Avodah

Sparking Jewish Leaders, Igniting Social Change

For more than 20 years, we’ve been inspiring Jewish leaders to commit to a life of social change, promoting a vision of Jewish life rooted in justice, and engaging the broader Jewish community in some of the most pressing issues facing our country at a local and national level. Avodah Corps Members serve at nonprofits across the country (in NYC, DC, Chicago, and New Orleans) for a full year, directly impacting their communities for the better, while learning how to create systemic change.

09/04/2026

It’s orientation week, and our 2026-2027 Jewish Service Corps Members have moved into their batim (communal homes) across New Orleans, DC, Chicago, and New York! As they begin getting to know each other and their new homes, it feels like the perfect time to revisit some wisdom from Phia, a Corps Member from last year’s NYC cohort, on settling into a new city:

“The pace of life is what you let it be.”

To our Corps Members who are embarking on this exciting new journey: there’s no single right pace—it’s yours to find. Here’s to a year of finding your own rhythm, alongside each other!

08/31/2026

“To do justice work in this city can be transformative for anyone,” says Ed, our New Orleans Program Director.

Avodah partners with organizations led by the people closest to the issues they’re working on, not just advocating from the outside. In New Orleans, that looks like Corps Members working side by side with formerly incarcerated organizers, leaders who’ve experienced houselessness, and many other partnerships across the city.

Over time, Jewish Service Corps Members go from contributing to the work to being a part of it as neighbors, learning firsthand that lasting change starts with community.

08/25/2026

Sophie spent the last year as a Jewish Service Corps Member at The First 72+, a New Orleans nonprofit that helps people coming home from prison find housing, jobs, and other support. There, she worked closely with clients and coworkers who were formerly incarcerated themselves—people she calls some of the kindest and best she’s known. Her service year helped her break down her own misconceptions about formerly incarcerated people. Her belief now is simple: someone’s past doesn’t define who they are.

08/18/2026

"You don't have to check your Judaism at the door. You don't have to check your queerness at the door."

That’s how Haylee, an Avodah Jewish Service Corps Member, describes the space she spent her year building at Jewish Q***r Youth (JQY) in New York, an organization that equips LGBTQ youth from historically non-accepting Jewish communities survive and thrive. As we move through Elul, a season of reflection, we wanted to share her story and everything her year of service, and her time in the bayit (communal home), made possible.

Click here to read more about Haylee’s year: https://avodah.net/jewish-service-corps-member-helps-jewish-queer-youth-thrive/

08/16/2026

A man violently disturbed Central Synagogue’s Shabbat services on Friday night in NYC. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who developed and enacted the safety protocols to ensure that no one was seriously hurt. Central Synagogue isn’t just a sacred space in our city; it’s the spiritual home of many people in our Avodah community.

In the face of this antisemitic violence, we turn to the wisdom of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, former Avodah Board Member and Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue: “God legislated the ways we should be kind, decent, generous, fair and just with one another, that this should be the foundation of a righteous, moral, and kind community.”

Only two weeks ago, Avodah gathered at Central Synagogue to celebrate our graduating Jewish Service Corps Members and honor their growth as justice leaders. We sent them forward to build the world we dream of: one that is more equitable, just, and loving, and where communities join us in combating antisemitism and all systems of oppression.

08/14/2026

Justice work asks everything of you: your time, your energy, your whole self. And it never really stops asking.

At our National Gathering for the 2025-2026 Jewish Service Corps, we posed that question to a panel: how do you avoid burnout in this work? Rabbi David Jaffe’s answer has stuck with us since.

In his earlier years as an activist, he believed he couldn’t stop, and that if he did, everything would fall apart. Finding a Shabbat practice changed that.

It became a weekly forced pause. No work, no exceptions. And that pause is what made the work sustainable.

Rest isn’t a break from justice work; it’s what allows you to keep showing up.

08/11/2026

It’s poll worker recruitment day! As Jews, we are guided by a responsibility to build a society rooted in justice and dignity. Protecting free and fair elections is part of that work.
Poll workers help ensure that every person can safely and accessibly make their voice heard. And they’re needed more than ever.
This is one way we show up for our communities and for each other.
Learn more and sign up:
https://www.powerthepolls.org/

08/06/2026

Last September, they moved into their bayit (communal home). They didn’t know yet what their service year would ask of them, or who they’d become because of it.

Since then, they’ve shown up in their work addressing our country’s most critical social justice issues, and for each other, as housemates who carried the weight of that work alongside them, and celebrated the joy of it too.

Now, they’ve celebrated their siyyum (graduation). Their bags are packed again, some headed to new cities, some staying local but taking on new leaps in their careers, and others joining the staff of their placement organization. Whatever comes next, they’re not starting from scratch. They’re starting from everything they built this year, and as the leaders they’ve become.

Mazel tov to our incredible 2025-2026 Avodah Jewish Service Corps Members! You may be moving on from the bayit, but this community is yours for good.

08/05/2026

A service year like theirs is hard to sum up. It held days that were joyful, days that were hard, and days that were something else entirely, almost too big to fit into words. So when we asked five of our Jewish Service Corps Members to wrap up their year in just three words, it wasn’t easy. Here’s what they said.

07/30/2026

It’s the love that doesn’t need an occasion—the kind that shows up in moments of transition, when everything feels new and a little uncertain, in moments of celebration, when there’s something to toast, on ordinary walks with friends, and in a community that has your back before you even ask.

That’s what Tu B’Av means to us: love in all its forms.

That’s the love Corps Member Maddie found in New Orleans. And it’s the love we hope you find too.

Chag Sameach! 💙

Address

195 Montague Street, 14th Floor/WeWork Office 1249
Brooklyn, NY
11201

Telephone

+12125457759

Website

http://www.avodah.net/

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