“I write what I need to read, plain and simple,” Courtney Martin says as she launches into the reason she wrote Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists (Beacon Press, October 2010), which I reviewed here last month. “I grew really disenchanted with electoral politics following the 2004 election. I was also painfully convinced that I didn’t really have the power to make change in such a bureaucratic, globalized world. I felt small and inept. It was a huge departure for me because I’m innately very idealistic and full of energy. I hit the road to see if I could find examples of ordinary young people who were making change and feeling hopeful about it.”

Toward that end, Martin interviewed eight activists who were working in their own communities, ranging from counseling prisoners to fighting for women’s rights in the armed services. Wanting to make the stories relatable to the average reader, she shied away from the “super kid geniuses” that are usually profiled in periodicals. “My goal wasn’t to explore the exceptional, but the everyday ways in which young people are making the world better. I also liked the idea of talking to folks who weren’t media darlings (with the exception of Rosario Dawson, of course), because I think there’s something so thrilling about interviewing someone who doesn’t have a pre-packaged life story.”

Yet even if their stories weren’t preconfigured and though they hail from a variety of backgrounds, it seemed that at least a couple of things came in all of her subjects’ activist “packages.”

“Almost everyone had traveled through New Orleans post-Katrina, showing how that region has becoming a testing ground for a generation of activists,” she notes. Also, “almost everyone has a supremely influential mother who shaped who they became. I wasn’t so shocked by that, having been raised by such a woman myself and having done a lot of feminist work, but it was fun to find that moms are our biggest (often unsung) activist heroes—across the board.”

Though Martin enjoyed writing intricate profiles of the activists, exploring different facets of their lives and work, she realizes that what she gained in depth, she lost in breadth since she could only focus on a handful of people. “I actually wrote three other full profiles that didn’t make it in the book for various reasons, of a peace activist, a political organizer, and a high school student community organizer. I would have loved to profile a social entrepreneur, a doctor, a lawyer, a lobbyist etc.”

The range of activists that she had wished to cover demonstrates that it takes all kinds, that repairing an imperfect world is really everyone’s work. Even a writer’s. Through writing the book Martin has “come to a better peace with my specific niche in this universe of social change. I encourage readers to find where their deepest gifts match the world’s deepest needs; though I have sometimes wondered how much difference sitting in front of my laptop pecking away actually makes, I know it’s my calling and the world, I humbly believe, does need it.”

Having discovered her place in the world of social change, Martin urges on young people to do the same and advises them on how to counter the frustrations that are inevitable in this line of work. “I think that we must anchor our self-esteem in daily, observable acts, while keeping the big, systemic picture in mind. It’s a tough duality to hold, but I think it’s necessary if we are going to fight injustice for a whole, tiring, wonderful lifetime.”

The post Courtney Martin: Covering The New Generation Of Activists appeared first on Jewcy.

This post originally appeared at Repair The World.

Hanukkah has no connections to the agricultural cycle (as do the more important observances of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot), and is not mentioned anywhere in the Torah. Yet despite this, Hanukkah is perhaps one of the most widely known Jewish holidays (its proximity to Christmas doesn’t hurt), and certainly a favorite of children everywhere.

When we’re kids, Hanukkah is more of a holiday associated with receiving, not giving – the presents and candles, the gelt (coin money), and the deliciously oily foods.  But if we look deeper into the origins of the holiday, we can find connections to service that we can apply to our lives.

According to Lesli Koppelman Ross, author of Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook, the famed military revolt of the Maccabees against the Assyrian Greeks was the result of religious persecution the Jews suffered. She writes:

Decreeing that studying Torah, observing the Sabbath, and circumcising Jewish boys were punishable by death, he [Antiochus Epiphanes IV] sent Syrian overseers and soldiers to villages throughout Judea to enforce the edicts and force Jews to engage in idol worship.

Because of its roots as a struggle for religious freedom, Hanukkah offers a great opportunity for us to be aware and thankful for the rights we enjoy. Here in the United States, Jews have been fortunate that our religious freedom has been enshrined in the First Amendment, which guarantees the separation between church and state.

It’s not just the military victory and freedoms won that should teach and inspire us today. To commemorate the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days instead of one, we light the menorah every night of the holiday, starting with just one candle and increasing incrementally throughout. This an important lesson for anyone involved in service work who wants to avoid burnout. Don’t jump into the deep end even if you’re filled with zeal. Don’t try to do everything at once but begin slowly and increase your efforts and ambitions as you go along.

And there’s the light itself. The symbolism is easy to locate in the kindling of flames — bringing light into the dark, hope where there had been none. This is our task as individuals engaged in repairing the world. The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington can enable you to do this literally (and figuratively) by visiting group homes and lighting holiday candles with seniors. For more information, you can email volunteer@shalomdc.org

Furthermore, during a holiday when purchasing is the norm, we should remember to give to those in need. An innovative new website called What I Did Not Buy, allows you to see how far the money you might spend on toys, electronics and other fineries might go if they were put to charitable use. It’s a project of BRAC, which does antipoverty work in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sierra Leon, Tanzania and several other countries.

Finally, there’s activism. When confronted with oppression, the Maccabees decided to act and resist. Now, the Maccabees sought a military solution to their problem with the Greeks — there weren’t any fellowships, think tanks and panels back in their day — but thankfully we have other tools at our disposal. This Sunday, December 5th, join modern day Jewish activists doing important work in the fields of food access, environmentalism and racial and economic inequality at Inside the Activists’ Studio at the 92Y Tribeca in New York.

The post How Hanukkah Can Make You A Better Person appeared first on Jewcy.

This article originally appeared at Repair the World.

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season. It is also one of the most popular day of the year to serve in the country’s soup kitchens and food pantries. Anyone who has watched a local news broadcast after an afternoon of turkey (or Tofurky) and football has seen the footage of volunteers spooning out stuffing and yams to the homeless and hungry in all across the country.

While this is a great way to serve a group that most certainly needs it, most of the Thanksgiving and Christmas volunteer slots are filled months before the leaves even start turning colors, as Joel Roth, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger noted back in October when he addressed the audience gathered at New York’s headquarters (where he spoke alongside Shirley Sagawa). Also, these opportunities are difficult to come by since many soup kitchens are closed for the holiday. So what do you do if you didn’t plan to volunteer far enough in advance?

As the holiday volunteering page on NYCCAH’s website notes, poor people’s needs for food and services do not abate when Thanksgiving (or Christmas) is over. “Hunger is an important issue that needs much help throughout the year, especially in New York City where more than 1.4 million people are food insecure.”

There are ample opportunities to serve on the other days of the year and many of the city’s food pantries and soup kitchens are frequently under-assisted. Through their Volunteer Matching page, you can find the best opportunities for the other 363 days a year. And if you want to get a head start on another federal holiday, you can sign up for NYCCAH’s MLK Day Serve-a-Thon, which will aid a variety of anti-hunger projects including preparing and serving food to the community, repainting food pantries and school cafeterias, and cleaning and reorganizing pantry and kitchen spaces.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving with your friends and family. But before the tryptophan (or its tofu equivalent) starts to lull you into a peaceful, contented sleep, think about the service you can do when the holiday ends.

The post Fighting Hunger On Thanksgiving And The Other 364 Days Of The Year appeared first on Jewcy.

Tag, the quintessential playground game, might have been banned in many schools around the country out of fear of injuries, but it’s coming back in vogue, at least virtually. The HandsOn Network has introduced a new way to play the game online, intending to accrue volunteers to a whole host of projects and causes …as opposed to lawsuits.

Here’s how it works: Somebody you know “tags” you because you’re known for your contributions to your community. Then you log in at GetHandsOn.com, tag others and let everyone know what you’re going to do to better your community, environment, school, and so on, by making a “commitment,” which is an online proclamation of what action you are planning to take.

The commitments can be small — such as resolving to use reusable shopping backs and water bottles — or large — such as committing to volunteering for your entire school break. As you check the site daily, you will be able to see how many others are taking both small and large steps, and how these actions together contribute to a greater impact.

The top taggers each day will receive two free round trip tickets on JetBlue plus $125 for the cause of their choice!

In addition to tagging your pals, you can try to get tag a celebrity or public figure. If you manage to get a famous person to join the challenge, $100 will be donated to the nonprofit that you volunteer for. And for every 500th person tagged, $500 will be given to the organization that individual works with.

Nearly 1,000 people have already been tagged. Are you ready to get in the game?

The post Play Tag For A Good Cause appeared first on Jewcy.

Elie Lowenfed is the 23-year-old founder of the Jewish Disaster Response Corps (JDRC), which he started while still an undergraduate at New York University. In August of 2009, he organized JDRC’s first official relief trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was a year after flooding had devastated the city (and the entire eastern half of the state), taking out ten square miles of its downtown. He and fourteen other Jewish students (seven from New York and seven from the Midwest) went to help with the long term rebuilding process. That first trip was done with a whole lot of do-it-yourself gumption. “We just grabbed some people and 300 dollars and one written page and just started going,” he noted. Since that first trip, he has organized three alternative spring break trips during his senior year.

How did you become involved in disaster relief?

I personally had gone to New Orleans after Katrina and the thing that struck me from the first day I arrived was that there was no Jewish communal presence. I went with a Hillel trip and we worked through an evangelical Christian organization because those are the people that go and respond to disasters. The local churches, the faraway churches, the national Christian organizations. American Baptist Men. United Methodist Committee on Relief. Christian Reform World Relief Committee.

And the Jewish community didn’t show up. So at first it was just one of those thoughts — this is something my community should be involved in. As we’ve [JDRC] done more work we’ve learned that there are Jewish communities affected by every disaster and need help after the disaster. And for the Jewish community not to show up for them was something I didn’t want to continue to happen. I wanted to see my community be a part of this effort.

Why do you think the Jewish community did not show up or weren’t organized for disaster relief?

I think there are a couple of reasons. A lot of it just comes down to people just haven’t seen what a disaster looks like, and haven’t seen the need and haven’t seen the ability of an average person to really make a difference after a disaster. There’s a lot to be said for seeing it, smelling it, tasting it.

Cedar Rapids got just one day of coverage in the New York Times. One day in the newspaper doesn’t really convey the need and your ability to respond. I also have seen people wondering, “What am I going to be able to do? These people need carpenters, they need electricians.” But really they just need hands willing to help. There’s a bit of this stigma – “Oh, I’m Jewish. I don’t really have building skills.” But they don’t need building skills. They just need somebody who’s got two hands and is ready to put in a day of work.

You talk a lot about “just showing up” and getting to work. Was that something you learned at home?

I would say that a lot of it was family. For the first trip to New Orleans I went with my entire family. My sister had gone and she came home and said, “We’re going.” And that was it. We went. So yes, it was ingrained in my upbringing, and that’s kind of the same way the organization has been built. We’re going to show up and we’re going to do it. And we’re going to figure everything else out later.

What do you have planned for the future?

Right now we are working very closely with the Bronfman Center at NYU. They actually took the project in house to incubate us for the next year, which is very exciting. We’re looking to really grow our organizational base and move more volunteers. We have four trips scheduled between now and April. We’re looking to get the Jewish community more actively involved in this by growing the opportunities for people to volunteer. There are people out there who want to volunteer. The challenge is that there isn’t enough capacity to give them the chance to help.

Since you created this organization while you were still in college, what would you tell a young, communally minded Jewish student who wants to get involved in disaster relief? What steps should he or she take?

To them I would say the thing that motivated me about disaster response is that it’s a place where as a young person you can really step in and make things happen. After a disaster, the local infrastructure and the national infrastructure is overwhelmed. That leaves this opening for people to fill and this need for people to really step up and do it. I would probably say show up and once you’re there, you can assess the need and find innovative ways to fill it.

If you would like to learn more about JDRC, you can go to their website, find them on Facebook, or email them at jdrcorps@gmail.com.

The post Talking With Elie Lowenfed, Founder Of The Jewish Disaster Response Corps appeared first on Jewcy.

This article originally appeared on Repair The World.

Superheroes Anonymous first began in 2007 when Ben Goldman saw a flyer in a comic book shop, which advertised a meeting for real-life superheroes. He and Chaim Lazaros, who were at the time, Columbia University film students, had been searching for a project and decided to do a documentary about average people who put on costumes and perform service around their respective communities — whether it is keeping the streets clean, patrolling to ensure safety or reaching out to homeless people. They found many of these real life “superheroes” on the Internet through their various social media profiles.

The pair convened the “superheroes” in New York’s Time Square in 2007, which also marked the founding of Goldman and Lazaros’ group, Superheroes Anonymous. And it was at this meeting that Lazaros, now 26 years old, first appeared as his superhero alter ego, “Life” though in his unmasked day-to-day activities, works at a nonprofit and lives in Harlem.

What made you decide to bring all the Superheroes together?

We started doing this documentary on them for real life superheroes but we didn’t have the resources…I got the idea of bringing all the superheroes together for a meeting. I figured that if I did that, I would could make this contribution to the real life superhero community and at the same time I could make a documentary in a day.

I wanted to have a conference because in the press these people have been thrown off, treated like they were crazy. I wanted to show people that it was a positive movement.

Why did you assume “Life” as your superhero name?  Can you talk about your costume

Life is the Hebrew translation of my name. [As for the costume] what I do is very organizational. I had to sit down with Times Square Alliance guys and government representatives. And I had to pull off this thing off and not have them laugh me out of the room. My costume is very classic superhero, like those first early superheroes. It’s not spandex and a cape. It’s not ridiculous, it’s not silly. If I go and sit down with lawyers, I can take off the mask and it’s almost like I’m wearing a business suit. I was looking for something very functional and utilitarian, something based on superhero iconography but not too flashy. I’m a jeans and t-shirt type guy.

You chose homeless outreach as your superhero mission, why?

That’s what I could be most effective at. There’s all this talk in the real life superhero community about going out on neighborhood watch type crime patrols. But New York is a very safe city but we do have a huge problem with — and it’s only gotten worse since the Great Recession hit — homelessness. People needed help.

I started going over to homeless people with grain bars. They would say, ‘Hey man, do you have a pair of socks? Or a shaving blade?’ I’d get them deodorant or soap. I eventually learned what homeless people needed the most because it’s not actually food. There are a lot of places where homeless people can get food. It’s actually a lot of these other things we take for granted, like toiletries.

On a given night, I go to Coalition for the Homeless drop off points where they give out food. Homeless people tend to congregate in very specific areas and at very specific times. I know these areas and I know these times and I’ll get there early when they’re waiting for the truck. And I will talk to them and give them whatever goodies I might have.

Do the costumes really help outreach efforts?

They definitely help. They draw attention to the cause. The reason why we use the iconography of the superhero-and I only realized this after doing it for many years — is because it is an immediately recognizable symbol of good. I can be dealing with these Mexican homeless dudes and if they ask, “Why are you helping us?” I just have to point to my mask and say, “Because I’m a superhero.” It’s immediately understood. Even the smallest child knows that a superhero does good. I’m not representing a government agency. I’m not trying to get them into a shelter. I don’t have quotas, I don’t have a boss. I’m just there to help them out and provide whatever I can. The iconography of superheroes allows me to do this.

How many people are involved and what kind of things does Superheroes Anonymous do as a group?

About 250, majority men. I’d say the ratio of men to women is 70/30. We’ve had crime patrols, toy drops at the children’s hospital. A concert to raise money for a shelter, food drives, self-defense classes. We just got back from Portland, where we gave blood, did a coat drive, worked in a soup kitchen and did a CPR certification with the Red Cross.

We’ve been having these monthly meetings — our costume creation workshops. They take place in Spacecraft Brooklyn, which is in Williamsburg. It’s a crafting place where they can make anything. Basically it’s this forum for people who are all levels of real life superhero-ness to get together.

It’s a really casual environment where you can sit down and ask a person — what do you want to accomplish? How do you want to represent yourself? They can totally come in with ideas for their uniform and start making stuff right there. At these meetings, I’ve given out homeless outreach supplies and spoken about safe and effective homeless outreach.

What are your future plans?

I have a lawyer — we’re assembling a board — founding legit 501c3 nonprofit so we can get monetary donations.

If you would like to get involved or learn more about Superheroes Anonymous, you can visit their website at superheroesanonymous.com. You can also email Chaim at life at superheroesanonymous dot com.

The post Repair Interview: Unmasking a Real Superhero appeared first on Jewcy.