History of Panim el Panim

Moving from Active Voice to Social Action

Since its inception in January 2003, Panim el Panim has brought the congregation together in conversation around social justice issues and provided a collective base of ideas and individuals from which we are deepening and expanding BJ’s efforts towards tikkun olam, healing the world. Thank you to everyone who has invested time in Panim el Panim. Because of your efforts, we have been able to discover what social justice issues our community cares passionately about, how Judaism influences our relationship with social justice, and what social justice issues the BJ community can engage in.

Who Asked and Who Listened?

From October through early December 2003, over 650 one-on-one conversations took place between congregants, and 31 congregants opened their homes and committee meetings to host Panim el Panim gatherings. In addition, a Sukkot kickoff and early December celebration were each attended by over 200 congregants, and more than 90 congregants attended two community check-back sessions in between to hear about what issues were uncovered. Each of our individual voices, visions, and passions propelled us from building one-on-one relationships to engaging in meaningful and effective social change work on issues that affect both the BJ community and our larger world.

What Happened Next?

As a result of all these conversations, the Panim el Panim Task Force created four action hevras (friendship groups, or working committees), each one based on a broad area of concern identified by the congregation. Hevra members learned many skills through a series of workshops in the concepts and methods of community organizing. They invested time and energy to find, within those broad areas, specific issues on which they could take action. They also identified partnerships with other congregations, community groups, labor unions, and a school, so that our work would always bring us into meaningful relationships with other communities that are also affected by these issues.

Four action hevras were established as initial areas of focus: Health Care and Economic Hardship, Women’s Rights, Environmental Action, and Children’s Rights. Between the spring of 2004 and the summer of 2005, these action hevras:

  • Trained more than 100 congregants to lobby elected officials.
  • Registered and educated hundreds of Pennsylvania voters about reproductive rights.
  • Started a partnership with P.S. 125 in Morningside Heights that continues to grow.
  • Forged a coalition which passed a City Council Resolution encouraging city agencies to purchase Fair Trade coffee.
  • Played a pivotal role in the passage of the NYC Health Care Security Act, ensuring health care coverage for 56,000 low-income workers.

Engaging New Activists, Renewing Our Energy

In November and December 2005, we hosted 18 house meetings at which nearly 180 congregants developed relationships with one another, reflected on their Jewish values, and envisioned how we could make significant change in New York. Throughout January and February 2006, a dedicated group of about 50 activists attended our Leadership and Action Training Series to learn strategies for effective action and to create a recommendation for a new round of action campaigns.

The Panim el Panim Task Force – the leadership and coordination body for the hevras – established a revised set of hevras with new campaigns. The current hevras, as of April 2006, are:

  • Environmental Action
  • Health Care
  • Marriage Equality
  • Women’s Rights

Their accomplishments so far include:

  • Launching a “Greening BJ” initiative in our congregation.
  • Leading voices of faith in support of access to health care and comprehensive sex education in NY State.
  • Assembling over 400 people of faith, including 22 clergy, for an interfaith prayer action in support of marriage equality in NY State.

Read a more detailed history of Panim el Panim by BJ’s rabbis, a “how-we-did-it” manual that covers the development of Panim el Panim from its inception in early 2003 through its first round of successful actions through the Summer of 2005.  Panim Our Story

Learn more about our “Current Action Hevras and Campaigns”

See BJ featured in a video about congregation-based community organizing, created by our partners at the Jewish Funds for Justice.

To join an action hevra, contact Channa Camins or ext 259.