Organizing in the Jewish community

This summer, one of my tasks has been to organize a workshop called "Rethinking Justice" to engage the Jewish community in the area. I have had several requests to put down the things that I have learned while working with the Jewish community. So I am putting these thoughts down here for all to share.

We like to use the term "justice ministry" when organizing churches. We even build what we call "justice ministry networks." I'm not sure how much we gain by referring to ourselves as a justice ministry with the churches, but Jews do not use the term ministry and for them it has a very "Christian" connotation.

The obvious, of course, is to not refer to all religious institutions as "churches." "Congregations" is the safest term to use to be inclusive. When referring specifically to Jewish congregations, the term synagogue is ok - Temple, however, is used mostly with the Jewish reformed congregations.

It is okay to refer to the Bible, however "Torah" is best when referring to the first five books of the Bible, and Hebrew scriptures is ok for the rest of what we call the "old testament."

When planning a meeting with a synagogue, the Rabbis I've worked with have told me several things: 1. they don't like using the term Biblical reflection - scriptural is ok, textual reflection is the best; 2. while most congregations I have worked with are open to opening and closing with prayer, it is not something that is normally done. If you break bread together, however, there is an appropriate prayer to be said at the end.

Presentations and sermons - be very careful with scripture based presentations. Even if the presentation is based on the Hebrew scriptures, Jews get very turned off by "sermons" that read the scriptures and then extrapolate from them and give them meaning for us today. This is something outside of their tradition and for them brings to mind "preachers hitting people over the head with the Bible" and gives it a Christian tone. Instead, we have adapted these presentations to be guided text studies which has gotten people very excited.

In interfaith meetings - be very careful to prepare the synagogues if they are coming to a meeting where there will be a prayer offered "in Jesus' name." This has been a big but overcomeable issue that we have dealt with. Our organization has agreed that it is best to let people pray in their own faith tradition which means that Rabbis can pray in the Jewish tradition also, however, it also means that sometimes someone will lead a prayer "in Jesus' name." We have overcome this by talking to people about why we allow everyone to pray in their own tradition. I have also found it helpful for the first few meetings that the synagogues attend to pick a pastor for the opening prayer that will give a more "neutral" prayer. For some denominations it is less important to end by saying "in Jesus' name" and I will choose these early on to lead prayers. As the synagogues get more involved, it becomes less of an issue.

Most synagogues are very familiar with the idea of pursuing justice - or tzedek tzedek tirdoff! They even have social action committees - that mostly work on the mercy side but are often quick to embrace the idea of participating in a justice group. The hardest part in organizing is to find the first synagogue that will get involved, because Jews are very sensitive to being a minority in a Christian organization. Once one or two synagogues become involved, it becomes much easier to engage others.