Scroll down below to see descriptions of all our ongoing Tikkun Olam @GJC initiatives and for ways to get involved and contact information.
General
Feeding the Hungry with GJC
Green Team
Refugee Immigrant Justice Initiative
Loving the Stranger: Welcoming Refugees
Understanding and Confronting Racism
Education
FEEDING THE HUNGRY WITH GJC
Jewish Relief Agency
The Jewish Relief Agency packs and delivers boxes of shelf-stable food, bags of toiletry items, menstrual products, and in the summer months fresh produce and backpacks for school-age children. GJC has long supported this effort. You can participate in these efforts in a variety of ways. For further information, contact Chris Levin except where otherwise indicated.
- Packing and delivery takes place once a month at the JRA warehouse in Northeast Philadelphia (about a 45-minute drive from GJC). Packing sessions are on a designated Sunday morning. The general packing session begins at 10 AM but there is an earlier session geared towards younger children. Pick-up and delivery of boxes and bags can also occur on Monday and Tuesday following a distribution weekend. Advance registration is required. Routes are typically about ten boxes and take about an hour to deliver. The dates for the remainder of 2025 are September 14-16, October 26-28, November 16-18, and December 14-16. The first few dates in 2026 are January 18-20, February 22-24, and March 22-24.
- In even-numbered months on the Thursday before the distribution weekend (i.e., October 23 and December 11), menstrual products are bagged from 10 AM to noon. Contact Marcy Bacine for further information.
- GJC is committed to delivering five separate routes of boxes and bags to families in the Germantown area. These routes are 8-10 stops. These boxes will be brought to your home on either the Friday before a distribution weekend or the Monday of a distribution period (depending on the day you intend to deliver), so that you do not have to undertake the 90-minute round-trip drive to the JRA warehouse.
From those to whom much is given, much is required. We have the resources to feed us all. We just need the will to get the job done. Join JRA and join the fight against hunger. And bring along a friend! It’s a great way to spend time with a friend while helping others!
ShareFood Program
- Near-daily packing of non-perishable commodity foods for Senior citizens occurs at the Share warehouse in Huntington Park. Advance registration is required.
- Assistance at the on-site farm is welcome in the spring, summer, and fall months. Advance registration is also required.
- Assistance in making “food rescues” from local grocery stores, Wawa’s, and restaurants for delivery to food pantries and community refrigerators is always welcome. These can be done on either a regular basis or a one off basis.
Contact Chris Levin at Chrislevin01@gmail.com for further information.
GREEN TEAM
GJC’s “Green Team” supports the idea that sustainability, and an orientation toward integrating the preservation of nature and sustainability into our Jewish lives, is part and parcel of our expression of Jewish identity. By connecting to our Jewish core values of Redraft Tzedek (pursuing justice) and Kevod Habriyot (honoring humans and all creation), we seek to support GJC as it continues to make progress in its sustainability work by helping to organize and support various synagogue initiatives.
For example, the Green Team has helped launch a successful fundraising campaign to finance the replacement of the roof of our school building with a solar array that should provide clean electricity for at least half (and maybe more) of the building’s electricity needs. We have also sought to support the synagogue in its pilot program of collecting compostable food waste that is being processed by Bennett Composting.
GJC aims to purchase fair trade items as much as possible, and encourages our members to do so as well, in order to have a substantial impact on people’s lives around the world. Through the purchase of commodities like Fair Trade coffee and chocolate, each of us can better align ourselves to our Jewish values.
We invite any GJC member to be part of this adventure. For more information, please contact Nathan Martin (rabbinm18@gmail.com)
REFUGEE IMMIGRANT JUSTICE INITIATIVE
Following GJC’s first Refugee Shabbat years ago, a group of congregants launched a Tikkun Olam initiative to ensure that refugees and other immigrants are treated justly and with dignity. Our own families’ immigration experiences and the biblical imperative to remember that we “were strangers in the land of Egypt” impel us to speak and act with moral clarity. Our group’s work has three components. First, we are organizing groups from GJC and other area synagogues to advocate on behalf of refugees with our elected officials Second, we identify and publicize humanitarian actions to fight family separations and other injustices.. Third, we are committed to expanding direct support to immigrants in our area. While much of our work lies within each of these focus areas, we come together as a larger group to share ideas, learning, and energy.
Want to get involved? Please reach out directly to Seth Lieberman (s.lieberma@aim.com) or Joyce Lieberman (rejoice34@gmail.com
GJC members have joined with a new group, called Northwest Regional Refugee and Immigration Network (NWRRIN), that is working to fill the gap left as HIAS lost significant funding for its placement and support of new refugees. NWRRIN helps volunteers from faith-based organizations across Northwest Philadelphia to connect with organizations to provide support for new refugees, particularly with the critical need for temporary housing. They meet regularly to keep informed on immigration policy, organize their efforts, and increase the number of volunteers. Links to their resources and volunteer opportunities are listed below.
For more information, please contact Lesley Carson (lscarson17@gmail.com) or Maxine Margolis (mmargx@aol.com).
LOVING THE STRANGER: WELCOMING REFUGEES
Volunteers can get involved with refugees in many ways, large and small. Examples include the following:
∙ Helping adults to conduct job searches and find employment.
∙ Helping adult family members navigate the bureaucracies of food aid, Medical Assistance, and other public benefits.
∙ Escorting parents and children to medical and dental appointments, assisting during medical encounters, and ensuring they have interpreters at these visits.
∙ Visiting with children every week or two to help with homework and English.
∙ Taking family members on outings to get to know Philadelphia, such as to the Natural History Museum, and to create cultural learning opportunities.
∙ Teaching ESL and other skills to adults when needed.
The GJC Refugee Welcoming Team, through the government’s Welcome Corps and with the support of HIAS, helps resettle Philadelphia refugees with housing, furnishings, getting critical documents, obtaining social and health services, registering children for school, learning English, and obtaining employment. As they start their new lives here, they need guides and support to help them navigate American life. Members of the GJC community have volunteered to share our time, hearts, and talents; the rewards of our efforts are immense. We have helped people who are meeting unimaginable trials with grace and dignity. In return, we have been gifted with warm friendships with the newcomers we are assisting and have expanded and deepened our relationships with members of our GJC community.
For more information on what you can do to help, contact Naomi Klayman research@naomiklayman.com, Marcy Garb marcygarb@comcast.net, or Ivan Rosenberg ivanrosenberg46@gmail.com.
CONFRONTING RACISM
Description
At GJC, we work to fight injustice, racism and discrimination. We believe in pursuing justice and want to broaden our knowledge and awareness about Jews from diverse backgrounds. We welcome people of color into our synagogue and recognize that more of our families are multi-cultural and deserve to feel that they belong in the GJC community.
Building on our history as an urban synagogue that chose to stay in and stabilize an integrated community, today’s GJC members are focusing on better understanding systemic racism and its many layers. We continue to educate ourselves about Black history and White privilege, examining our own racial histories and the benefits of whiteness not available to all citizens.
We have been working together to create multiple forums for members to continue this learning and awareness. We discuss Jews’ relationship to white privilege and the relationship between racism and anti-Semitism. Our goal is to share this journey towards a more racially just GJC community and society.
Please join us. Contact Andi Moselle (andrea.moselle@gmail.com) to learn more
EDUCATION: Supporting Public Education
Storytime at CW Henry School
GJC members have a long history of shared activities with C.W. Henry Elementary School, a West Mount Airy Philadelphia public school. Currently, volunteers from GJC and the community at large support a Story Hour, for grades K thru 5 students. We enjoy the experience of reading library books to children. We have watched the children, listen, interact, and respond to the material in the books. The program has enriched the learning experience of the students. Listening and connecting to the content of the books promotes their leaning experience.
Volunteers commit to ½ hour each week, pick a story and read to students in the same classroom each week. Volunteers find the experience as rewarding as do the students.
For further information, or to participate in the program, contact
Maxine Margolies (mmargx@aol.com)
POWER
GJC is a member of the POWER Interfaith Network. POWER is a non-profit, non-partisan coalition of congregations in Philadelphia, Southeastern and Central Pennsylvania working on justice issues. POWER brings people together across the lines of race, faith, income level and neighborhood. The organization also collaborates with similar faith-based coalitions in other parts of the state to achieve greater impact statewide on issues such as education funding.
POWER connects GJC with the larger interfaith community working for justice in our area and provides a framework for ongoing sustainable advocacy for social change at a community-wide level. Member congregations work together to determine the organization’s priorities and strategies. Currently, POWER has four organizing strategy teams:
EDUCATION – The education strategy team works to improve the quality of public schools to meet the needs of ALL children in Philadelphia and across the state. Ongoing work includes advocating for full implementation of the Fair Funding Formula passed several years ago and for increasing the state’s share of education funding.
ECONOMIC DIGNITY – This team works on issues related to jobs and living wage. POWER played a key role in securing increased wages and benefits for workers at the Philadelphia airport and for other city-subcontracted workers. The ED strategic team is currently focused on bringing a public bank to Philadelphia and raising the minimum wage across the state to at least $15/hr.
CLIMATE JUSTICE AND JOBS is working on the intersection of race, the economy, and climate. The current statewide work is funding the Whole Homes Repair bill (which POWER was instrumental in crafting and getting passed in the state legislature), while at the local level the CJJ Just Transition team puts pressure on PGW and PECO to invest in affordable and renewable green energy (the team recently won a legal battle against PGW’s proposed rate hikes).
LIVE FREE (MASS INCARCERATION) – This team works on issues related to racial inequities in the criminal justice system. The group is examining how issues like stop and frisk and bail reform affect communities of color, and they have been central in the creation of the Civilian Police Oversight Commission (CPOC) in Philadelphia.
More at the POWER web site: http://powerinterfaith.org