Dear Fabulous Community, We Want to Hear From You!

PLP has created a Virtual ThinkTank to tap your innovative
thoughts and ideas about what happens next for our network.
And, about understanding what has successfully impacted you
for replication by others.

1. Tell us every crazy idea that you have for how PLP can live on. 
From schmoozing to studying together; from connecting up
with other next–gen organizations to starting a new mentoring
network; we’re open to hearing everything you have to say.

2. Then tell us, how has PLP’s mission impacted/changed you?
Add anything you want to say about Jewish leadership
and ideas for replication.

This forum will be open until August 31, 2009.
Afterward, all info will be compiled and together great
things will happen…

Our best,
PLP

PROGRESSIVE JEWISH ALLIANCE: Jeremiah Fellowship!

Jeremiah Fellowship engages young Jews of diverse religious, ethnic, and professional backgrounds in a series of trainings, learning sessions, and networking opportunities all geared towards helping people become effective social change leaders. Sessions are twice/month with retreats and activities peppered in between. Go to: http://www.pjalliance.org/article.aspx?CID=5&ID=541. Contact Josh Feldman with questions JFeldman@pjalliance.org 323.761.8350 x104.

Apply Now: ThinkTank 4 & LiveNetworks 2009

Be a part of PLP's nationwide young Jewish leadership network!

If you've never been to ThinkTank, or participated in LiveNetworks, now's your chance to apply for PLP's signature national initiatives. If you are already part of PLP, it's time to re-register for ThinkTank4, and tell your friends to apply, as well! (DEADLINE: JUNE 1)

Outstanding nextgen professionals and/or volunteer leaders in the Jewish community who want to join a national network with other entrepreneurs and change agents, apply now!

LIVENETWORKS 2009
A national network of Talent (outstanding professional and volunteer leaders in their 20's & 30's) committed to leading and serving as change agents in both established organizations and start-ups in the Jewish community.  LiveNetworks seminars include leadership and skills development, customized Jewish curriculum, personal coaching and mentoring from successful leaders across the nation for all Talent.

THINKTANK4 (TT4) - "LEADERSHIFT! Next-Gen Changing Culture of Jewish Leadership"
Sunday- Tuesday, October 18 - 20, 2009
Universal Studios, CA*

Talent unite to proactively shape and change the Jewish community in the 21st Century. Attracting the best minds, freshest thinkers, and next generation Jewish leaders, TT4 will ignite ongoing dialogue, brainstorming, and action. By learning from and sharing with mentors, philanthropists, and activists, participants will gain tangible leadership skills, best practices, and new networks.

Check it all out at http://jewishleaders.net.

Young Professionals Night of The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival

This year's Young Professional's Night of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival promises to be an amazing evening. Join us as at The Knitting Factory in Hollywood as we celebrate Jewish film and enjoy live musical performances from the Moshav Band, and upcoming Israeli musician Haran Yaffe.

***Tickets: $12
***Purchase tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/62700

We will be screening two short films 'Nice Jewish Boys' and 'Jaffawiye' and you will have an opportunity to meet the filmmakers. After the movies we will enjoy a live performance by the Moshav Band, and Haran Yaffe!

***Tickets: $12
***Purchase tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/62700

Presented By: GesherCity LA, Westside JCC, www.TrainerView.com,W Group, Jewish Federation Young Leadership Division, Israeli Consulate, ChaiLights, Birthright Israel NEXT, Temple Emanuel Young Adults, Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California, Jewish Free Loan Association, Professional Leaders Project

Let all who are not hungry come and act!

Please join us at the Los Angeles Jewish Hunger Summit!

The Los Angeles Jewish Hunger Summit is a forum to educate and raise the consciousness of Jewish community leaders regarding their obligation to alleviate hunger and its causes. Join clergy, congregational/community lay leaders, synagogue and Jewish communal professionals, and Jewish educators to discuss issues and best practices, study text and formulate actions we can take as a compassionate community.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
9:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

The Jewish Federation
6505 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90048

Featured Speakers

LEONARD FEIN, MAZON Founder
DAN GLICKMAN, Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture

Sponsors of the event are:  MAZON:  A Jewish Response to Hunger, The Board of Rabbis of Southern California, The Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, Jewish Vocational Service, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Orthodox Union and the Union for Reform Judaism.

$10 Registration Fee.  Please contact Heather Wolfson if you are interested in attending at hwolfson@mazon.org, 310-44-20020 x. 109.

2nd Annual Bay Area Tu Bishvat Eco-Seder

2^nd Annual Bay Area Tu Bishvat Eco-Seder

Had you told me that 260 Jewish Gen X-ers and Millenials, from Santa Cruz, the Peninsula, the East Bay, Marin, and San Francisco, many of whom are part of CSAs, and some of whom had never heard of a CSA, whose favorite trees include eucalyptus, olive, cherry, and redwood, would crowd together in the assembly hall of the Women’s Building (http://womensbuilding.org/content/) in the Mission District, swaying like palm trees to the Israeli folk-dance “Tzadik Katamar Yifrach” (the righteous will grow like palm trees), I would have raised a cynical eyebrow in your direction. Since, though, I was swaying like a palm tree along with the crowd, I can assure you that this year’s Second Annual Bay Area Eco Tu B’Shevat Seder  (http://www.bayareaecoseder.blogspot.com/) was a sight to behold.

Tu B’Shvat(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Bishvat)  marks the fifteenth day in the month of Shvat, a day which the Mishnah, a codification of oral Jewish law redacted in the 200 CE, marks as the New Year of the Trees. The holiday largely fell into oblivion when the Jewish people were not living in the Land of Israel and not connected to its agricultural cycles, or obligated in the biblical tithes of its fruit, but, in the 17^th century, was re-invigorated by the Kabbalists in Tzefat, who infused the holiday with mystical meaning and developed a ritual, analogous to the Passover Seder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_Seder), to mark it. In recent times, Tu B’Shvat has become the “little holiday that could,” pulling behind it those passionate about the environment and social action, those interested in celebrating a Jewish holiday connected to nature and community, and one which involves drinking four cups of wine.

Last year, Jeff Levy, inspired by a session at the Professional Leaders’ Project (http://www.jewishleaders.net/) Think Tank in 2007, imagined what it would be like to bring together a community of people to celebrate Tu B’Shvat. He began to spread the idea around, and then began to act on it; six Jewish organizations in the Bay Area, including Congregation Emanu-El (http://www.emanuelsf.org/), The Hub at the JCCSF (http://www.jccsf.org/hub_web/hub.htm), New Israel Fund New Generations (http://www.nif.org/get-involved/new-generations/), San Francisco Hillel (http://www.sfhillel.org/), and EcoJews of the Bay co-sponsored the event, under-writing its cost, and 150 people, their own plates and cups in hand, showed up to celebrate Tu B’Shvat together. The event was such a success that this year the number of sponsoring organizations and attendees nearly doubled; the event was sold-out two weeks before it happened, and people showed up at the door hoping to be let in off of a waiting list. All of the advertising for the event was conducted paper-free, using viral marketing, email and Facebook. The event was the largest of its type in the country.

The structure of the Tu B’Shvat Haggadah (http://www.hazon.org/go.php?q=/food/tuBishvat/resources.html) (printed for the Eco-Seder on 100% post-consumer watste, chlorine free recycled paper), corresponds to the four Kabbalistic “worlds” – spheres through which the life-giving flow of the Divine is channeled and filtered. These realms correspond to the seasons – beginning, with a cup of white wine, with winter, and ending, with a cup of red wine, in the fall – and to the internal states of being – beginning with “Assiya,” the world of action, the lowest world, the realm of the concrete and physical, represented by fruits and nuts with an inedible outer shell and an edible inner core, and ending in “Atzilut,” the world of emanation, the highest world, which cannot be conceived by the senses, and so cannot be represented by any physical food at all.

All of the food and drink at the Eco-Seder was certified kosher, most of it was seasonal and purchased from local and/or organic sources; in fact, many of the food purchases were made directly from the farmers themselves. The fruits were incredible – jackfruit, guava, hazelnuts, organic papaya, organic kiwis, organic dried persimmons, organic pomelos and organic mangos. Many I had never even heard of, let alone seen or tasted before – like Buddha's hand, with its white, dry, lemon-like core, or the tamarind, which looks like a giant brown edamame pod, and which, in order to eat, you need to crack open, de-vein, and then chew, making sure to spit out the pit; its flesh is thick and sweet, not unlike a date’s.

Participants at the Seder sat at long tables, adorned with platters of bountiful fruits and nuts. A group of musicians, playing guitar, mandolin, tambourine, and dumbek, sat in the center, accompanying each blessing over the wine, fruit, and bread, and jamming to songs like “Adama VeShamayim” – “Love the earth, love the sky,” the people all around them swaying, smiling, and drumming on the tables. During the course of the evening, participants studied Jewish environmental texts, grappling with notions of environmental preservation and change, and with human responsibility towards the natural world, meditated on their food, envisioning all of the natural and human resources that allowed for that piece of fruit to get from the trees outside to their mouths, danced, sang, and celebrated, and made personal and communal commitments to living a life more in balance with the natural world. Many will come together again on February, 18^th, to join UpStart Bay Area’s first “How Do You Jew” (http://www.upstartbayarea.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=7&Itemid=58) conversation about concrete ideas for change the Jewish community can make on the environment in the Bay Area, featuring guest speaker Mike Zuckerman, Director of Sustainability at Temple Nightclub (http://cms.templesf.com/green/who_is_green_temple/director_of_sustainability.html).

At the end of the evening, this diverse group of young Jews who rarely cross paths, and who had gathered together for this joyous spiritual event, helped clean up, washed their own plates and cups and tucked them in their bags, and headed out into the cold night air, the full, Tu B’Shvat moon shining above them.

 

 

Are you up for a challenge? JOIN us.

 

Are you up for a challenge? JOIN us.

Community organizing means developing leaders and bringing people together to form powerful organizations that allow people to act on their own behalf to make systemic changes in their lives. Community organizers are people who want to stir things up to motivate people to act for change, who embrace challenge, and who think strategically about power.

The Jewish Organizing Initiative (JOI) builds a vibrant, pluralistic community of Jewish young adults who learn grassroots community organizing, explore their Jewish identity together, and become leaders in the pursuit of social justice.

In addition to providing cutting-edge training in community organizing, the JOI year-long fellowship program is a source of Jewish community, intellectual stimulation, mentorship, and professional networking. Organizing work is challenging – JOI can give you the tools you need to make it a sustainable career.

Over the last decade, we have built a network of over 100 alum and countless mentors and trainers from the Jewish community and beyond. Now JOI is looking for fellows who have the aptitude and the appetite to become excellent organizers, who are committed to pursuing social justice professionally, and who are looking to build progressive community in a Jewish context.

Applications are due March 2nd. For more information, contact Vered Meir at vmeir@jewishorganizing.org or visit www.jewishorganizing.org.