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Five years of redefining neighbor as a moral concept across SWPA 

JCC Center for Loving Kindness

RECENT EVENTS

Working Together to Become “A BETTER ME”

Tue, Jan 30 7-8 pm
Tuesdays • 7-8 pm January 30-March 5, 2024 On Zoom In this ongoing 6 session journey, we will WORK TOGETHER TO BECOME “A BETTER ME” using the wisdom of Mussar,...
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Family Drop In Shabbat Dinner

Fri, Jan 26 5:30-7 pm
For Families with Early Childhood and Elementary School-Age Children Open to the community. All are welcome. Friday, January 26 • 5:30-7 pm Levinson Hall • JCC Squirrel Hill Enjoy a...
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COMING EVENTS

Jan

26

Family Drop In Shabbat Dinner

Levinson Hall • JCC Squirrel Hill
5:30-7 pm
For Families with Early Childhood and Elementary School-Age Children Open to the community. All are welcome. Friday, January 26 • 5:30-7 pm Levinson Hall • JCC Squirrel Hill Enjoy a...
Check It Out

Jan

30

Working Together to Become “A BETTER ME”

Online on ZOOM
7-8 pm
Tuesdays • 7-8 pm January 30-March 5, 2024 On Zoom In this ongoing 6 session journey, we will WORK TOGETHER TO BECOME “A BETTER ME” using the wisdom of Mussar,...
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Jul 24 – Dec

31

The Center for Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement Neighbors’ Circle

Room 202 JCC Squirrel Hill | Online on Virtual Senior Academy
Mondays, 12:15-12:45 pm
Join Rabbi Ron Symons in discussion around the most important issues of our day.  More than a current events class, these gatherings afford us the opportunity to ground our perspectives...
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Jan 05 – Dec

31

Art and Quarantine Stories

Online through Virtual Senior Academy
Thursdays, 12:15-12:45 pm
Art and Quarantine Stories: Exploring Artworks and Topics That Relate To Our Current Moment Thursdays 12:15-12:45 pm l Room 202, JCC Squirrel Hill or virtually on Virtual Senior Academy Join...
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ABOUT

MISSION


The Center for Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement (CFLK) was established in August 2017 to strategically counter the demoralizing rhetoric of public discourse to strengthen the fabric of the community by amplifying the long-held values of ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ and ‘Do not stand idle while your neighbor bleeds’ as we redefine ‘neighbor’ from a geographic term to a moral concept.

We realize this goal by creating safe spaces in which neighbors can live in community with one another based on our shared humanity through real and perceived differences.

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IN THE NEWS

Starbucks teams up with WPXI to celebrate Kindness Week

PITTSBURGH — WPXI-TV and Channel 11 News will be celebrating kindness in the Pittsburgh area all this week on television and here on WPXI.com in partnership with the Center For Loving Kindness and more than a dozen Starbucks locations across the area. At each of the Starbucks locations, patrons will see a sticker on their cups and food bags celebrating kindness, while customers inside the stores can …

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Pittsburgh’s Jewish Community Center collecting stuffed animals, books for children of Uvalde, Texas

PITTSBURGH — When tragedy struck Uvalde, Texas, this week, leaders in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community jumped into action. “When we heard about what was going on in Uvalde, what happened, for all of us as human beings, it just hit a core, that this is just wrong,” said Rabbi Ron Symons, the founding director of the Jewish Community Center’s Center for Loving Kindness. The Center for Loving Kindness …

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The Sum of Us, Not Just Some of Us

The arguments about citizenship questions and deadlines, enumerators and computer forms, congressional districts and federal funding — it seems like a lifetime ago because of COVID, and yet the results will guide us for the next 10 years … until we get to census 2030 as mandated by the Constitution. In this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, we again turn our attention to a census of ancient …

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CENTER FOR LOVING KINDNESS BLOG

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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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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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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