ms.
Solomon.
"By aggregating, we have
the ability to make more of
an impact to improve the
community. We're
sometimes frustrated by the
nickel-and-dime giving"
that we can afford to do on
our own, she said.
Theirs will be one of a few
dozen formal and informal
tzedakah collectives around
the country, some of which
began in the 1970s, born of a
desire for intensive personal
involvement in deciding
where each charitable dollar
goes.
Tzedakah collectives make
up one facet of a quietly
growing movement of Jews
who, by making socially and
spiritually conscious deci-
sions about how they con-
tribute and invest and spend
their money, are building a
"Torah of money" for con-
temporary life.
The term has been coined
by Lawrence Bush and Jef-
frey Dekro in their new book
Jews, Money & Social
Responsibility: Developing a
`Torah of Money' for Con-
temporary Life.
According to Mr. Bush and
Mr. Dekro, developing a
"Torah of Money" means
making decisions based on
social responsibility spurred
by Jewish spirituality.
It is about basing financial
decisions on an ethos in
which "the dictates of the
bottom line and the
teachings of the 'Most High'
are harmonized," write the
authors.
And it is an approach to
money — particularly in the
area of tzedakah — which
seems to be catching on.
The charitable organiza-
tions within the Jewish
community that focus on
this ethos are relatively
small groups.
But over the past several

years, as the recession has
battered the ability of even
philanthropic heavyweights
to keep up donations, these
ethics-based agencies have
grown.
For example, Mazon: A
Jewish Response to Hunger,
has more than doubled its
income and grantmaking in
the past four years. This past
year, it disbursed $1.65 mill-
ion to anti-hunger programs,
up from $700,000 in 1989.
Mazon disburses money to
anti-hunger programs
within the Jewish commun-
ity, to non-sectarian agen-
cies domestically and to
crisis areas like Sarajevo.
In 1985, the year it began
making grants, the Jewish
Fund for Justice disbursed
$30,000. In 1992 it donated
$421,525 to housing and
community revitalization
projects.
The Jewish Fund for
Justice works at the grass-
roots level, donating money

Tzedakah
collectives
make up
one facet of a
quietly growing
movement of Jews.

primarily to community-
initiated housing rehabilita-
tion efforts in the United
States.
The Shefa Fund gave out
about $37,000 during its
first year, 1988-89, and this
year will facilitate the
disbursement of eight times
that amount — $225,000 —
in contributions to projects
related to social and econ-
omic justice, the impact of
gender and the arts. The
Fund was founded and is run
by Dekro, co-author of the
Torah of Money book.
The New Israel Fund,
which disburses money to a
wide range of projects in
Israel dedicated to issues in-
cluding civil rights, women's
rights and Israeli-
Palestinian coexistence, has
more than doubled the
amount it raises since 1988.
NIF in 1988 raised $3.3
million. In 1992, the last
year for which figures are
available, the organization
raised $8.4 million.
Something about the way