BRING ON THE LIGHT IN THIS CONVERSATION, Rabbi Ron Symons and Melissa
Marching through JCC. Courtesy of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.
Hiller, Founding Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of
a community hub for convening, gathering, and forging
the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Center for
bonds. From the beginning, we envisioned CFLK as a
Loving Kindness and Civic Engagement, reflect upon the history,
place where neighbors can live in community with one
philosophy, and activities of the CFLK.
another based on our shared humanity and through real and perceived differences. We amplify the long-held
MH: It’s hard to believe that the Center for Loving
values of ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ and ‘Do not
Kindness and Civic Engagement (CFLK), the Jewish
stand idle while your neighbor bleeds.’ We redefine
Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s social
‘neighbor’ from a geographic term to a moral concept.
justice arm, will celebrate its fifth year in 2022. Its seeds were planted even before 2017 as we
MH: These ideals are so intertwined with the JCC’s
considered how the JCC could respond to the widely
overall mission—Community is our middle name—that
reported public ambivalence towards participating in
it made sense to establish a formal civic engagement
civic life, loss of confidence in the future of the U.S.,
model within it.
and flagging trust in public institutions. At a hyperlocal level, even conversations at the JCC showed
RS: The launch date of CFLK is significant to us because
us that people were feeling alienated and deeply
certain August historical events are emblematic of
concerned about racial justice, equity, systems that
our highest ideals and our worst selves. On August
make it impossible for neighbors to thrive, and the
28, 1963, during the March on Washington, Rabbi
future of democracy in our country…and that they
Joachim Prinz, a Holocaust survivor, immigrant, and
want to wrestle with these pressing and complicated
civil rights leader, called on demonstrators with a
issues.
mandate that underpins our own mission: “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. It means
RS: When we launched CFLK in August 2017, those
our collective responsibility for the preservation of
concerns ignited us to draw upon the JCC’s history as
man’s dignity and integrity.” On the other side of the
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