Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh La Zeh: The People of Israel Are Responsible for One Another
Posted on 03/31/2023 @ 06:00 AM
Photo from Lehrman Community Day School
It’s always sad to meet someone who has no idea what the Greater Miami Jewish Federation does for our community.
Even many people who support Federation only know of one or two aspect of the work it does, or think it only sends money to Israel, forgetting the amazing work it sustains in Jewish communities around the world and of course, here at home.
Individuals, families, seniors, Holocaust survivors, day school students, teens, at-risk youth our partnership town of Yerucham in Israel, Ultra-Orthodox women, Ethiopian-Israelis, and the list goes on and on.
What do these very disparate groups of people all have in common?
They have all benefitted from funds raised by the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.
Since Federation gives more than 2 million dollars to support our 10 community-funded day schools, CAJE and Federation partnered together to help schools increase their student, teacher and parent knowledge of the work Federation does here locally, in Israel and around the world.
We decided to call it the Federation/CAJE Day School Partnership Project and to focus on Federation’s work during the week of March 6 – 10 leading up to Super Sunday by designating it Federation Week in our 10 community-funded day schools.
School leaders and dedicated parents organized age-appropriate activities for their students around one of Federation’s impact areas: Food Insufficiency and Economic Insecurity.
The holiday of Purim fell that same week, which was a great way to illustrate two of the mitzvot we perform on Purim: Mishloach Manot (gifts of food) and Matanot La’evyonim (gifts to the needy – usually tzedakah).
"At Hochberg Lower School – Posnack East, we organized a We CAN make a CHANGE campaign and had our students bring cans of food to fill up the principal’s office as well as tzedakah. It was so beautiful to see how excited they were each morning to drop off their cans and fill up their tzedakah boxes. We are so proud to announce that our students raised a total $2,511.61 over Federation Week to help Federation combat food insufficiency and economic insecurity!"
Please watch this beautiful 3 minute video that Lehrman School produced!
One of the additional outcomes of this project was how educators from all denominations and schools worked together to craft curricula and ideas surrounding Federation week.
An example of the kind of cross-denominational collaboration that CAJE and Federation encourage is what transpired at Lehrman Community Day School.
Rabbi Yaakov Fried, a middle school Judaics teacher at Yeshiva Toras Chaim Toras Emes, had created an interactive PowerPoint for children to learn about the work the various agencies of Federation accomplish in our community and Ayala Zeev, Director of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Lehrman, used it at her school.
As you can see, our children are learning experientially about the values of V’ahavta L’Rei'acha Kamocha: Love your neighbor as yourself, and Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh La Zeh: The people of Israel are family.
For more information about Federation’s work here in Miami, in Israel and around the world, view the Annual Report.
