________________________________________

Moshe and Khulda's paper (“Public Powers for the Commonweal: A Challenge to Faith-Based Organizing”) is timely after an election season (2014) marked by results that are both deeply disappointing and bizarrely contradictory. They push community organizing to think beyond issues, and beyond policy, to take on the very process of democracy itself. The implications of the paper are profound for both theory and practice.

“Unified Community Organizing Theory” (by Moshe) . . . is a very exciting paper for me. There has been very little written trying to really think deeply theoretically about community organizing. It’s filled with stuff to think about.

“Relationship-Building Questions to Clergy in Congregational (Faith-Based) Community Organizing” (by Moshe) . . . is just what it's title says it is and shows that Moshe can also write great practical concrete stuff too.

—Randy Stoecker, Moderator/Editor, COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing

________________________________________

I think your materials and your website are great! I want to add that your downloadable articles and drashim provide a wealth of fascinating, thought provoking and inspirational relevance . . . especially to those of us who are synagogue activists who are engaged in community (shul) building . . . lay and professional alike. Thanks and kol hakavod on an interesting and useful website!

—David Rothenberg, Executive Director, Beth Israel Congregation

________________________________________

I think you have an excellent site. Any organizer working in Los Angeles should read some of the documents to continue with what I call the “Process of the Organizer’s Self Education.”

—Roberto Bustillo, Community Organizer

________________________________________

What a fantastic site! Thank you for making so many wonderful resources available to the public.

—Jason Smartt, Director, Spokane Area Jewish Family Services

________________________________________

I found Gather the People very useful in explaining to my congregation just what we were trying to do in the congregation organizing process. Gather the People presents the organizing process in a way Jewish congregations can understand it, and put it in the context of Jewish tradition, something absolutely necessary for any Jewish congregation serious about Tikkun Olam or increasing its sense of community.

As an organizer, training young Jewish community organizers, it is the only source I know of that presents the elements of a congregation building drive within a Jewish context and within Jewish tradition. Gather the People is a useful tool for anyone serious about community organizing in Jewish congregations.

—Michael J. Brown, Coordinator, Jewish Organizing Initiative

________________________________________

Your project is fascinating. I enjoyed the two melodies on your web site.

—Sandy Steingart

________________________________________

Yishar Kokhakhem. . . . Great project!

—Rabbi David Shneyer

________________________________________

I just want to let you know that I checked out your web site and it has a lot of interesting items that I might use in the future. B'hatzlachah with this project.

—Rabbi David Steinberg, Plattsburgh, NY

________________________________________

I really appreciated your web site and the items presented for the Jewish community.

—Dr. Thomas R. Hawkins, Gamaliel Foundation

________________________________________

I really love your site and the work you guys are doing. It's wonderful that a small Jewish community like the one here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast can gain access via the Internet to such rich resources like your site. Again, todah rabah!

—Toshja Brown, Administrative Officer, Gulf Coast Women's Center For Nonviolence

________________________________________

I have to tell you how great your site is. I am the Rabbi of the Lindenhurst Hebrew Congregation on Long Island. You superbly address some of the issues we are working through, especially as the younger families are taking greater leadership roles within the congregation. Personally, I am gratified to see good conflict resolution skills being taught. Helping congregations become better communities is something I am quite passionate about, both as a rabbi and as a Jew.

—Rabbi Steven Rosenberg, Ph.D.

________________________________________

This is an incredible website. Came upon it by accident. Very interesting organization. I am a board member of a synagogue in Essex County, NJ, and look forward to visiting your site often.

—Nick Levitin, Kol Emunah, Montclair, NJ

________________________________________

I wanted to tell you that I love your "Gather the People" website. I used the training on negotiation recently and it worked out great. Thanks for taking the time to put together such a wonderful resource.

—James Mumm, Co-Director, Mothers on the Move South Bronx, NY

________________________________________

I thank you for a beautiful downloadable haggadah. I have been preparing my own family's haggadah, and I am using yours as one of my resources.

—Elvi Dalgaard

________________________________________

Thanks for the good idea! Though I'm retired I passed it along to a few colleagues still “on the line.” I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd send me more information about GTP.

—Rabbi Stephen A. Arnold, South Easton, MA

________________________________________

Thank you for the great link to the Gather the People site.

—Rabbi Eitan J. Weiner-Kaplow

________________________________________

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! for giving breath to what I have been feeling for many a year! I will DEFINITELY bookmark your site for future visits. Thank you for being there and let me know if there is anything I can do for you!

—Miriam Shoshanah

________________________________________

Just wanted to say thanks for an interesting site. I've done neighborhood organizing and am now with a non-profit doing the same thing. And I really enjoyed the site.

—Mike Hodge

________________________________________

Thank you very much for you excellent advice. Our congregation is affiliated with. . . . However, we have been treated very badly by that organization. Once again, thank you for taking the time to write back to me and for the great wealth of advice.

—D. Press

________________________________________

Your web site and writings are really interesting!

—Rabbi Eric Lankin, United Jewish Communities

________________________________________

I very much appreciate [Gather the People] material. I find it insightful and timely. I want to be sure that I continue to receive it. . . .

—Rabbi David E. Fass, Temple Beth Sholom

________________________________________

Please accept this donation as a small contribution toward the wonderful work you’re continually doing.

—Rabbi Jeff Sultar

________________________________________

I visited your website after info was posted about it on the NHC list. Kol hakavod!!!

—Jordan Goodman

________________________________________

Thank you for sharing these wonderful, wonderful [drashot and iyun tefillot] resources. Todah raba.

—Anne Lyons

________________________________________

I am a Community Development executive from London, England and would like to compliment you on the [GTP] website and its organization.

—Janet Berenson-Perkins

________________________________________

I am writing to express my gratitude for the [audio divrei Torah] items you list [on the Gather the People web site]. They have been immensely helpful to me and to others to whom I have forwarded your messages.

—Chaim Moshe haLevi

________________________________________

The [GTP] web site is really wonderful.

—Dr. Tamar Earnest, Rabbinical Student, AJR

________________________________________

I would like to express my appreciation . . . for the wonderful work you are doing. The [Gather the People] manual was replete with excellent programming ideas and presented in a most creative fashion.

B'hatzlacha in all your endeavors for amcha.

—Rabbi David E. Vorspan, Congregation Shir Ami

________________________________________

Thank you for responding to my question about Torah quotes. Your [Gather the People] manual is amazing and useful for far more than the quotes!

—Heather G. Stoltz, Community Services Coordinator, Stephen Wise Free synagogue

________________________________________

I spent some time on your website—I love it! Thanks for sharing it with me.

—Rachel Brickman

________________________________________

I couldn’t resist skimming through your CD this morning. I also listened briefly last night and then couldn’t get your melody for “L’sheim Yikhud” out of my head. Very lovely. And your “Hodu L’Adonai” won’t leave me. Of course, when this happens a composer knows he has written something very special. How can I not use this for Hallel? I’ve been humming it throughout the day. After Pesach I will take the time to learn some of your melodies I feel my congregation would enjoy; I might use some simply as a niggun. I have already numbered each of your tracks on the insert and am looking forward to working with your material. Incidentally, I can already hear my congregation singing your "Baruch Sh’amar." Lovely! I hope that with your Blessings CD and your presence on the internet, many others will enjoy your music. Kol ha kavod for bringing us such soulful music!

—Toby Moss

________________________________________

I believe that what they [Moshe ben Asher and Khulda Bat Sarah] have developed as a strategy for strengthening covenantal community touches on matters that we recognize as important to our work, and to the Jewish people.

When I first met Moshe and Khulda and heard from them about congregational organizing, I couldn't see how to make it Jewish and make it matter personally to members of OU [Orthodox Union] congregations. After reading what Moshe and Khulda have written [Gather the People], I came to believe that the approach they have developed to stimulating Jewish life holds hope for strengthening covenantal community in many of our congregations.

—Rabbi Dr. Abner Weiss

________________________________________

I always look forward to your . . . writings. They uplift me and I need that.

—Jennie Cohen, Editor and Publisher, Jewish Post & Opinion

________________________________________

You have such wonderful stuff [on the GTP web site]. Yishar kochakhem!

—Rabbi Dennis Beck-Berman

________________________________________

So excited to come across your web site. I am a teacher at a small Jewish day school in Birmingham, Alabama. Although a member of a Reform congregation, our school has a traditional T'fillah. Therefore, I needed a version of Az Yashir that I could learn. Your web site provides the best choice of the several I have viewed. Please send me the Become A Blessing CD.

—Paul C. Miller

________________________________________

I am currently on an Independent Study to do community organizing. . . . I am very glad to have your instructional piece on how to chart progress notes in macro practice. Wish I could have had them earlier in the semester, but glad to have them now.

—Janice Hayward

________________________________________

I believe that the approach to stimulating Jewish life by creating covenantal communities that they have developed holds great hope for our Jewish future, here in Santa Rosa and be­yond.
 
—Rabbi Jonathan Slater
Congregation Beth Ami

________________________________________

[Gather the People is] A wonderful piece . . . it’s exactly what I’m trying to say.
 
—Rabbi Jerome Epstein
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

________________________________________

Access to the Gather the People web site was "filtered" (blocked) by the government of the Peoples Republic of China as of November 2002.

The Gather the People web site was listed as one of the “Web’s Best Sites” by Encyclopedia Britannica.

________________________________________

What Congregational Leaders and Others Say About Learning With Magidah Khulda Bat Sarah and Rabbi Moshe Ben Asher

Thanks to the Temple Ner Shalom Rabbi Team [of Moshe ben Asher and Khulda bat Sarah], I have derived a deep and abiding understanding of Torah such as I have never acquired before. Better still, they have given me the tools so that I can continue to study Torah on my own. That also goes for their examination of Judaism.  
They are the kinds of teachers that never simply lecture and expect you to absorb and accept their views at face value, but rather gently push you to question and think deeply of what those concepts mean to you, how they fit into your life. I’m often amazed at the questions they formulate and put to us.

We have been blessed with some wonderful Rabbis in the past, each one of whom has left his mark on our lives. But this Rabbi Team has helped us search our souls for a wider, deeper and different understanding of the role that Torah can play in bettering our existence—our relationship with G-d, our family and friends and above all to the "strangers" in our midst. Each of us is on a journey and the Rabbi Team has helped us along our paths, different as each one is to every other. There’s no one cookie-cutter.

For example, they have gently forced me to reexamine my belief systems and to state them openly, something I’ve been too embarrassed to do in the past. (This has happened to other attendees.) They have gently pushed me to redirect the goals of my life. All to the better. For this, I’m eternally grateful.

Every once in a while I stop and marvel at the time, thought and energy that obviously goes into the preparation of every class they conduct. They eschew the trivial and the ordinary; they conduct every session with joy and originality. It is truly a mitzvah that they bestow on us and a mitzvah for us to be the recipients.

Those who have not experienced a class with the Rabbi Team have deprived themselves of a valuable and precious part of our Synagogue life. I urge you to attend their classes the next time they are here. You owe it to yourself.

—Doris Bolef, Temple Ner Shalom, San Luis Obispo

________________________________________

Working with Magidah Khulda Bat Sarah is a supportive and pleasant experience. Her approach is a far cry of the unpleasant taskmasters that I instinctually associate with bad bar mitzvah memories. Her approach to my learning is gentle, progressive and encouraging. Magidah Khulda's always-encouraging feedback and emphasis on my individual pace of learning aided me in overcoming the personal learning hurdles that cropped up regularly.

The techniques that Magidah Khulda used to help me master Torah reading are especially helpful. Magidah Khulda taught me a Torah reading technique that doesn't focus on memorization, but on a systematic approach that uses the reappearing patterns of trope, which aids and simplifies my learning a Torah portion. Magidah Khulda's technique of visioning ahead the next grouping of trope from the one that is currently chanted is a great aid in my calm and confidence when I chant Torah in front of a congregation.

I've learnt that I can gently unlearn bad habits and techniques that evolved in my attempt to restart chanting a long while after my initial bar mitzvah experience. The inefficiency, fear and anxiety that came from relying primarily on memorization of recorded portions have been replaced by the ability to sight read trope and learn portions with far less effort and the ability to retain it longer.

What I like about working with Magidah Khulda is that I can do it from my home at hours that are convenient to me. The phone is a great aid—all I have to do to get ready for a lesson is sit down at my trope sheet, put on my phone headset and dial, and when Magidah Khulda answers the telephone it's only a few seconds until I feel that we are sitting next to each other. The phone seems to facilitate a true sense of one-to-one instruction. I have no worries about phone bills as I have a $5 per month unlimited long distance plan on my home phone. I prefer to have my lessons at 6 a.m. my time because of child care, carpool and work responsibilities, and Magidah Khulda accommodates my schedule. I like that I am able to choose the physical environment that I feel comfortable learning in. I choose to call from my garden where I watch the hummingbirds, blue jays and other birds going about their morning routine as I go through my trope singing exercises with Magidah Khulda. My five year old when asked by his mom where daddy is, said, "He's in the garden singing." I have a feeling that my studying is imparting something to my son, especially since I sometimes sing trope when I drive him and he likes to try to sing along.

What I like best about working with Magidah Khulda is that she is calm, warm and supportive, and has a lot of patience.

—Pini Herman, Movable Minyan, Los Angeles

________________________________________

The rabbi team [of Moshe ben Asher and Khulda bat Sarah] has a great ability to inspire us to be better Jews . . . be a better person, working harder to bring holiness into my life—not just on Shabbat, but in my daily work as a doctor and healer as well; working harder for justice in the world, doing things that contribute to Tikun Olam ("repairing the world"); being more compassionate in all aspects of my life and interactions with others, etc.

Through the Torah study classes and the Sunday Judaism class, I've learned to distinguish what Rabbi Moshe often calls the "wallpaper of Christianity" in our society—the pervasive Christian views—so pervasive that many of us never learned differently. For example, the view of prayer as "emergency bail-out requests to G-d." I now understand the Jewish view that prayer is there for us to connect to G-d's purpose for us and to inspire us to go out and do G-d's work in the world—not to observe Shabbat as a day of denial of shopping or other things we're forbidden to do, but to observe Shabbat as a celebration of our connection to our heritage, to G-d and to doing our part to bring the world to a better place; that Shabbat exists as an "island in time" to help us to re-connect to spirit, G-d, and family—the truly important things in our lives that can get lost in the daily battles.

I now also understand, for example, that the minyan exists because many things need to be done by a spiritual community—that there is only so much a single person can do—so Jewish prayer requires community to bring people together and that that togetherness and community should be the foundation that we bring out into the world and the platform on which we stand as we go about our work of making the world a better place for all people to live in.

For anyone out there that hasn't been to one of these classes, if you're someone who considers yourself open to spiritual growth and interested in having more meaning and connection in your life, check it out soon.

—Leslie Kasanoff, Temple Ner Shalom, San Luis Obispo

________________________________________

The "Rabbi Team" of Moshe ben Asher and Khulda Bat Sarah has served our temple, Congregation Beth Israel of Chico, while I was an officer on the Board of Directors. I worked with them on a number of occasions, interacted with them at board meetings, and participated in a formal evaluation of their leadership. I regularly attended their religious services on Friday evenings and my son was a student in the Temple's religious school, in which I was actively involved.

I have been deeply impressed with the commitment, energy and enthusiasm that Moshe and Khulda brought to all facets of their involvement with our community. I have been struck by the number of hours they devote to work in this community. In terms of their involvement with the Board, the Team has taken an active role in helping to define directions—social, religious, and cultural—for our community. In my opinion, Moshe and Khulda are best thought of as teachers—to all of us. To the Board, they have modeled ways of building community, dealing with the kinds of pressures which affect all small communities and have often instructed us—through their studied religious background.

Moshe and Khulda filled a tremendous void in this community. Although my family only attends Friday night services, services and adult education have also been offered on Saturday mornings throughout the year. Khulda began teaching Hebrew to many members of our community in the form of private or family lessons. These lessons brought many more people to worship than we had had before. Moshe too participated daily with individuals in our community through his counseling sessions. He and Khulda spent hours as well visiting members of the community in their homes. One of their first goals when they arrived in town was to visit each member’s home and find out what their concerns were and what types of needs should be addressed both in Temple and in the community. Building community development is a strong suit of the Rabbi team and throughout their years in Chico they continued to implement ways of working to increase the feeling of partnership and participation in the community as well as congregational membership. For these wonderful efforts they should be heartily commended.

For me, as the mother of young children, I found the Team’s contributions to the religious and spiritual development of our children absolutely stunning. First, in an effort to increase the number of families with children participating in services, the Team recommended—and the Board approved—changing the hours for Friday night services—so that they were earlier and allowed more families with young children to attend. Then they instituted bi-weekly “Children’s services” in which the children acted as our teachers and led a component of the evening’s service. These services were some of the real highlights of the last two years here. Moshe and Khulda also started a Midrasha class, and those same kids were trained as leaders for the weekly Shabbat services. For the first time in our community, young people were honestly excited about religious school, and attending services because of the efforts of Moshe and Khulda. I should say as well that it is one thing to have ideas and another to implement them. But that is not always enough. I think Moshe and Khulda made such a tremendous impact on our children because they honestly believed in them and enjoyed them and see children as ways of bringing their whole families together into the circle of spiritual life. To be absolutely honest, I cannot imagine the loss that their leaving brings to the children in this community. In terms of education, Moshe and Khulda also worked with older children, set up more rigorous bar and bat mitzvah standards, and worked with young people post-bar/bat mitzvah to keep them involved.

I want to mention as well the active and vocal role the Rabbi team took in the broader community. Working with both the Chico Area Interfaith Council as well as local law enforcement agencies, the Rabbi Team sought to educate the broader community to issues of anti-Semitism and intolerance. Certainly, with our close proximity to Sacramento, issues of tolerance and safety figured broadly in the hearts and minds of the local Jewish community. Through Moshe and Khulda’s articulated efforts to educate other faith communities as well as law enforcement about the concerns we all face, a number of strong alliances have been made. Local schools and churches and community programs have begun to turn their attention increasingly on issues of tolerance and hate thanks in a large way to Moshe and Khulda’s efforts to bring these concerns before a wider audience. In fact, Moshe and Khulda have become very well known throughout the county as leaders on a task force examining issues of intolerance. Through these efforts the local Jewish community has become aligned more closely with a number of sister groups which has gone a long way toward minimizing the sense of victimization and fear which hate mongers prey upon.

In short, both in their efforts within the Jewish community and beyond it, Rabbi Moshe and Magidah Khulda have worked tirelessly to educate, inspire, and connect all of the individuals they have come into contact with. For the two years they have lived here they have built an amazingly rich legacy which will not soon be forgotten nor, I fear, matched in effort or vision.

—Dr. Andrea Lerner Thompson