New ‘Shluchim’ to Crown Heights?

Repair the World, a progressive-reform Jewish outreach group, has announced the opening of a new community center in Crown Heights. According to the group’s leader, they intend to target the “largely underserved” population of non-Orthodox Jewish millennials in the neighborhood.

From The Jewish Week:

Move over 770 — there’s a new kid on the block.

Taking advantage of demographic changes in heavily Orthodox Crown Heights, Repair the World, a national Jewish service nonprofit focused on food justice and education, announced last week that it is opening a new community center in the neighborhood to serve as a hub for volunteering and community outreach. Nine fulltime fellows, all recent college graduates, will live at the new Nostrand Avenue location and direct programming.

According to Repair the World’s New York City director, Cindy Greenberg, the new branch intends to target the “largely underserved” population of non-Orthodox Jewish millennials in the neighborhood that is home to Chabad-Lubavitch, whose headquarters are at 770 Eastern Parkway.

“Central Brooklyn is overflowing with young Jews looking for engagement, and the opportunities for unaffiliated Jews are very limited,” she said, noting that Repair the World will be the first non-Orthodox institution in the Crown Heights/Bedford Stuyvesant area. The closest up until now is the congregation Reform Union Temple in neighboring Prospect Heights.

Food-justice Shabbat dinners, education programs and “Cocktails with a Conscience,” a happy hour to meet, mingle and talk social action, are poised to enter the Central Brooklyn mix.

“My peers are craving different forms of community,” said Alli Lesovoy, 23, one of the fellows who will be moving into the new Crown Heights location in August.

“As a Jewish millennial, I’m looking for forms of engagement that reflect my values, concerns and priorities,” said Lesovoy, who grew up in a strong Reform household in San Francisco. “Maybe one day when I have a family, I’ll find my community at synagogue services, but that’s definitely not what I’m looking for now.”

Click here to continue reading at The Jewish Week.

43 Comments

  • Very excited

    Now we’re just missing a “reconstructionist” Jewish group, as well as a non denominational one, and then we’ll indeed be a “complete” community.

    (Next should be PETA and J Street, but first things first…)

  • Milhouse

    “Food justice”, like any other kind of hyphenated justice (“social justice”, “environmental justice”, etc.) is a fraud. In particular, this new kind of “justice” is an ideology that’s just plain incoherent. Read their own descriptions of what they mean by this concept, and try to understand what they’re saying. Their descriptions are mere word salad, which I suppose is appropriate. Flaky, crunchy, without substance.

  • They're located pretty far from most of the frum

    They’re at Nostrand and S. John — not exactly centrally located for Lubavitchers.

    And their website included the laughable catch-phrase of “Turn the Tables on Gentrification This Passover”! If it weren’t for gentrification (that is, the influx of Yuppies and Hipsters into Brooklyn), this “shlichus” would never happen! The “Repair the World” volunteers are surely not seeking to hobnob with local non-Jews, nor with the frum.

  • Yep it's time

    Somebody should ‘go’ on shlichus to crown heights…open a typical Chabad on Campus/ Young Adult Chabad House.

  • What a chutzpah

    Did they get permission from hecht?
    How can anyone do anything without permission from the head shliach.

  • Levi

    Before the barrage of wonderful comments begins, everyone please remember: ahavas yisroel was the one thing the Rebbe cared about more than anything. Think before you type.

    • wow!

      To levi: your comment needs to be put up on EVERY ARTICLE! maybe ch.info can add that near: be the first to comment. keep it up!

  • Chossid

    This is so awosme! chabad lite will now have a base with witch to do some outreach.

  • B

    Do not like the headline. Shluchim is a heiloke title chosen by our rebbe

  • Bring it on!

    The Rebbe taught us not to fear idealism in youth but to channel it in the right direction. I welcome them to the neighborhood. It won’t take much for them to appreciate the rich vein of inspiration they can find in chassidus.

  • Tznius will help bring Moshiach

    Look how tznius they are dressed. Way to go Girls. Together we can bring Moshiach.

  • Food Justice?

    Ah yes, the Judaism = food justice (whatever that means) and any other in vogue “progressive” cause and nothing else people have arrived… Nice, idealistic young people no doubt who don’t have a clue.

    • CR

      “Food Justice”, judging from a brief web search, refers to the lack of markets offering basic, nutritious foodstuffs in some locations while being amply served by fast-food restaurants. Interestingly, Crown Heights and even all of Brooklyn does not show up on the Department of Agriculture’s website that covers “food deserts”. So it is not clear exactly what these social justice warrior types hope to accomplish in the Shchuna.

    • Milhouse

      “Food justice” is a nonsense concept. Its proponents can’t even explain what it is in any coherent way.

      The notion of “food deserts” is also nonsense; when the DOA issued its maps they were widely ridiculed and discredited by people visiting these “deserts” and filming all the food that’s available there or immediately close by. (For instance, one “desert” turned out to be the parking lot of a supermarket!) In general markets sell what the customers want, not what some nosy person thinks they should want.

  • very dangerous

    thats very scary and very dangerous hashem should watch over us

  • Important News!!!?????

    Why are you giving an open forum for reform style??? It’s appalling! You are giving an open platform to promote their lifestyle and send our younger generation there. This shouldn’t be publicized here. Those who want will find it on their own. For shame!!

  • Hello??!

    It this isn’t a wake up call, I don’t know what is. We need another Shnas HaBinyon.

  • E

    Stop overreacting people. This is the thing a shliach needs to step up his game. Who said competition is bad?. Competition if understood correctly will push a sliach to work harder and reach more people with quality programing

  • Shluchim?

    If they’re not sent by merlot, then they’re not shluchim. Rather they are mushrooms and they should be given a seat of honor and the “annual mushroom banquet in 770

  • Aderaba

    They’ll all be becoming frum and In yeshivah in 6 months to year. All they are doing is making it easier to find them!!

  • Shloime

    I think its amazing. When we opened chevra Ahavas Yisroel, everyone wrote us off. Why are you guys so intolerant! Its all love and holy! We need to raise the sparks. We should make a joint program or make a shabbaton together. Stop the Bigotry and make the Rebbe proud.

  • About time

    While everyone and her sister on this forum was moaning and groaning about the new populations in neighborhood, some Jews went ahead and did something to engage them… Which is what Lubavitchers used to do… Oh, I forgot, those were the old days. Today Lubavitch has a new mission: Tznius!

  • They say...

    They say “competition is always good for the consumer”. That’s why a free-market system works better than any alternative. It’s time to step up your game, if you want to compete.

  • Stam

    Chasidim, let’s wake up!! There are SO MANY shlichus opportunities still available! right here untern nose. Let’s re-light the fire under us, the way only we can!!

  • everyone chill

    1) these are good people with good intentions. Why all the bashing? So, it’s not our way. Big deal. They are still doing something good!

    2) there is very definitely a need for more outreach here. they are right about that too. the landscape of crown heights has changed drastically in the last couple of years and there are many more Jews in the area.

    3) there is a need for shlichus in our very own community too. I know so many girls who move to crown heights to work and know very few people here.

  • Howard Seline

    Crown Heights Is simply Trending to where is was in The 1930’s 40’s & 50’s
    True we where all taking in By Surprise; But The issue at hand Now Is To Protect our Hassidic Way of Life especially The teens & Young Adults.

  • chassid

    lets give the women shabbos candles and the men tefillin. invite them over for shabbos meals, which will lead to shabbos, kashrus, and a full fledged authentic jewish background al pi taharas hakodesh

  • Beware, be aware...

    Reform forbids wearing kippas, and considers non-jews Jewish if they are married to a born Jew. This means their children are not really Jewish, but think they are. Really a very dangerous precedent.

    • Not True and Nothing to Fear

      I grew up in a so called “Reform” Jewish family. There was no real belief involved in it – it was more a cultural, identity thing. We simply lacked knowledge about true Judaism. But more than anything else, there was very present the inate desire to do acts of goodness and kindness. We should welcome and be “m’karov” them.

    • Milhouse

      They don’t forbid kippot any more. They dropped that about 50 years ago.

  • Meir Shoimeh

    I hope they know what is awaiting them. Mad Tefillin wrap-ups and Friday candles distributions and some amazing mivtzoim. (Needless to day, Shabbat in 770 will be a little more packed.)
    ;)

  • Academia

    As someone who has studied in academic settings what different movements believe, Reform Judaism believes in informed choices, meaning, let them choose from Torah what is meaningful to them. Shomer shabbos but want to eat treif? OK. Hash-m isn’t in the picture if they don’t want.

    NOT arguing for this, G-d forbid, just trying to explain what the movement actually believes. But remember, a yid is a yid is a yid and we must treat all people with kindness.

  • bl452

    bring someone like Yossi Jacobson down to meet and speak with them.
    and yes, this is a sign that we are living in Crown Heights but not functioning as who the Rebbe expects us to be. Cut the loshon hora, etc. and there might be time for this. Some of our teens may otherwise be interested in what these people have to offer, if they don’t see the beauty and tachlis in the Rebbe’s inyonim. Its a wake up call.