What does that mean for our Community?
At Ahavat Torah we are invested in our community. We have a voluntary activist component, available to our members and the wider community to join in. Here are our current projects.
1. CHILDREN IN NEED: We have connected with a Van Nuys school, who have many impoverished families and a wonderful principal who is helping us give gift cards for the immigrant and other families most in need. As Thanksgiving and holidays approach we can assist the families with healthy meals, and when the weather begins to cool, the kids can get sweatshirts and warm clothing. Please send your donation check to Ahavat Torah, and please indicate it is for the School Children’s Fund. Coordinated by Lynn Stevens.
2. BIG SUNDAY PROGRAM. There are so many opportunities to assist here so we direct you to the BIG SUNDAY WEBSITE where you can find out more.
This is an opportunity for us to engage in all sorts of hands-on projects and to gather together to help the most needy. There are weekly events Thursdays at 10 a.m. Contact Rabbi Michal if you are available to join together and build community through community service.
3. INTERFAITH
We have programs together with the AME Church of Santa Monica—what wonderful music we make together! Also, we will be meeting monthy for awhile in the Santa Monica Bahai Center. We have connections with the Interfaith Community, have formed Jewish-Muslim groups, and our president and other members are deeply connected to the World Parliament of Religions.
Our goals for 2023: are as follows:
4. FIRST STEP STAFFING --This is a program to reduce homelessness by helping people get housing and jobs. We are planning to have a speaker come to introduce us to this program and let us know how WE can help!
5. JEWISH WORLD WATCH—Ahavat Torah was one of the many founding synagogues of JWW, which continues to fight genocide worldwide, to not stand idly by when these atrocities occur.
6. HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM—Visiting, sometimes teaching, and helping women at the Women’s Prison, CRC.
7. ISRAEL—We continue to support NEVE SHALOM, Oasis of Peace. Rabbi Miriam has connected us with an Ethiopian Synagogue, and we support them with gifts, as well as helping fund the college education for a student. In addition, we support Bayit Cham, Warm House, which supplies communal housing and services for holocaust survivors in Haifa. And we support JNF with trees and cards.
We invite all of you, friends and members of Ahavat Torah, to join with us in at least one of our activities, and/or let us know your ideas and heartfelt work to make the world a better place.
Vivian Gold and Renee Schwartz, SOCIAL ACTION CHAIRPEOPLE