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We Are Living in The Service Era of American Jewish Life

These opportunities galvanized American Jews to step up boldly and in alignment with our values to serve our communities and our neighbors. 
[additional-authors]
July 26, 2021

Jasmin Bach arrived in Ecuador in early 2020, ready to change the world. A 24-year-old from Chelsea, Massachusetts, she had traveled thousands of miles, eager to serve a community in need as a member of the Peace Corps. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Jasmin and her fellow corps members were evacuated, but when she got home she resolved to maintain her commitment to service. As she observed the pandemic’s ravaging effects on her hometown, she felt a deep call to support her neighbors.

“I was shocked by how negatively Chelsea was affected by the pandemic,” Jasmin said. “The community was already facing great challenges before the pandemic, and the inequities were just exacerbated by COVID-19. I began questioning why it took a global pandemic to see the issues that already existed.”

That’s when Jasmin joined the Serve the Moment Service Corps.

As it became clear that the COVID-19 crisis would endure, the summer of 2020 became a summer of service for Jasmin and hundreds of others. More than 45 Jewish organizations coalesced to create the Jewish Service Alliance (JSA), with the vision of engaging the American Jewish community in 100,000 acts of service and learning in response to the pandemic. The JSA’s flagship program, Serve the Moment—powered by Repair the World—includes a Service Corps, national campaigns, and partnerships among local and national organizations coming together to serve the communities in which they live. These opportunities galvanized American Jews to step up boldly and in alignment with our values to serve our communities and our neighbors.

“It has been so meaningful being a part of a Jewish organization committed to service,” Jasmin said. “I learned a lot about the intersection between Judaism and service. I had these two parts of me that I didn’t know were actually the same.”

Serve the Moment participants represent the denominational spectrum of the American Jewish community, non-Jewish community members, and those from interfaith families. Since May 2020, StM has catalyzed about 93,800 acts of service and learning from 26,287 participants (including almost 700 Service Corps members like Jasmin; participants of partner organizations like Hillel Campus Corps, Moishe House, and JDC Entwine; and local volunteers), contributing 159,758 service hours to partners. Corps members spend 6-10 weeks serving part-time with a local nonprofit at no expense to the nonprofit. Importantly, volunteers also have time for Jewish learning, contextual education about service and Jewish values and personal reflection. A new cohort of corps members begins in the summer, fall, and spring, and each corps member is provided a stipend to sustain their commitment. Jasmin has served two StM terms.

At first, Serve the Moment’s work may have seemed like a stopgap, something to support our neighbors through an extraordinary moment. Surely once we made it to the other side of a disruptive pandemic, faltering economy, and urgent movement for Black lives, things could “go back to normal,” right? But as Jasmin quickly learned, the issues that needed to be addressed during the pandemic had always existed, and will remain without continued intervention.

Going forward, the Jewish community has an unprecedented opportunity—and obligation—to build on the generosity and resilience so many of us demonstrated over the last year. We can usher in a new era of American Jewish life—a Service Era.

Going forward, the Jewish community has an unprecedented opportunity—and obligation—to build on the generosity and resilience so many of us demonstrated over the last year. We can usher in a new era of American Jewish life—a Service Era.

The opportunity is illustrated by the recent Pew report, which found that the majority of American Jews believe leading a moral and ethical life (72%) and working for justice and equality (59%) are essential elements of their Jewish identity—while attending synagogue regularly and engaging in other traditional Jewish rituals are not. The obligation is illustrated by the existing and new inequities exacerbated and created by COVID-19. The rebuilding process to get to a better place than where we were before the pandemic will require time and energy, but that commitment will pay off: Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service, estimates that each time someone volunteers, they make a positive impact on four lives.

If we plan and invest accordingly, Serve the Moment can serve as a model for transitioning from an extraordinary moment for service into a powerful Jewish service movement, one that’s driven by young people eager to tackle food insecurity and housing inequity, address learning loss and strengthen our education system, and combat social isolation, all while maintaining a deep commitment to racial justice. Through Serve the Moment, service is infused with Jewish values and blends with relevant Jewish learning and context—in community with peers of both shared and divergent backgrounds.

For many Jewish young adults, the next few years will be filled with uncertainty and challenge. The Jewish Service Alliance’s aim is that no matter where they are, no matter how their Jewishness manifests, they understand that meaningful service and learning in pursuit of a just world is a Jewish practice that’s accessible throughout their lives. As Jasmin learned, we can serve both in our local communities or across the globe to make the world a better place in the Service Era.

“How I viewed service as a part of my life was reaffirmed in the moments after the pandemic,” Jasmin said. “Arriving back home last year was when I realized I could actually do service in my community, and that volunteering would become a core part of my life’s journey.”

Through virtual and in-person service, those who serve form indelible connections with hundreds of nonprofit partners and their communities. At the same time, they find an outlet through service for a meaningful expression of their Jewish identity, a way to live out values they may be discovering for the first time. In short, an investment in service is truly an investment in the Jewish people and those with whom we share the world.


Jordan Fruchtman is Chief Program Officer of Repair the World.

 

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