Resources
Ritual. Support. Advocacy. Action
When each of us feels cared for and supported, we are better equipped to create impactful change for a more kind, loving, and just world.
This growing organic collection includes tools and resources for: inspired Jewish ritual and practice, mental health support, social justice advocacy and action, and more.
Don’t see what you’re looking for? Want to include another resource? Reach out to us!
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Ritual + Practice:
Shabbat + Holidays
Hebcal.com: A great resource to find Shabbat and Holiday candle lighting times, the dates of major and minor Jewish holidays and more.
Shabbat Friday Night Blessings: the Den’s step by step guide through the rituals and blessings for your Friday night Shabbat experience. Hebrew text, transliteration, and translation provided. Shabbat Shalom!
Havdalah Blessings: We mark the transition between the end of Shabbat on Saturday night and the beginning of the week with this accessible and meaningful ceremony. All you need is a cup of wine/grape juice, fragrance of spices like cinnamon or cloves, and candlelight. Shavua Tov! (Blessings for a Good Week!)
High Holy Day Blessings + Ritual Guide: the Den’s resource for your holiday celebration and observance to take you from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur, including Tashlich!
Festivals Guide for Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot: the Den’s resource for your festival celebrations! The 3 Festivals (Shalosh Regalim) of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot are major holidays connected to the Judaism of ancient Israel, when we would gather the seasonal harvest, and make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Blue Dove Foundation: Jewish Mental Wellness Resources from The Blue Dove Foundation for the Jewish holiday calendar. Explore different guides and activities for each holiday that support mental wellness and mental health awareness.
Omer Mixtape-Counting the Omer: The Omer began as a count toward the Spring harvest, and it has evolved into a spiritual accounting. Check out Rabbi Jenna’s “Omer Mixtape”, where she connects each day to a different song.
Ritualwell - Tradition + Innovation: Ritualwell is an extensive online resource that curates original Jewish rituals for Jews and fellow seekers. They publish rituals, ceremonies, prayers and poems to mark sacred moments in Jewish life.
Custom and Craft: Custom and Craft is a platform for DIY Jewish life and ritual. Create and publish your own holiday service or lifecycle event. Mix and match blessings, songs, videos, art, meditations and more to craft an experience that reflects your Jewish values and your spiritual practice.
Daily Jewish Rituals
Exploring Judaism: Explore this new site, embracing the beauty and complexity of Judaism, and our personal search for meaning and learning.
Blessings over food: If you’d like to say a blessing before eating, this includes all of the blessings for different foods.
Support + Connection
Pastoral Care + Professional Mental Health Support
Please reach out to us if you are seeking pastoral care or a list of professional mental health support resources in the area.
JSSA is a Jewish health + social wellness organization focused on care including support for people with mental health challenges. You can call the community support line anytime: 703-J-Caring (703-522-7464) to be connected with support services.
NAMI-National Alliance of Mental Illness: The nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. Check out the site to learn more about mental health, find support, and advocate for change.
Repair the World put together an illustrated guide based in Jewish wisdom to facilitate productive, honest conversation around mental health. The guide, which invites participants to both share personal experiences and learn from one another, is designed to challenge the social stigma around mental illness. Access the guide here.
Chronic Pain Support
Chronic Congregation is a mostly virtual community for Jews with chronic illnesses or disabilities, that also aims to raise awareness and reframing of how Judaism has traditionally discussed disability + illness.
Domestic / Power-Based Violence Support
JCADA’s mission is to support victims of power-based violence to become empowered and live safely; educate the community about power-based violence and the appropriate responses; and prevent future generations from suffering power-based violence. For JCADA’s Help Line and the National Domestic Violence Help Line go to: www.jcada.org/what-we-do
COVID-19 Resources
A Service of Healing, Hope, and Resilience - On April 20th, 2021 the Den community gathered for a virtual healing service led by Rabbi Aderet, Sarah Hurwitz, and our very own Den members, Judy Gerstenblith, Naomi LeVine, Oliver Macklin, and Ben Wacks. View the healing service at the video link below.
The healing service program guide, a reading list, and additional resources are located here.
Five Strategies for Cultivating Resilience
Check out these Five Strategies for Cultivating Resilience. Special thanks to Judy Gerstenblith, Den member and counseling psychology doctoral student, for putting together this document. You can hear Judy describe each of the Five Strategies for Cultivating Resilience in the video above at time 38:34.
Health Resources
National Abortion Federation Hotline
The National Abortion Federation Hotline is available to answer any questions you may have about abortion, unintended pregnancy, or related issues. The Hotline is free, completely anonymous, and offers services to everyone, regardless of their individual situation.
National Council of Jewish Women
NCJW has resources to stay updated, advocate, and learn more about abortion access and reproductive rights. You can also donate to the Jewish Fund for Abortion Access through NCJW’s site.
Our Jewish Recovery
Our Jewish Recovery began as facebook group and has become a remarkable community of fellow travelers on the Jewish recovery path, who are dedicated to maintaining a safe, nourishing, supportive community where we can be both Jewish and in recovery at the same time, incorporating both Jewish wisdom and recovery tools and inspiration to help us live happier, healthier, holier lives.
Live Another Day
Live Another Day is an online database and resource center to find support and rehabilitation services for drug and alcohol abuse. It is designed specifically to help BIPOC find non-discriminatory, inclusive resources and support.
Jewish Fertility Foundation
The JFF engages hopeful parents by providing financial assistance, emotional support, and infertility education to those struggling to build their families. There are support groups, grants, and more.
LGBTQ+ Community + Advocacy
Keshet
Keshet works for the full equality of all LGBTQ Jews and our families in Jewish life. They equip Jewish organizations with the skills and knowledge to build LGBTQ-affirming communities, create spaces in which all queer Jewish youth feel seen and valued, and advance LGBTQ rights nationwide.
GLOE: GLBTQ outreach + engagement
GLOE serves DC’s queer Jewish community (and friends/allies) through an array of unique and meaningful programs in the areas of arts and culture, community service, holidays and spirituality, social justice, and of course, social events.
Capital Qvellers
A Facebook group made to enable LGBTQ Jews in their 20s and 30s in DC to connect. Request to join here.
Beit Mishpachah
A congregation for LGBTQIA Jews, our families, friends and allies and all who wish to participate in an inclusive, progressive, egalitarian, and mutually supportive community. Services and events mostly take place at the DC JCC.
NJG DC
Nice Jewish Girls is for lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, and "questioning" Jewish women of the metro DC area. Its purposes are to facilitate opportunities for local "Jewbians" to meet in person and to talk online.
NJB DC
Nice Jewish Boys is a network for gay, bisexual and trans Jewish men in their twenties and thirties, and their fans, in Washington, D.C.
Tikkun Olam: Action to Heal the World
American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
AJWS strives to end poverty and promote human rights in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. In 18 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, AJWS supports more than 500 grassroots organizations in their work to build a more just world—by changing laws and changing lives. In the U.S., they amplify the voices of these activists through advocacy initiatives to influence the U.S. government, knowing that U.S. foreign policy has a significant and direct impact on the work of the organizations we support.
Avodah
Avodah develops lifelong social justice leaders whose work is informed by Jewish values and who inspire the Jewish community to work toward a more just and equitable world. They train emerging Jewish leaders to take on the most pressing social and economic issues in America. The combination of on-the-ground experience, intensive leadership development, and supportive, pluralistic Jewish community are the perfect combination to lay the groundwork for a lasting commitment to social change.
Be’chol Lashon
Be’chol Lashon, Hebrew for “in every language,” strengthens Jewish identity by raising awareness about the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of Jewish people and experience around the globe.
Bend the Arc
Bend the Arc is where progressive American Jews join together to fight for justice and equality for all. They are a national Jewish organization focused exclusively on progressive social change in the United States.
Dayenu
Dayenu is building a movement to confront the climate crisis, rooted in Jewish values, experience, and spirit.
The Gift of Life Registry
The Gift of Life registry is used by thousands of people every year to match potential donors for lifesaving treatment. Blood cancer is an umbrella term for cancers that affect the blood, bone marrow and lymphatic system. Today, transplantation, of healthy stem cells donated by related and unrelated volunteers, offers hope to many patients suffering from these sometimes deadly diseases. Please consider registering today.
HIAS: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Drawing on Jewish values and history, HIAS provides vital services to refugees and asylum seekers around the world and advocates for their fundamental rights so they can rebuild their lives.
Hazon
Hazon is leading a transformative movement weaving sustainability into the fabric of Jewish life, in order to create a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable world for all.
The Hunger Museum
A project of Mazon (see below), the Hunger Museum is an immersive, fully virtual, experience which tells the story of hunger and anti-hunger public policy in the United States. Through six galleries and hundreds of artifacts, the exhibit reveals the political, economic, and cultural influences from over 100 years, alongside the expansion and dismantlement of the American social safety net, to demonstrate how — with history in mind — we can forge a path forward to end hunger.
Interfaith Power & Light
IPL is part of a network across the country that is building a national religious response to the climate crisis. They work with organizations across faiths in the DMV to save energy, go green, and respond to climate change.
Jewish Social Justice Roundtable
This is a network of 78 organizations that strengthens and aligns the Jewish social justice field in order to make justice a core expression of Jewish life and help create an equitable world.
Jewish Women International (JWI)
JWI is the leading Jewish organization working to empower women and girls of every race, culture, ability, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Through healthy relationship education, financial empowerment, and women’s leadership, JWI gives women the power to control their lives – and to create a world in which all may thrive.
Jews United for Justice (JUFJ)
Drawing on a tradition of Jewish commitment to justice and the talents and dedication of their leaders, JUFJ is a grassroots community that seeks to repair the world by working locally for social, racial, and economic justice.
Jews of Color Initiative (JOCI)
The Jews of Color Initiative (JOCI) works to build a truly multiracial, anti-racist Jewish community in which Jews of Color can experience joy and reach their full potential and belonging as leaders and community members.
JOIN for Justice
The Jewish Organizing Institute and Network for Justice (JOIN for Justice), is a national organization dedicated to training, supporting, and connecting Jewish organizers and their communities. JOIN for Justice responds to the escalating demand for skillful leaders who use organizing principles and practices to achieve positive social change.
Mazon
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is a national organization fighting to end hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds in the United States and Israel. MAZON provides training and resources to anti-hunger organizations in the most food insecure states in the U.S., maintaining a network of hundreds of partners and developing strategic initiatives to advance policies that end hunger and the systems that allow it to persist.
National Council of Jewish Women
NCJW is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action. Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC)
For more than six decades, the RAC has worked to educate, inspire, and mobilize the Reform Jewish community to advocate for social justice. They mobilize around federal, state, provincial, and local legislation on more than 70 pressing socioeconomic issues.
Repair the World
Repair the World mobilizes Jews and their communities to take action to pursue a just world, igniting a lifelong commitment to service. We believe service in support of social change is vital to a flourishing Jewish community and an inspired Jewish life. Repair the World Baltimore was founded in 2013 to to mobilize Jews and their communities to take action to pursue a just world.
The Way Home DC
The Way Home Campaign brings together 110 organizations and over 7,000 voters to end chronic homelessness in D.C. We advocate for budgets and policies that put our unhoused neighbors first.
Antisemitism: Resources + Support
Resources for education + reflection
From our friends at The Blue Dove Foundation, view their collection of resources on Antisemitism’s Impact on Mental Health for useful information and support on the following topics:
Impact on Mental Health
Defining + Discussing it
Understanding Intergenerational Trauma
Explore the ADL’s Antisemitism Uncovered, a comprehensive resource guide
Read about The Conspiracy, a documentary exploring the propagation of antisemitism