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Feb

1 2021

to
Feb

28 2021

KJA Campaign 2021 Month

What does your gift to the KJA Annual Campaign help support?   

The KJA Annual Campaign helps make good things happen. 

   

Building Jewish Community.   

Summers at the pool. BBYO for our teens. Our monthly Ha'Kol newsletter. Family bowling days. Young Jewish Adults of Knoxville events and outings...and so much more! The Knoxville Jewish Alliance builds and promotes opportunities for Jews in the greater Knoxville metro to gather. It brings us closer together and allows us to feel connected to a community.   

  

Preserving Our History:  

KJA is home to the Jewish community of Knoxville’s historic Archives, which maintains the records of individuals, families, culture and events. The Archives is not only a repository of materials, it is the keeper of the story of who we are, and who we have been, as a Jewish community.    

   

Hillel at UTK:  

Hillel provides a “home away from home” for University of Tennessee at Knoxville's Jewish students. During the isolation created by Covid-19, this has been more important than ever. Students receive care packages to help them celebrate Shabbat, Passover and other holidays. They socialize through social media groups, zoom sessions, and safely distanced gatherings like Shabbat hot cocoa around a campfire, and tashlich by the river on Yom Kippur.     

 

Fighting Anti-Semitism.  

KJA has spearheaded many community initiatives in Knoxville to represent the Jewish voice in the fight against anti-semitism. We have hosted vigils, coordinated mass public media campaigns, represented Jewish students on campus when "The Rock" was defiled with antisemitic graffiti, and advocated in our public school system to support high school students.   

  

Ensuring Jewish Burial.  

KJA, in partnership with other area Jewish organizations, provides for Jewish burial rites and internment for Jews that cannot pay for end-of-life expenses.    

  

PJ Library 

This program brings Jewish holidays, values and stories to our community's children. Each month, families receive a Jewish book, and can participate in programming for children and caregivers. With the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, PJ library virtual programming, story reading, and other activities helped our children feel connected and provided activities for children in their homes.    

    

Tikkun Olam in Our Community 

KJA supports and coordinates support for many programs in our community to embrace the Jewish value of tikkun olam – repair of our world.  We participate in Family Promise, an interfaith program that provides temporary housing, meals, and assistance to situationally homeless families in order to help them become self- sufficient.  We collect food and other items for veterans, Second Harvest food bank, Susannah’s House, and other local organizations. This year the Arnstein Jewish Community Center was home to a community garden!  With garden beds spaced to allow for safe social distancing, gardeners helped grow food for donation at Susannah’s House and Family Promise.     

   

Sustaining Memory of the Holocaust 

Not only does KJA coordinate an annual community Yom HaShoah observance, this year it was instrumental in installing a historical marker downtown near the East Tennessee History Center to honor local Holocaust rescuer Master Sergeant Roddrick Waring Edmonds, one of only five Americans to be honored by Yad Vashem in Israel as a Righteous Among the Nations.  <