Our Temple Isaiah Organizing Project (TIOP) has developed action teams organized around the following issue areas. We have a core team of 6-8 members who support TIOP strategic planning.

Environmental Action: Last year we kicked off our efforts together with LEFTY by participating in a nationwide campaign to address the global warming crisis. LEFTY sold energy efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs at a number of events including a film showing we organized of An Inconvenient Truth. Last Fall our environmental action team, led by Roy Crystal kicked the New Year off with a Yom Shabbat program entitled Shomrei Adamah: Guardians of the Earth, focusing on how environmental sensitivity (being “green”) is part of being Jewish. Speakers included Rabbi Everett Gendler and a panel led by team-member Roy Crystal with Barbara Batshalom, a world-renowned expert on "green buildings", Jay Kaufman, Nancy Shepard, Nancy Reiner, Joyce Greif and Elliot Gimble. Robin Reiner of our team led a special program for children.

Our efforts then focused around the Greening of the Temple. We have organized several environmental energy audits by NStar and KeySpan to identify opportunities to improve the efficient use of our resources and are working closely with the Temple House Committee to identify how to address the opportunities identified. In addition, the Social Action Committee recently purchased a bike rack, which you might have noticed sitting next to the front entrance. And we participate with the local Minuteman Interfaith Environmental Coalition; Joyce Greif is our representative.

Aging With Dignity: Together with the many congregations in GBIO, we are working to address the challenges of elders and their loved ones. Within the temple, we are working with our emerging “caring committee” on areas such as transportation, sharing information on resources, support groups, and honoring caregivers. With GBIO, we are focused on ensuring adequate support for Massachusetts’s elders to find ways to age within their community.

Our efforts were kicked of last year with a series of house meetings in February and March. We then supported State elder care action to preserve the promise of Equal Choice for elders through calls and visits with our legislators. Originally passed in the summer of 2006, “Equal Choice” provides a more balanced approach to the delivery of care for Medicaid-eligible seniors and persons with disabilities allowing them to receive a variety of services at home in their own community. We also distributed 50 free copies (courtesy of GBIO) of the newly published Family Caregiver Handbook- Finding Elder Care Resources in Massachusetts. This terrific handbook is designed to help navigate the complexities of eldercare information and services available in the Commonwealth and also provides information for the long-distance caregiver.

Last August, GBIO efforts included external research, meeting with town-based Councils on Aging (COA). This was one of a three-pronged set of external GBIO research actions that evolved over the summer, the others being around affordable housing (expiring use agreements) and bringing together family care givers with professional caregivers to find common ground. During the fall, Aging With Dignity leaders met with the directors and staff of Councils on Aging in Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Boston–Jamaica Plain, Brookline, Cambridge, Lexington, Newton, Quincy, Somerville, Watertown and Winchester. Teams from Temple Isaiah met with the COAs of Bedford and Lexington.

On Sunday, October 14, Temple Isaiah held a major forum entitled, Elder Care is a Family Affair. Co-sponsored with SAGE and Sisterhood, and organized by Debby Wengrovitz and Donna Popkin, this forum brought leading experts in the field to Temple Isaiah to address the issues of elder care and the unique needs of older adults.

Youth and Safety: Together with the many congregations in GBIO we have initiated a campaign to address the issue of youth safety. Our concerns include many significant dangers that our youths are confronted with -- bulimia, anorexia, bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and other mental health issues. We are currently holding house meetings to engage Temple members interested in this issue in discussions to identify key concerns. In addition, we are bringing together Temple members who have expertise in youth issues to join together in a conversation to discover what might be opportunities to take action. And, with Emily Messenger’s leadership, we are working with our Temple teens to learn from them the problems they see and face.

Other areas of activity this year include Health Care Action (see below), hosting conversations on the War in Iraq, and engaging in a dialogue on Socially Responsible Investing by Temple Isaiah. A task group is being formed to address the issues of the Kashrut of Money with leadership from the Finance Group and supported with Social Action Committee leaders. The initial impetus for this was concern over investment in companies doing major business in the Sudan but is now taking on a much broader perspective.

Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)

In this first year of Temple Isaiah’s GBIO membership, GBIO moved forward on three fronts. Core initiatives for the year included:

Temple Isaiah folks were involved with all three initiatives, but are focusing on the second and third initiatives. Chuck Koplik joined the GBIO Strategy Team during 2007. During the year, our Temple leaders were active in planning and running actions and meetings, in lobbying legislators, and in forging alliances with strategic partners.

Health Care Affordability
Massachusetts has a universal health care law, thanks in part to efforts of Healthcare for All, GBIO and other advocacy organizations that kept pressure on the Legislature and Governor to pass this legislation. But, as always, the devil is in the details. This is particularly evident in implementing the law, which requires everyone in Massachusetts to have health care insurance, as long as it is creditable (adequate coverage) and affordable. GBIO expended much effort over the past year in two areas:

1) Making sure that the promise of affordability was met. To this end, GBIO was a constant presence at hearings on the new law run by the Commonwealth Healthcare Connector, the entity charged with implementation. A highlight of this campaign was a March press release and State House rally on affordability, the theme of which was “Do No Harm,” (i. e. don't penalize persons who really can't afford the available health insurance products).
2) Encouraging everyone without adequate coverage, particularly members of GBIO congregations, to enroll in the program. Over the summer, GBIO trained leaders in the congregations to conduct workshops to explain the new law and describe enrollment procedures.

On Sunday, September 30, Temple Isaiah held a Healthcare Outreach and Information Session. This was part of an outreach and enrollment campaign by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization being held in 50 GBIO institutions in September and October 2007. The purpose is to help congregants understand the new healthcare law, their opportunities and their new obligations under the law. Harriet Nezer and Robert Nierman, who led our session, did a great job in helping people learn about the new law. The success of this and other efforts has exceeded expectations, and in fact, enrollment so far appears to be higher than had been predicted.

Aging With Dignity
Temple Isaiah was particularly active in developing an agenda for the Aging With Dignity initiative.
GBIO supported Massachusetts’s legislation to put home and nursing home care on a more equal financial footing (the “Equal Choice” law) and to provide better training and certification for Personal Care Attendants. As with Health Care affordability, implementation of these laws was an issue GBIO followed closely in 2007. We lobbied the legislature to pass certain amendments aimed at making Equal Choice a reality. We met with Secretary Jennifer Carey (Elder Affairs) to provide input on the Pre-Admissions Counseling provisions of the Equal Choice Law. We pressed allies in the Legislature to add money to the Enhanced Community Options Program (ECOP), a program that helps fund home care for seniors above the income threshold that would qualify them for MassHealth. On April 9, we joined MassHomeCare, SEIU 1199 and others at a State House rally in support of the theme “Equal Choice = Real Options”, targeted at the ECOP and other budget
amendments. We were successful in adding funds to ECOP.

Feedback from Temple Isaiah house meetings (and similar events at congregations across Greater Boston) contributed to the development of an Aging With Dignity “Vision Statement” that helped guide further plans for action. At a GBIO assembly on March 14, our stories were joined with the stories from 21 Christian and Jewish congregations that had held similar dialogues to ours involving a total of 437 people. The assembly, led by the GBIO Elder Care Team Leaders (including Temple Isaiah members) formulated an Aging with Dignity Bill of Rights/Responsibilities. We are using this as a public statement of what motivates us toward action. We reported on continuing efforts to identify and create relationships with strategic allies, including AARP, Mass Assoc of Older Americans, Boston Partnership for Older Adults, Mass Senior Action, Mass Home Care and Mass Extended Care.

During the fall, Aging With Dignity leaders met with the directors and staff of Councils on Aging (see above), and in January GBIO held a Workforce-Family Caregiver Conversation. Attended by Temple Isaiah members and attendees from churches and synagogues across Boston, this was a guided conversation between 5 personal care attendants and home health care workers, and 5 family caregivers (all coming from GBIO member institutions). We explored both "what are the difficulties and challenges in being a personal care attendant" and "what are the difficulties and challenges in being a caregiver".

Following our Fall external research actions, the GBIO leadership team met several times to discuss a new initiative: a pilot test of a novel way to provide geriatric case management to elders and their loved ones struggling to “navigate the system” and home care support to facilitate “aging in place”. At a year-end Delegates Assembly on December 3, held at Roxbury Presbyterian Church, GBIO team members helped present the Aging With Dignity agenda to nearly 300 delegates (including 10 from Temple Isaiah). Other members of the GBIO leadership team described progress on GBIO's other two initiatives: 1) pressing the Connector, the Administration and the Legislature to fully implement the Massachusetts affordable healthcare program and 2) a neighborhood-based effort to protect our youth by combating violence, teen suicide, and substance abuse.

Leadership
GBIO supported leadership development programs included a multi-temple gathering on Sunday, July 22nd at the Arlington Senior Center (Multi-Temple Leadership Retreat on Congregation-Based Community Organizing). Attending were a dozen leaders from Temple Isaiah and leaders from Shir Tikvah of Winchester, Beth El Temple Center of Belmont, and Temple Emunah.

In addition, to this local program, Temple Isaiah continued to be an active and key member of the GBIO Aging with Dignity Campaign. Temple Isaiah participated and helped lead GBIO’s Aging with Dignity meeting on October 1, where 21 congregations and over 50 leaders met to plan next steps. And Don Detweiler, Robert Nierman, Debbie Wengrovitz and Chuck Koplik attended a GBIO Key Leaders Retreat on September 30 to help GBIO plan for their coming 10th anniversary year.

On January 27-28, Rabbi Carey Brown and several temple members attended a GBIO leadership retreat. It was an opportunity to join with 100 other clergy and lay leaders from Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations working together on the issues of Health Care, Aging With Dignity, and Youth and Safety. Working together, we hope to make a real difference in the Commonwealth. On May 27, Temple Isaiah together with the other members of GBIO will join together in a major GBIO assembly on these issues, joined by Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino of Boston among others. We hope you will join us there.

Greater Boston Synagogue Organizing Project (GBSOP)
Through July of last year, Temple Isaiah was one of four founding synagogues of GBSOP, a three-year old partnership that promoted community based organizing as a new addition and approach to synagogue social action work. Through this partnership, Temple Isaiah, Temple Beth El of Sudbury, Temple Emanuel, and Temple Israel had hired Meir Lakein as a professional organizer to guide us in learning about and applying this model. GBSOP as originally constituted ended last summer but was transformed into a core program of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) as a result of GBSOP and JCRC success in raising major grant money to continue and substantially broaden the effort. A team of JCRC organizers under the leadership of Meir Lakein (new director of JCRC’s GBSOP) now works with over a dozen synagogues in Greater Boston including new members Beth Eloheim of Wellesley, Temple Shalom of Newton, and Temple Shir Tikvah of Wayland. Temple Isaiah can be proud of our contribution to this endeavor.