Fixing the world, one neighborhood at a time

CHICAGO - The Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) in Chicago adopted the Jewish trend of social justice and "tikkun olam" - fixing the world - decades before everyone else. The blue binding of the instructional booklet "Judaism and Urban Poverty" features nearly 90 pages of activities for students. First lesson: "Getting to Know your Community;" second lesson: "Understanding Poverty;" sixth lesson: "Responding to Poverty: G'milut Chasidim, Tzadakah & Tzedek" (i.e. acts of compassion, charity and justice). Here is a suitable verse from the Book of Deuteronomy 15:4): "There shall be no needy among you." And here is a quotation from the Talmud, Tractate Soteh 14A: "Rabbi Simlai explained: the Torah begins with G'milut Chasadim and ends with G'milut Chasadim." Irene Lehrer Sandalow will try to market this booklet to the target audience: Jewish schools in the Chicago area. And there are buyers every year.

Lehrer Sandalow works for the JCUA Chicago. This is a pioneering organization of the movement that is today sweeping up nearly all the branches of American Jewry. Its activity is devoted primarily to striving for social justice, or, in its current name, "tikkun olam."

"We," the JCUA activists make a point of stressing, "were here before it was fashionable." Ever since 1964 - for more than 40 years now - they have been working on behalf of the poor, the weak, the rejected and the oppressed. Chicago, their city, offers them an extensive and sometimes depressing base for activities. The council is working in the city's most miserable, distressed neighborhoods. Supporting, organizing, counseling, contributing. "Our rabbis said," the booklet quotes, "there is nothing in the world more difficult than poverty, which is worse than all the sufferings in the world."

'You shall pursue justice'

Jane Ramsey maneuvers her car into an empty parking spot a few steps away from the activism headquarters, the Cabrini Green Local Advisory Council. What is in the trunk of the car - will remain there, she determines. Here in the neighborhood it is best not to leave the impression that anything of value remains in the car. Along the way she passed through streets on the one side of which stand public housing projects slated for demolition, whereas the other side boasts shiny new single-family units for sale. For decades now the Cabrini Green neighborhood has been in the midst of being demolished, yet the inhabitants are still fighting. For suitable compensation, for the preservation of the community and for integrating the poor people who lived here in the everyday life of the new neighborhood that is being built on the ruins of their homes.

Cabrini Green was a very poor and violent neighborhood. It is located too close to the city center. The city fathers of Chicago decided that on this expensive land, homes should be built that are suited to the land's value - a place for those who are able to pay. The neighborhood that was situated there, a nightmare both for the law-abiding and -enforcing, is vanishing. Such neighborhoods can be found in many other cities, not just in Chicago - and not only in America. But not everywhere can residents enjoy Ramsey's good services.

"The prophets said 'Tzedek, tzedek tirdof' [justice, justice, you shall pursue - Deuteronomy 17:20]," she quotes, "and we take it seriously." Then she enters the office and gives a large woman a small hug. This is Carol Steele, who has been living in a public housing project located a few blocks from the office since 1957. Steele is an authentic leader who has grown up in the neighborhood and is refusing to abandon it.

JCUA's guiding principle is to continue helping inhabitants in distress. Not through soup kitchens or shelters for the winter. The Jewish organization is not a guest just passing through the neighborhood - rather, it has been active here for years. It provides Steele with with professional advice, public relations and organizing support. Any mistake she makes will be exploited by the sharks who want to drive public housing from the community. That is why the JCUA helps her make sure that there will be no mistakes. They also believe that her cause is just - a war on the American "evacuation-construction" formula of gentrification. This is a position adopted by the left extreme of the liberal sector. City Hall will not have a hard time proving that most of Chicago's residents will not regret the elimination of the neighborhood with the bad reputation.

But Ramsey notes that this matter does not concern a neighborhood as a theoretical concept, but one made up of human beings. If they are evicted they will have to move to other neighborhoods, further away from the center and their places of employment and they will also have to say good-bye to acquaintances and neighbors. The numbers are on her side: In Chicago there is simply not enough housing for all these evacuees. That is why some of them are finding themselves on the streets and spending the freezing nights at shelters for the homeless. How can a Jewish conscience see this and not do something?

Ramadan at the synagogue

The JCUA offices are located in the Loop, right across from Chicago's Millennium Park, looking out over Lake Michigan. The organization's officials do a great many things: They work in poor Black and immigrant neighborhoods and are active in education, training and the promotion of Jewish-Muslim dialogue. About two weeks ago, in the sukkah of the Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Synagogue, the community hosted a large group of Muslims for an iftar meal to break the fast of Ramadan, at the Council's initiative.

The Jewish-Muslim discourse in the United States most definitely entails issues that touch upon the Israeli-Arab question but the JCUA is as far removed from the Israeli issue as Chicago is from its sister city of Petah Tikva. For that, they say, there are other organizations, in which some of the council's supporters are also active. Though many of them are not. Relations with the Chicago Jewish Federation, one of the strongest and most organized in the United States, are no more than correct. Some JCUA people think the Federation is too conservative and too focused on its own narrow world. As for them, some heads of the Federation think the JCUA is too subversive, unrestrained and radical. The people at both organizations prefer not to say bad things about the other, at least not openly.

In the past, there used to be cooperation between them. The Federation supported the JCUA with a small sum and the JCUA refrained from raising funds during the Federation's "season." Then the Council decided that the sum was too small, and the organizations severed their connection. In some of its just wars on behalf of the poor, the JCUA has encountered large entrepreneurs, who happened to be Jewish and were among the Federation's donors and bigwigs. This did not help improve relations either. Ramsey says that the freedom of action that derives from the organizational independence suits her. In her opinion, it's good for everyone; there are things that the federation can't do and the Council can. For example, hold a dialogue with public figures and organizations that have become unacceptable in the eyes of the Jewish community because of their statements and deeds. Many of them are Black or Muslim leaders.

Pilsen, too, is slowly emptying of its original inhabitants. Whereas Cabrini Green is a neighborhood of Blacks, Pilsen a neighborhood of immigrants. At the start of the 20th century, its inhabitants were mostly Czechs, but in the second half of the century the population was mainly Mexican. The neighborhood is home to 45,000 families, shops here sell products imported directly from the former homeland, and shopkeepers speak Spanish. According to Alejandra Ibanez, these are the "working class, working poor." Ibanez heads the organization that works on their behalf and enjoys the support of the JCUA. The annual income for a family living in Pilsen lies at $20,000 plus. Nevertheless, the environment is a supportive one. "This neighborhood provides the residents with an opportunity they would not have in other neighborhoods," she says. "If they have to move to a distant, less 'Mexican' neighborhood, it will be hard for them to find the same immigrant-friendly services."

What are this neighborhood's chances of standing up to the pressures from municipal officials and wealthy entrepreneurs? "It has been hard to come to terms with this," says Ibanez, "but it's impossible to control the markets." In any case, she is fighting an uphill battle thanks to more transparency in planning new areas and participation by the inhabitants in the process. She is trying to slow down a process that cannot be stopped and she understands that not everyone believes it should be stopped at all. This is just another one of those places where the JCUA is trying to bring the world around it to a standstill.

For our sake, and theirs

For Jane Ramsey, the executive director of the Chicago Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA), practicing "Tikkun Olam" is a perfect mixture of the good and the beneficial; it is the moral essence of Judaism and a valuable credential.

"In a world where minorities feel uncomfortable, Jews would feel uncomfortable too," she says. "It is less safe." This is why Jews should engage in Jewish charity work, rather than another, broader, framework. "The Jewish element should be visible," Ramsey says, because when Jews suffer - from anti-Semitism, for instance - those they have helped would be there for them.

The founder of JCUA, Rabbi Robert Marx, stood shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King during his civil rights campaign. In his polemical essay, The People in Between, he argued: "What the Jewish community has to fear most is a severe economic depression similar to the one that affected Germany in the 1920s and '30s."

On the surface, this is the beneficial aspect of Tikkun Olam: helping the other for one's own good.

But Tikkun Olam is also beneficial on other levels, including as unifying force in the current Jewish-American debate. The original meaning of "Tikkun Olam" - a term borrowed from 16th century Kabbalic scholarship - has faded away, and today it is one of the very few common denominators for American Jewry. This is an element that virtually the entire community - from the Orthodox to the Conservatives, to the most liberal Reform Jews - maintains. They are more divided about the way of implementing Tikkun Olam, but all agree that Jews should take a proactive part in it. JCUA, which stemmed from the Reform community, has members from other denominations.

Whereas all other Jewish principles are subject to debate, and often bickering, among American Jews, Tikkun Olam cherishes dissent. According to Prof. Lawrence Fine of Mount Holyoke College, it is a concept which "can be used to justify the widest range of activities and views," or, in other words, the broadest (some would contend the lowest) common denominator of the rejuvenating American Jewry.