Big Tent Judaism

Passover in the Aisles: Year III

At the end of January, professionals from around the country participated in JOI’s third annual Passover in the Aisles conference call. Discussing ways to creatively engage unaffiliated Jews and intermarried families in Jewish life around Passover, we focused on our model of bringing Passover to the “Aisles” of local grocery stores and supermarkets. This approach has enabled communities across the country to literally bring Judaism to the unengaged where they are - providing an entry point into Jewish life without waiting for the unaffiliated to come to us (because we might find ourselves waiting for a long, long time).

On our call, we discussed key elements of the program: working with stores, marketing, how to engage shoppers and how to effectively collect participants’ contact information (so that this first interaction with the Jewish community won’t be their last). On our call, two professionals shared their experiences organizing these events in locales as varied as Syracuse, NY and Saratoga, CA. To learn more about Passover in the Aisles, you can read this interesting article describing last year’s programs.

There is still time to bring this fabulous program to your community this year.

Check out our Jewish Outreach Professionals Log-In Network (JOPLIN) site for a complete program description, and call Eva at (212-760-1440) for additional FREE helpful tips to make this program a reality!

The World Wide Wrap

As JOI staff members travel to Jewish communities across North America in order to help them and their institutions reach out to those on the periphery, we often teach about JOI’s “Public Space Judaism” model. Communities often ask us about how they can tailor Public Space Judaism specifically to meet their needs. We discuss layering programs so that they function simultaneously as Public Space, Destination Jewish Culture, and Open Door Community programs, and we also make sure to emphasize that most programs can be tweaked to make them more accessible to people on the periphery.

For a number of years, the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, the men’s auxiliary of the Conservative movement, has sponsored a program called the World Wide Wrap (scheduled for February 4th this year) to encourage the daily practice of tefillin (prayer boxes) as part of morning weekday prayers. This is an effective program, so I wondered what could be done in order to make it more accessible to those on the periphery of the Jewish movement. After all, even insiders don’t all put on tefillin—even those in the Jewish religious movements that support the practice. And although the United Synagogue Youth likes to promote the practice among women with double entendres like “men prefer women wrapped in leather,” it is historically a male practice. The only folks who seem to publicly push the use of tefillin are adherents of Chabad.

The World Wide Wrap always takes place inside the synagogue and is advertised internally to members of the synagogue. Could it take place outside of the synagogue? Could it be advertised outside of the core community? But if people are going to be persuaded to perform such as a ritual, it has to about more than just the “how to,” it has to provide spiritual meaning and connection.