Updates from JCUA

Or Tzedek teens take on the Bring Chicago Home campaign

| By JCUA
Categories: Youth Programs
| Tags: , ,
By Noa Polish, Or Tzedek cohort 2021-2022 Throughout Or Tzedek, we’ve been learning about organizing and where it exists on the continuum of change-making. (I’d always perceived organizing as the right way to enact change and other forms as somehow lesser, but I’ve been delighted to learn that all forms of action can, should, and …

Read More

Celebrating CVP’s Impact: 2021 Investor Report

| By Jonathan Elbaz
Categories: CVP
| Tags: , , ,
2021 was yet another banner year for JCUA’s Community Ventures Program, during which we continued to build strong Chicagoland neighborhoods by supporting critical projects for affordable housing and economic development. Through CVP, JCUA partners with nonprofit developers, awarding zero-interest loans that get projects off the ground and create living-wage jobs for local residents. We strive to …

Read More

Alana Chandler uses food to explore the experiences of Jews of Color

| By Gwen Tucker
Categories: Membership
| Tags: , ,
For Alana Chandler, growing up in Chicago’s Jewish community with both a Jewish and Japanese background could be an isolating experience. “I didn’t know there were Jews of Color in Chicago,” she said. “I only really knew my sister and myself.” After graduating from a Jewish day school, Alana found an intentional community through a …

Read More

An MLK Day message from JCUA and IMAN

| By Jonathan Elbaz
Categories: Statements
On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we are relieved that the people inside Congregation Beth Israel emerged unharmed, and we send prayers of healing to the individuals, their families, the people of Colleyville, and the entire Jewish community. As faith leaders came together to offer support and condemn the attack, we were reminded that …

Read More

Celebrating seven years of organizing for justice

| By JCUA Admin
Categories: Other
The Hebrew year 5782, in which we find ourselves, is a Shmita year. Just as we sanctify the seventh day of creation with Shabbat, the Torah commands us to set aside every seventh year for rest, renewal, and redistribution. During the Shmita, agricultural lands lie fallow, debts are forgiven, and shared resources become freely accessible. In our modern, post-agrarian …

Read More