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Our Process


Just Congregations – is the new Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) initiative, a grassroots effort to hear from congregants about local, regional, and national issues that concern them and then organize to address those concerns. For the past 18 months, Beth Emet has been participating in this new effort to promote congregation-based community organizing around social justice issues. 

Just Congregations teaches Reform Jewish synagogues to strengthen relationships within their congregations, to reach out to the broader community, and to become effective in combating injustice. Our corresponding non-Jewish Partner in this effort here in Cook County is United Power and Justice, under the direction of Matt McDermott. The new regional URJ representative is Julie Chizewer Weil. Both United Power and Julie Weil have been working closely with our leadership team.

Rabbi London was instrumental in getting Just Congregations started at Beth Emet. The effort has been co-chaired by Emily Axelrod and Patti Gerbie. To date 24 members have signed up to be trained to do one-on-one interviews and have completed more than 100 one-on-ones.

Each member-interviewer reports the information from their personal one-on-one onto a form devised by the Leadership Team. The information about all the issues that concern members are tabulated by the leadership team: Emily Axelrod, Patti Gerbie, Jane Weintraub, Jack Levie, and Myra Glassman. By charting the issues that people bring up, we are able to focus on issues that may be common to many members, such as health care, education, poverty.

We are continuing to hold one-on-ones while also working on arranging house meetings that bring members together to find possible ways to join in concert to address a shared concern. For more information, contact Patti Gerbie.