Reviewed by Morris Rodentstein

Pursuing Justice
In the 1990's, the federal government ended its 60-year safety net guarantee to the poor, shifting responsibility to the states and local communities with limited resources. This means that the burden increasingly has moved to community groups, like America's churches, synagogues, temples and mosques, which have a long tradition of caring for the needy—a shift in responsibility that challenges the foundation of faith communities across the country.

As these religious institutions seek ways to effectively mesh their spiritual and faith based beliefs with these ever expanding needs, deciding how best to get started often slows down the process. The problems seem so numerous and the energy and resources of the individual congregation seem somewhat limited. "Where do we start" often leads to discouragement or inertia.

Thanks to a wonderful book entitled Acting on Your Faith: Congregations Making a Difference, congregations now have an excellent resource to learn how people from different faiths and denominations throughout the United States are taking active steps to pursue justice in a myriad of different ways. The guide helps break down some of the barriers between faiths by providing inspirational profiles of different congregations focusing on different problems. Particularly intriguing were the examples where groups from very different belief systems were able to unite for a common goal. In these cases, both congregations learned valuable lessons about each other while doing "mitzvot," good deeds.

The book also provides a useful step-by-step guide that helps a community service or social action committee decide which issues they want to concentrate their efforts and how they want to proceed. In addition, including the contact names, congregational names, addresses and phone numbers, interested groups can easily call and ask more specific questions about how a specific congregation chose a project and the steps involved.

As a professional child advocate and a board member of a Conservative synagogue in Washington, DC, I highly recommend this inspirational and useful resource to any congregation—Jewish, Christian or Muslim—that wants to pursue G-d's admonition of Tikkun Olam, to create a more just world. In the Jewish tradition, we are taught to revere our teachers. The authors of this book—Victor Claman and David Butler with Jessica Boyatt—deserve our praise and our thanks for teaching us how we collectively can work toward the goal G-d had in mind when G-d created men and women. Yasher ko'ach—well done!

Morris Rodenstein is the Membership Support Director of the National Association of Child Advocates in Washington, DC. He has spent over 25 years working with social change organizations including the Public Education Fund Network, Co-op America, the Infant Formula Action Coalition, the American Food for Hunger Foundation, and Oxfam-America. He also served in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps volunteer. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife Judy, his daughter Sarah and his son Asaf.