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

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 …

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Bake the Best Challah!

I contend that this recipe, shared many years ago at an NCJW meeting by Charlotte Sadofsky, is the best challah recipe, ever. It has all the eggs, oil, honey and sugar to make it the richest of all challahs. I add cinnamon for brightness and use lots of seeds - sesame and poppy - to coat. I usually stick to a simple 3-strand braid, but if …

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Our Vision of Community

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 …

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Five Years and Counting: So Much More Kindness To Do

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 …

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Center for Loving Kindness – Standing in Solidarity on Juneteenth

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 …

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Father’s Day Pledge

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 …

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Ready, Set, Vote!

    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 …

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Why We Focus on Recovery

Recovery… to regain, rehab, repair, self-care: all fitness industry buzzwords. However, if you’ve taken Group Centergy at the JCC then you’ve heard the importance of Recovery countless times. The yoga, pilates-fusion based class ends with 5-10 minutes of guided meditation grounded in the philosophy that what you do after a workout, is as important as what you are doing during one. But what is Recovery? Is it only …

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Spotlight

In our new Spotlight blog,  we will be highlighting some of our lovely JCC members, community, and their amazing stories. Billy Carney - "B'man" Being inclusive and welcoming to people of all abilities is at the forefront of what we do. Seventeen-year-old Bill Carney, better known as B'man, has cerebral palsy. B'man and his family moved to Pittsburgh four years ago to get medical attention after complications stemming from …

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ECDC Children Learn and Explore Through Art

The JCC’s Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) adopts an approach for the education of young children which is inspired by the ideas and practices in Reggio Emilia, Italy.  The principles of the Reggio Approach resonate with the JCC’s mission to create an environment that nurtures people and connects community each day, through every age, inspired by Jewish values. The Arts are a core component of ECDC’s …

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