Temple Beth Ami. Rockville, MD
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Events Calendar

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Tue 19

TBAjrHigh & TBAHigh – NO SCHOOL

January 19
Tue 19

Live & Learn with Gideon Amir
Biblical Stories as told in the Quran
Tues., 1/5, 1/12, 1/19
(10:30am-12 noon)

January 19 @ 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Tue 19

WTBA Coffee, Cake & Chit Chat
Tues., 1/19 (7:30pm)

January 19 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Thu 21

Board Meeting

January 21 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Fri 22

Erev Shabbat Service
Fri., 1/22 (6:30 pm)

January 22 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Community of Action Invites You to Act!

South Lake Elementary School

December 1st, 2020, 1:15 PM join AIM zoom meeting, 1:30 PM Council hearing and vote begins

Temple Beth Ami has had a long-standing relationship with the families and staff at South Lake Elementary School. We have taught parenting classes and art classes. We have sponsored backpacks and food. Through Action in Montgomery, we have also been fighting alongside South Lake parents for more structural change – a new school building that is safe and provides a respectful space for 897 children and their 120 teachers. Many of you have written persuasive emails, made phone calls, joined us in small group meetings with councilmembers, in virtual tours of the school with councilmembers, or watched as our Rabbi Weiss spoke at a press conference at the beginning of Sukkot at South Lake. We welcome you to join us on Tuesday, December 1st at 1:15 PM virtually to watch the public hearing here.

We will also hold an AIM watch party via Zoom. Participants should open two windows, one window with the County Council hearing and a second window with the Zoom link. We’ll keep ourselves on mute in the Zoom meeting, but can use the chat function. Except when they vote. We’re going to unmute ourselves and make some noise! To register for the AIM South Lake watch party, click on this link.

 
  • Ongoing Support for South Lake Families

    During the Covid-19 crisis, Community of Action has been continually supporting the South Lake community.  We heard from the principal, Ms. Celeste King and the parent coordinator, Dary Herrera, that South Lake parents needed masks. In May, 2020, members of the Community of Action delivered 425 surgical and cloth masks to the school for distribution to parents. 

    Community of Action has also delivered Giant, Walmart and Target gift cards as well as art supplies and books.

    Donations of masks, and small denomination gift cards to Giant, Walmart and Target are still needed!  If you would like to collect in your neighborhood, run a drive or donate yourself, PLEASE DO!

    Questions? Want to get involved but not sure? Want to work at the food pantry at the school? Susan Fox will help you and answer your questions. Call, text or email. 301-461-0917 foxdsgcc@aol.com

  • Volunteer Opportunities at South Lake Elementary

    After school art club for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders-no art experience necessary but a willingness to engage with children and have fun is required!

    Mommy and Me parenting class for moms of young children up to 4 years old. Teaching basic parenting ideas, play ideas, songs, nutritions and how to have fun with your child!

    Reading with a child at lunchtime – volunteer is paired with a child through the reading specialist and meets with the same child weekly or more often to read individually and give extra help during the lunch period. 

    Do you have an idea for an after school club that you think children at South Lake would like? Would you like to run this club? Maybe with a friend or two? South Lake students are waiting for you!

    Want to get involved? Questions? Call, text or email Sue Fox: 301-461-0917 foxdsgc@aol.com

Working Towards Racial Equity in Montgomery County

MCPS Black and Brown Coalition for Education Equity and Excellence

Community of Action members Sue Fox and Susan Stern participated in a recent meeting sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) at the invitation of Janice Rosenblatt, currently serving as the group’s Maryland Government and Community Relations Associate.  The meeting was part of the JCRC’s monthly forum of social action chairs convened to discuss current issues.

The October meeting focused on equity in education and included a presentation by Byron Brown, co-founder of the Black and Brown Coalition for Education Equity and Excellence and Chair of the Education Committee and parents Council of the NAACP-MC.  (For more about the Black and Brown Coalition, see the Community of Action Update on this website.)

Sue and Susan presented a summary of how Temple Beth Ami has worked over the past five years to establish a supportive relationship with South Lake Elementary School in Gaithersburg that has included a variety of activities from gathering school and art supplies for students to providing important advocacy work at the local and state level.

Summarizing the presentation, a template for other congregations to use to initiate a relationship with another public school in the county has been created and made available. For further information, contact Susan Stern ssterndragon@gmail.com 

Click here to learn more about MCPS’ Educational Equity and Enrichment Hubs and what you can do to help.

Literacy Council of Montgomery County Virtual Book Talks
Click here to learn more about this series of conversations and for future event dates/speakers.

Civic Engagement

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

To Sue Wohl for all her voting education efforts to let us know how, when, and where we could vote in MOCO and her handy VOTING FAQs that kept us all informed. 

To all our congregants (and their friends) who wrote more than 3,000 postcards to eligible voters in voting restrictive states as part of our Reclaim the Vote campaign with the Religious Action Center and Center for Common Ground. In total, the Religious Action Center cohort (US!) reached 315,000 voters!

We just distributed 3,000 postcards to help mobilize the vote for the Georgia Senate run-off!  Thank you to all of you who are writing out those postcards!!

Please join us virtually for Action in Montgomery’s (AIM) 20th Anniversary celebration on Saturday, December 5 at 7 PM. AIM is a community organizing network of leaders in over 30 churches, synagogues, mosques, schools, and other non-profits that have been working to create positive change and make our county a better place to live for all. The program will be an evening of inspiration, storytelling, and music. This is a great way to hear about AIM’s work in renovating recreation centers in historic African American neighborhoods in Montgomery County, the passage of the Maryland Dream Act, and the establishment and funding of the Housing Initiative Fund which is dedicated to the construction and preservation of affordable housing. It will be a fitting way to celebrate what we hope will be a victory at the County Council on December 1.  Register here. 

  • How We Got Started and What We’ve Done (2016 -2018)

    The Community of Action grew organically out of a two-year URJ/RAC (Union of Reform Judaism/Religious Action Center) community of practice initiative: “Pursuing Justice: Becoming a Community of Action.” Our mission was to educate, act and advocate about a different social issue each year. Since 2016, we have endeavored to take the pulse of the congregation to learn what issue congregants care most about.

    • Nothing But Nets – Anti-Malaria fundraising, education and lobbying campaign
    • Action in Montgomery (AIM) – The Community of Action participated in interfaith AIM meetings, representing TBA and in many cases, the Jewish community. We advocated at the County level for increased funding for after-school programming. We learned about county government and met lay leaders active in congregations across Montgomery County.
    • Listening Sessions – AIM conducted a Listening Session campaign across the county to see what issues residents cared most about. We committed to do listening sessions at Beth Ami and hoped we might be able to use them to select our next advocacy topic. After several months of planning, training (by AIM), and compiling materials (from URJ congregations), we conducted four listening sessions reaching more than 40 congregants in all.  Although no one or two topics emerged, the sessions were beneficial. They provided opportunities for congregants to meaningfully connect. Most people enjoyed them and the feedback we received was “the temple should do more things like this.”  Moreover, they confirmed what seemed apparent generally; that following the 2016 presidential election people were much more politically aware and seemed to be energized to do something, even if what to do was not always apparent.
    • Candidate Forum – Building on the energy we sensed through the Listening Sessions and our greater awareness of the importance of county government, we decided to plan a candidate forum leading up to the June 2018 Maryland primaries. Our intent was to focus on the county council and county executive races. We reached out to other temple groups for partners. The Temple’s Critical Issues Forum was interested and thought it was important to focus on the state delegate races as well. We ran the event together. In all, we ran 5 moderated sessions with a total of 42 county executive and state delegate candidates participating. We secured 10 Jewish and interfaith co-sponsors, and pre-registered almost 400 people.
    • Voter Registration – We developed a non-partisan program with the Maryland Board of Elections and trained 30 volunteers to register voters. In Fall 2018,  we tabled at Montgomery College campuses and local shopping centers and registered over 100 new voters over two weeks. 
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Temple Beth Ami, 14330 Travilah Road Rockville MD, 20850
301-340-6818