As Jews, we remember that we were once refugees who needed the world to take notice. It is our duty now to help other refugees. The Refugee Task Force builds coalitions with other New York City synagogues to advocate for legislation to protect refugees, directly support refugees who have settled in the U.S. and in refugee camps abroad, and educate the community.

Over the next year we will focus on political advocacy involving relief to excluded workers, the release of detainees, the end of family separation, refugee resettlement restrictions, and DACA repeal; direct action projects including supporting families who have settled in NYC and supply drives for refugees abroad; and community education including film and book events.

We hold monthly meetings and would love to see you there, or hear from you at any time! Check out our website and our Facebook page.

To get involved, email cberefugeetaskforce@cbebk.org. You can find ways you can help in “Help Asylum Seekers in NYC” above.

In addition, we invite the CBE community to attend the following:

Help Feed Newly Arrived Immigrants and Asylum Seekers
Sunday, April 2 at 4:00 PM in the CBE Boardroom
CBE’s Refugee Task Force and Anti Hunger Committee are partnering with the PS 124 Mutual Aid group to feed hundreds of newly-arrived immigrants and asylum seekers. Join us to help prepare meals and deliver them to families in our community. Sign up here.

The Dismantling Racism Team (DRT) is part of CBE’s larger history and commitment to pursuing social justice for all. We have two main working groups that we warmly welcome all interested members of the congregation to become part of. The group is open to non-members as well. If you are interested in learning more and/or attending please email: cbedismantlingracismteam@cbebk.org

-The Antiracism Working Group focuses on CBE’s own congregational norms, practices, and policies, with the goal of making CBE an antiracist congregation and a more inclusive community for all, including congregants, worshipers, family members, guests, and students.

-The Advocacy Working Group is actively engaged in advocacy, in alliance with more directly impacted groups, for reforms of the state and local criminal legal system. The group’s efforts have included participating in the Raise the Age coalition to sharply curtail the prosecution of teenagers as adults, helping pass laws eliminating cash bail, and more recently, advocating for police reforms to end police brutality.

On March 1, 2021 as part of CBE’s speaker series “Member Mondays”, the DRT presented “#LessIsMoreNY: A Conversation on Combating Racism Through Parole Reform”. Click here to watch our presentation.

The CBE Dayenu Circle works on climate action—and is a vehicle to make powerful, positive change with a Jewish voice. Whether you have more questions than answers, or have spent years advocating for climate action, our Dayenu Circle is a way to channel your passion and concern together with others. Working in concert with other Dayenu Circles across the country (as part of dayenu.org) we participate in both national and local actions, as well as learning together.

We do this work together not only to take effective action to confront the climate crisis, but to sustain ourselves and our spirits as we act. We hope that rooting in community and drawing on Jewish wisdom and experience supports us as we move from fear and anxiety to courageous action.

To get involved, email cbedayenucircle@cbebk.org. You’re also welcome to join us at the following event:

New York Jewish Climate Action Summit
Sunday, April 23 at 1:00 PM at Temple Shaaray Tefila, 250 E 79th St, New York, NY 10075

Join RAC-NY, Dayenu, and the CBE Dayenu Circle for the New York Jewish Climate Organizing Summit. We’ll build relationships, share organizing and advocacy skills, explore strategies, and learn how to make a meaningful climate impact in NY State and beyond. CBE members will be leading at the Summit, sharing the powerful work we’ve been doing over the past six months to stop funding for future fossil fuel projects. This gathering is for all Jewish New Yorkers and allies who are interested in tackling the climate crisis.

Click here to learn more. If you are interested in traveling to the Summit with other CBE members, please reach out to Rabbi Kolin.

CBE’s Democracy Team takes nonpartisan steps to encourage and facilitate civic engagement and promote voting rights. We participate in efforts–including postcarding, phonebanking, and voter registration campaigns–that fight against the suppression of the right to vote. We work closely with Reclaim Our Vote and other relevant organizations. Please let us know if you’d like to help. We’d love to have you!

To get involved, email tikkunalliance@cbebk.org.

Reclaim Our Vote (ROV) is a volunteer-driven, nonpartisan voter-outreach campaign led by the not-for-profit Center for Common Ground of Virginia. The Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center is a national partner with the Reclaim Our Vote campaign. ROV is dedicated to empowering under-represented voters in communities of color by increasing voter registration and reducing the barriers to voting. Campaigns involve direct outreach to voters of color in 8 voter suppression states. Over 100 CBE and Brooklyn Jews members have sent over 10,000 postcards through ROV. For additional information, email Gale Kaufman at rov.brooklyn@gmail.com.

Get Organized BK was jointly established by Rabbi Timoner and Councilmember Brad Lander after the November 2016 election GOBK is a diverse community of empowered, active people working to advance social, racial, gender and economic justice at the local, national and global levels. CBE collaborates with GOBK on joint programming and action of a non-partisan nature. GOBK works with resource-partners and allies to: stand up to racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny; to fight against corporate greed and for consumer protections; to preserve the social safety net; to protect our planet from the devastation of climate change; to defend freedom of the press and voting rights; to strengthen our democracy. Groups within GOBK include Racial Justice BK (taking action against systemic and institutional racism); and Welcome to the Table (fundraising efforts to help cover the cost of immigration-related application fees).

Families with young children (ages 4-8) engage in service and learning through age-appropriate community service activities that include an educational element and time to socialize with other CBE community members. Past projects have included decorating and packaging supplies for CHIPS Women’s Shelter, wrapping gifts for families at Bronx Defenders, and supplying hope boxes for children in refugee camps.

To get involved, tikkunalliance@cbebk.org.

As we look to perform acts of kindness and Tikkun Olam in our small part of the world, the Respite Bed Shelter at CBE, in partnership with the social service agency CAMBA, provides meals and a safe space for male guests to sleep. We are pleased to announce that the shelter will be returning for the first time since 2019. This year, the shelter will be open on Sunday through Thursday evenings from Sunday, April 30 through Friday, June 23, and we will be using space at Union Temple House, 17 Eastern Parkway.

The CBE Respite Bed Shelter depends on volunteers, and every year, over 120 volunteers provide food and shelter to homeless guests each night. Volunteers may sign up to prepare and serve dinner, make dessert, or stay overnight. We welcome volunteers of all ages—children can assist their parents with the food, and teens 12 and older may stay overnight as long as a parent is with them. This is a great opportunity for kids to do community or b’nei mitzvah service, and we are happy to provide a letter for schools.

Here is more information about the various volunteer opportunities:

DINNER: Volunteers (individuals, families, or groups) may sign up to prepare dinner or dessert for 14 people. (Dinner must be prepared off-site.) Volunteers prepare a nutritious, protein-based meal and arrive no later than 6:30 PM to serve guests. Volunteers should plan to stay to serve dinner and speak with the guests until around 8:00 PM. At least one person or family should sign up (two families can work together), and children may assist parents.

OVERNIGHT: Volunteers may sign up to sleep overnight at the shelter. There will be cots and clean linens on site. Plan to arrive by 7:00 PM and depart by 6:30 AM the next morning after the guests leave. At least two adults must be present and teens over age 12 may stay overnight, as long as a parent is with them.

DESSERT: Individuals, families or groups may sign up to provide dessert for the homeless shelter guests. Please deliver the dessert by 7:00 pm and give it to the Evening Coordinator or the Dinner volunteers. There is no need to stay.

The shelter has an Evening Coordinator for each night who is responsible for showing volunteers the ropes and ensuring that everything goes smoothly.

Click here to sign up. If you have any questions, please contact shelter@cbebk.org.

CBE also supports CAMBA shelters at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue in the winter and at the Old First Reformed Church in the summer by providing meals and overnight volunteers.

About the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
(From Souls of Poor Folk)
“In 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. launched the Poor People’s Campaign. It was an evolution of his work leading the Civil Right Movement. He connected those affected by the interfunctioning evils of poverty, race, and the war economy. He was killed while organizing a mass mobilization and encampment in Washington DC for the summer of 1968. Still, that summer, a “’freedom church of the poor’ gathered by the thousands in Washington. They erected “Resurrection City,” their encampment on the National Mall, to demand that their government address bitter poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world. They confronted fundamental questions about America’s moral and Constitutional vision for all of its people, regardless of their wealth, race, gender or national origin. They demanded attention to the hungry children and inadequate schools from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the devastated inner cities across America. They made moral witness against America’s long, pointless, and immoral war in Vietnam, and tried hard to be heard as they carried their testimony forward into public life. The hard history that compelled them to “pray with their feet,” as Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, also compelled many Americans to ask whether the republic for which they stood would ever stand for them.”

In 2018, the Campaign was relaunched by Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis. It calls us to understand now five interfunctioning evils: deepening poverty, ecological devastation, systemic racism, and an economy harnessed to seemingly endless war, and the perpetuation of false moral narratives.

“The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is rooted in a moral analysis based on our deepest religious and constitutional values that demand justice for all. Every major religious tradition places challenging oppression and criticizing systems of injustice at the center of its moral considerations.”

Click here to read a d’var Torah Rabbi Timoner wrote for the RAC about the Poor People’s Campaign in 2018.

Click here for a video from the URJ about the Poor People’s Campaign.

In the coming year, the Poor People’s Campaign is focused on their MORE Campaign: mobilizing, organizing, registering, and educating voters as fundamental to combating the inter-functioning evils of poverty, racism, etc. At CBE, we will be working with members participating in other social justice efforts to build connections and support for all this critical work.