Diversity Outreach

The Diversity Outreach Committee has three goals:

• To build relationships, alliances and coalitions with individuals and other diverse groups with whom we can share our histories, cultures, and religions. By reaching out, we can build friendships and alliances that will effect positive changes in our lives, in our communities, and in the world around us.  Our congregants have found this work uplifting and hopeful in a world where Jews are often isolated from others in particular ways.  Individuals in the groups have made lasting friendships without compromising our own uniqueness.  We learn to respect other cultures and they ours.
• To devise strategies that will educate others on issues of anti-Semitism with the final goal of ending it, and at the same time, will alert our members to understanding and eliminating the oppression of others.
• To develop projects together that will address certain needs in the larger community.

Some specific programs that CBS has been involved with include:

• An African-American/Jewish Coalition Group, which met for several years, and the constituents, continue to maintain their friendships.  Several model Passover Seders have been conducted in the last few years, and more are planned.
• Participation in the Darfur vigil at the Holocaust Museum
• A Muslim speaker at our synagogue.
• Joint programs with Faith Lutheran Church, which is next door to the synagogue, including:
  
  
• “Meet the Neighbors”. Meetings in which the Lutherans and our congregants learned about each others’ religion and customs.
• Watching a movie together about Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran Pastor and ecumenical leader who saved many Jews and was hanged for his resistance against the Nazis.
• A model Passover Seder for teens at the Lutheran Church, in which the teens learned about Passover.

Since 2006 CBS has been designated a “No Place for Hate”, and “Community of Respect” organization by the Anti-Defamation League

We are always interested in developing new relationships with other communities, and we welcome participation, either as a committee member, or attending our wonderful and open events.