Health Care - Health care costs are spiraling out of control. They currently consume 37% of our state budget and divert resources from other important public services, such as education, safety, transportation, and infra-structure improvement. Left unchecked, these costs also threaten the Health Care Reform legislation of 2006, which has given Massachusetts nearly universal health care coverage, for which we can be proud. Our Jewish tradition calls on us to address the injustices of inadequate and unaffordable health care.

Members of Temple Isaiah Social Action Committee, through our affiliation with GBIO (Greater Boston Interfaith Organization), have been working to address this issue. A GBIO Health Care Team, including Temple Isaiah members, has been meeting with leaders from across the health care community to learn about the drivers of these increasing costs and what can be done to contain them. GBIO has called for a freeze on health care premiums until a more sustainable plan to control costs can been implemented. And in addition, GBIO has developed its own public policy positions to insure that the consumer voice is being heard in whatever health care legislation moves forward.

To learn more about our Healthcare Campaign click HERE and then click on the Healthcare Campaign Tab.

Our Tzedek team will be presenting a special event focused on Health Care Reform on March 5, 2012. Please click Gruber-Rosman Speaking Event for details.

We want to get more members of the Temple Isaiah community involved in this important campaign. If you are interested in participating, or would like more information, please contact Don Detweiler, Larry Fuhrman, Debbie Wengrovitz, or Karen Freidberg (see Temple Directory).

Environmental Action - Past work has included participation (with LEFTY) in a nationwide campaign to address the global warming crisis. This ranged from selling energy efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, organizing a film showing of An Inconvenient Truth, and we organized a Yom Shabbat program entitled “Shomrei Adamah: Guardians of the Earth,” focusing on how environmental sensitivity (being “green”) is part of being Jewish.

More recently our efforts have focused around the greening of the Temple. We organized several environmental energy audits by NStar and KeySpan to identify opportunities to improve the efficient use of our resources and are working closely with the Temple House Committee to identify how to address the opportunities identified. We participate with the local Lexington Interfaith Environmental Coalition; Joyce Greif is our representative.

Upcoming opportunities for action focus on sustainable living and interfaith community farming.

Youth and Safety - Together with the many congregations in GBIO we have initiated a campaign to address the issue of youth safety. Our concerns include many significant dangers that our youths are confronted with -- bulimia, anorexia, bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and other mental health issues. We held house meetings to engage Temple members interested in this issue in discussions to identify key concerns. And, with Emily Messenger’s leadership, we worked with our Temple teens to learn from them the problems they see and face.

In 2009, we held an Assembly at Temple Isaiah at which 150 Temple members, community leaders, and school officials came to listen and hear our concerns about excessive academic stress in our public schools. And we received commitments from the school leadership to partner with us in addressing these concerns. In 2010, eight other congregations joined us in this effort and together we organized a major forum held at Church of Our Redeemer on October 24, 2010. Nine PTAs agreed to co-sponsor this forum, making it truly a town-wide effort to address the issue of unhealthy student stress. For further information contact our team leader Robert Nierman.

Economic Crisis - This endeavor was initiated as a response to the economic collapse of 2008/2009. Inside Temple Isaiah, we organized house meetings and collaborated with Brotherhood and Sisterhood on events to help folks find jobs. We are now working along three thrusts: networking to find jobs, support groups, and support for home-based entrepreneurs.

Together with the Greater Boston Synagogue Organizing Project (GBSOP), we worked with other Greater Boston synagogues on recommending actions to take within the Jewish community and have provided Combined Jewish Philanthropies with the results of our house meetings. And together with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), we worked on four research teams that GBIO formed (jobs, student loans, credit card debt, and mortgage foreclosure).

Two year's ago GBIO joined with 16 other faith-based community organizing groups to kick-off a national campaign on the economic crisis focusing on excessive interest rates and demanding a national cap on interest rates of 10%. The coalition is called the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation (Metro IAF). Engaging is a national campaign is a new direction for GBIO. For more information on the campaign see http://www.10percentisenough.org/.

Aging with Dignity - Together with the many congregations in GBIO, we have been working to address the challenges of elders and their loved ones. Within the Temple, we are working with our emerging “caring committee” and held a forum entitled “Elder Care is a Family Affair,” co-sponsored with SAGE and Sisterhood. With GBIO, we are focused on ensuring adequate support for Massachusetts’s elders to find ways to age within their community.

Currently, we are following up on the agreement GBIO, negotiated with the State’s Office of Elder Affairs, agreeing to improve the systems for elders to learn about and navigate the Massachusetts elder care system. This has included that development of a new State Elder Care website, which GBIO and Temple Isaiah members will be reviewing as part of that agreement.

Greater Boston Synagogue Organizing Project (GBSOP) - Temple Isaiah was one of four founding synagogues of GBSOP, a partnership that promoted community based organizing as a new addition and approach to synagogue social action work. Through this partnership, Temple Isaiah, Temple Beth El of Sudbury, Temple Emanuel, and Temple Israel had hired Meir Lakein in 2004-2007 as a professional organizer to guide us in learning about and applying this model. GBSOP as originally constituted ended and transitioned into a core program of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). A team of JCRC organizers under the leadership of Meir Lakein (new director of JCRC’s GBSOP) now works with over a dozen synagogues in Greater Boston. Temple Isaiah can be proud of our contribution to this endeavor. 

See http://www.jcrcboston.org/focus/justice/synagogue/greater-boston-synagogue.html for more details.

The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) is a broad-based organization that works to coalesce, train, and organize the communities of Greater Boston across all religious, racial, ethnic, class and neighborhood lines for the public good. GBIO has over 60 member institutions including faith institutions that encompass the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities.

Successes include the enactment of the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act where GBIO was a key coalition member, local community campaigns on Youth Safety, and successful legislation and agreements with the Executive Office of Elder Affairs to promote Aging with Dignity. These campaigns continue but GBIO is currently focusing on addressing the current economic crisis both locally and nationally.

For more information on GBIO see http://www.gbio.org/.