RJ Blog

The URJ recently announced our 2012 Incubator Grant recipients, which help our congregations implement new programs to further engage current members and attract new members. We’re also thrilled to follow up on the good work of one of our 2011 Incubator Grant recipients, Congregation Bet Ha’am in South Portland, ME, which has documented its program Sowing Seeds, Braiding Community in a short documentary available on the synagogue’s website.

by Guenther Hecht On any given day in Atlanta, volunteers from Temple Sinai’s Second Helpings show up at grocery stores, restaurants, school cafeterias and catered events, load up their cars with leftover food, and deliver it to women’s shelters, food banks and other community service organizations that serve those in need. Most work alone and on a schedule that fits their own routine, but all believe in the value of reducing waste and in getting food to Atlanta’s hungry. By the end of last month, Second Helpings had rescued two million pounds of food. In light of the growth in [...]

By dccRecently I have been reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which while partly polemical in its approach to local food consumption as opposed to what Pollan calls “the industrialized food chain,” did a lot to reinforce my love of good, tasty, carefully created food. But it seems that I am not alone in this re-discovery. In the last week or so my local paper has dedicated significant front page real estate and bandwidth (complete with a new “Times Topic Page“) to local and natural food movements. Many people are concerned by the number of pesticides, hormones and antibiotics fed to what becomes our [...]