January 14, 1999 | Read Time: 4 minutes
A decade ago, David Rosenn wanted to volunteer at a non-profit group that would allow him to combine his Jewish faith with opportunities to help alleviate urban poverty.
ALSO SEE:
Information on Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps
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But he could not find what he was looking for. “If you wanted to work on issues affecting urban society, and wanted to do it in a Jewish framework,” he says, “you basically had to leave the country.”
In 1996, Mr. Rosenn, now a 31-year-old, created a non-profit organization to fill that gap. He founded Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps, in New York. Avodah is a Hebrew word that can mean work, worship, or service.
“Our program is an effort to connect all three of those meanings,” Mr. Rosenn says. “Our ability to make real changes in society are dependent upon real changes in our hearts and our souls.”
The idea behind Avodah and other faith-based service programs, Mr. Rosenn says, is that they provide an opportunity for individuals to “identify service as a part of who you are, and not just as something you choose to do.”
He adds: “What I’m trying to do for myself and for the people in our program is to create a lifetime investment in working on social-justice issues.”
Avodah offers a year-long community-service program for young Jews who want to work on America’s pressing social problems. Participants combine Jewish study with jobs at non-profit organizations that fight illiteracy, help the homeless, organize community activists, and other such activities.
The first class of Avodah fellows, nine in total, began their work in August. They are employed by New York City organizations such as the Chinese-American Planning Council and the Urban Justice Center.
The fellows live together in a house in Brooklyn where the rent is partly paid by Avodah. They receive a $550 monthly stipend from the non-profit groups where they work, as well as subway fare and health insurance.
Throughout the year, the fellows attend a series of workshops, which deal with topics such as Torah study, techniques for community organizing, and the way the AIDS epidemic has affected the poor.
Mr. Rosenn hopes that the fellowship program will motivate young Jews to make a lifelong commitment to philanthropy — whether that means working at a non-profit organization, making charitable gifts, or volunteering.
So do the foundations supporting his work. Elizabeth Greenstein, a program assistant at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which has given close to $50,000 to Avodah, says, “Not only is it an innovative project, but it’s an innovative way to bring the next generation into these things.”
Cummings is but one foundation that is looking to Mr. Rosenn as they consider how best to help and work with Jewish youth. In December, Mr. Rosenn was one of a dozen young leaders invited to a three-day conference in California held by the Walter and Elise Haas Foundation; the Righteous Persons Foundation, which was founded by the film maker Steven Spielberg to finance Jewish causes; and the Cummings Foundation, to find out what young people are thinking about, and discover ways that the foundations could support the young leaders’ work in Jewish philanthropy.
In creating his organization, Mr. Rosenn says he was influenced by similar service programs based on other faiths. In 1991, as Mr. Rosenn was trying to figure out what career to pursue, he worked for a year as a legislative assistant for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, in Washington. During that time he became acquainted with the Rev. John Steinbruck, pastor of Luther Place Church who created the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, based on the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.
Mr. Rosenn says he was impressed by what the church’s volunteers had accomplished, including setting up transitional housing for the homeless and establishing a free medical clinic.
“I thought, this is it,” he says. “This is a way for people to put their values into action and make a commitment to make a positive change in society.”
But first, Mr. Rosenn decided to attend rabbinical school. In the fall of 1992 he moved to New York to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and was ordained as a conservative rabbi in 1997.
More than his Jewish beliefs prompted him to become a rabbi. Mr. Rosenn — who graduated with a degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1989 — says he wanted to find a way to avoid the problems that plagued numerous non-profit leaders he had met.
“I noticed a fairly high rate of turnover in social-service agencies,” Mr. Rosenn recalls.
“I wanted to go into the field of social change, and I didn’t want to burn out or go cynical. I didn’t want to do it for five years and then find myself leaving the work or worse, staying in it and not having the passion or idealism.”
So he sought out people who had been in non-profit work for several years. He says many attributed their survival to their outside interests, and religion was a big part in many of their lives.
Says Mr. Rosenn, “I hope that attempts to create structures based on this model of integrating people’s spiritual concerns and social concerns will be something that characterizes the next generation of not only American Jewish life, but of American society.”
