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On Martin Luther King Day: Teach Your Children

Posted by Liza Baron, Director, Early Childhood Development Center on January 16, 2023

When giving consideration to how we talk about anti-racism in early learning, there is an overwhelming agreed upon approach: Talk about it all year long. We have been on a journey in ECDC (Early Childhood Development Center) for a number of years, but most intentionally focusing on culturally competent teaching for the last two and a half years. One of the ways we do this …

My/Our Body and My/Our Soul: Caring for Both Every Day and on Yom Kippur, Too

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on September 28, 2022

Even before we start talking about Yom Kippur, I want to have a conversation with you about what I do on a daily basis. I am not sure how I did this, but I have become one of those people that works out almost every day of the week. I know, I know, you're thinking how easy it is for me given that the fitness …

Our Vision of Community

Posted by JCC Center for Loving Kindness on July 8, 2022

Welcome to our vision of community. It will be a strong fabric made up of threads of love and support. What do we mean when we say “love your neighbor as yourself”? How can we possibly love someone as much as ourselves? Isn’t that self-defeating? Rabbi Louis Jacobs (Jewish Personal and Social Ethics) teaches us that the meaning is not "love your neighbor like yourself”, but rather …

Five Years and Counting: So Much More Kindness To Do

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on July 1, 2022

It has been five years and counting since we launched the Center for Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement (CFLK) at the JCC of Greater Pittsburgh. While our work was accelerated in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA, we had started planning for the Center for Loving Kindness during 2016 as we became acutely aware of the changing nature …

Center for Loving Kindness – Standing in Solidarity on Juneteenth

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on June 15, 2022

As our neighbors celebrate Juneteenth, we stand in solidarity as we work to redefine “neighbor” from a geographic term to a moral concept. We invite you to virtually attend this event in Atlanta on June 17 and revisit our north star framing of how we work for civil rights for all. View the virtual event here. Throughout the 125 year history of the Jewish Community Center of Greater …

Father’s Day Pledge

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on June 14, 2022

While the punch line has changed over the years, the joke (and the underlying societal impression) is unfortunately still the same. While we were growing up, when we were asked what we would be getting Dad for Father’s Day, we always answered, “A tie.” Inevitably, that tie was either store bought with intentions of either meeting, stretching, or countering Dad’s fashion sense; or homemade out …

Ready, Set, Vote!

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on April 29, 2022

Even though our democracy is only 246 years old, we can look back in Jewish values from 2,000 years ago to guide our understanding of what so many of us understand as the ‘sacred right’ (or is it ‘sacred rite’; or both) to vote. Hillel, an early architect of rabbinic thinking who lived in the first century before the turn of the era commented "Al tifros …

Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement – Faith and Politics – Our Fifth Calendar Year

Posted by Rabbi Ron Symons on December 28, 2021

December 2021 “I believe that our faith could influence our civic engagement.” I am hoping that for some of us, the above statement raises at least one eyebrow. After all, we know each other well enough to understand how precious I hold the rights explicated in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights that prevent Congress from making “…no law respecting an establishment of religion, or …

Beyond Potlucks and Panels: Interfaith Dialogue for a Digital Era

Posted by Rev. Liddy Barlow and Rabbi Ron Symons on February 8, 2021

February 1, 2021 One by one the Zoom boxes appear on the screen. A retired Jewish radiologist in suburban Pittsburgh. A self-described “Jew-Bu” in Brooklyn, combining the Judaism of her upbringing with a Buddhist meditation practice. A college professor who has practiced the Baha’i faith since her teens. A lapsed Catholic exploring phenomenological philosophy on the side. Joining us from their own living rooms, tonight this …

Thanking Our Front Line Helpers

Posted by JCC Pittsburgh on October 13, 2020

Who’s on the front line? Thanking our JCC front line workers. 7-7-21 - Many Thanks, Amy! Our JCC experienced a beautiful surprise this week, courtesy of Amy Magoun. Amy, a research coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh, is a regular volunteer with “Scent with Love,” an organization that retrieves fresh flowers from weddings and events or that remained unsold, and donates them to Pittsburgh places in need. “I …

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