Temple Beth El Blog

Cooking, painting, packing food-here are wasy to help people in our community. One just involves eating breakfast!

Porchlight
by Pam Robbins
The Porchlight shelter continues to operate at Warner Park Rec Center. They do nightly COVID screening and monthly COVID testing, and they have flu shot and voter registration opportunities. The shelter served 98 men last night and has capacity for 190 if needed. They are bringing bunk beds from the shelter at Grace Episcopal Church to Warner Park in two weeks to help with capacity. Check out their wish list of hygiene supplies, household items, and cleaning supplies:

The city continues to look for a permanent shelter space; there are no updates yet. The shelter plans to be at Warner Park through year end. The new site might have an on-site kitchen. We are staying in touch with Porchlight to hear about meal service opportunities as they arise. Porchlight has current volunteer opportunities for individuals or small or large groups at Porchlight, including landscaping, painting, cleaning, and more. Please contact Jessica Mathis for more information.

The Road Home and Healing House
by Cathy Rotter
The Road Home is having their annual breakfast virtually this year. Table captains will host a Zoom meeting on Thursday, October 22 at 8:00 am to share a prerecorded video that The Road Home made specifically for the event. My husband Ron and I are hosting a "table," so if you would like to be our guest, please RSVP to me. There is no limit to the number of people and there is no obligation to give, although there will be an ask. If anyone is interested in being a table captain, please contact Peggy Halloran at The Road Home. Here is a short informative video about The Road Home. 

Healing House serves individuals without homes as they recuperate from surgery, illness, or childbirth. TBE cooks meals for the residents and staff on a quarterly basis. We covered three weeks in 2020 and it was very much appreciated, but the program is very popular and we were unable to sign up for a fourth week. We will sign up for more weeks in 2021. 

In the meantime, financial donations can be made to help provide breakfast and lunch items for families. Donations can be mailed directy to The Road Home Dane County with "Healing House meals" in the memo so that the funds go to support this much needed recuperative shelter in our community.  

Food Boxes for Madison School Families
by Vic Levy
In March, as the COVID-19 virus closed Madison schools, the Thoreau Weekend Food Bag Program (was put on hold, and efforts shifted to becoming part of the wider Madison West High Area Collaborative Volunteers are needed to help the weekly efforts of the Collaborative to deliver food to Madison schoolchildren. Working out of Westminster Presbyterian Church (at 4100 Nakoma Road, Madison ), the Collaborative stores, packs, and delivers food boxes to families with children in all 14 of the elementary schools in the West High area. Recently, between 250 and 270 boxes were distributed weekly! See the new Collaborative website: http://www.madisonwestcollaborative.com.

Volunteers for the Collaborative perform a wide variety of tasks and come from schools, congregations, and social groups throughout Madison. 

• In-person volunteer opportunities: Each Tuesday morning, several volunteers are needed at Westminster Presbyterian Church to unload shelf-stable food and stock the pantry. On Friday morning, volunteers are needed to pack large boxes of food and household goods for that day’s delivery. Masks and social distancing will be maintained. This would make a great b’nai mitzvah project for a teen who is comfortable working in person with social distancing. 
• No-contact volunteer opportunities: On Friday mornings, volunteers are needed to pick up milk and produce at Second Harvest Foodbank. Volunteers must have cars or vans with lots of space, and drivers must be comfortable carrying heavy boxes. Later on Friday, usually between 10:30 am and 1:00 pm, drivers are needed to deliver food boxes to families’ doorsteps throughout the west side of Madison. Again, larger vehicles and those who are comfortable carrying moderately heavy boxes are encouraged.

Because of the number and diversity of volunteers needed, we are encouraging TBE members to sign up to support this initiative whenever they are available. Once COVID eases and children return to schools, the Thoreau Weekend Food Bag Program will resume as before. Right now, Temple Beth El is scheduled to help in late December 2020 and in January 2021. We will provide an update if that becomes a reality.

Volunteers can sign up on the United Way’s website: 
At present no other registrations or background checks are necessary. After you sign up, each Sunday you will receive information about how you can choose to help at Westminster Presbyterian Church during the coming week. 

Other Volunteer opportunities
Meals for Catholic Multicultural Center 
Thanksgiving Food Collection 

One of the greatest antidotes to my pandemic blues is knowing what a committed and giving community Temple Beth El is. Since April, in just one of our several food programs, TBE volunteers have helped the Catholic Multicultural Center provide nearly 1,000 meals to individuals on Madison’s south side who are in need or experiencing homelessness. More than 20 different individuals have stepped forward at different times to cook a meal, and some are cooking meals regularly twice a month. Whether you have the time and resources to cook every month or simply want to contribute as you can, your help is welcome! 

Each TBE volunteer cooks a hot dish of about 20 servings at home, using a recipe for that week. The recipe takes 1.5–2.5 hours to prepare (depending on which recipe we use) and costs about $20–$40 (depending on the recipe and where you shop). A volunteer collects all the cooked food from various front steps in a ”no contact” exchange and takes it to the Catholic Multicultural Center on Beld Street. The center staff then package the meals into takeout containers and hand it out to 80–100 hungry folks. The food can be prepared on Tuesday and refrigerated or can be cooked Wednesday morning.

Please join us in this effort to feed people in need during this crisis. Sign up for one or more meals on Signup Genius. We will send a recipe to each cook at least a week prior to the delivery date. If you have any questions, please contact Sue Levy at 608-273-4527.

TBE members recently helped organize two presentations on voting rights, with a strong focus on voter suppression tactics and what we can do about them. Members left the presentations inspired to work to make sure everyone can vote this fall. 

At the Social Action Shabbat on August 28, our speaker was Ryeshia Farmer, coordinator of the "Rights for All" campaign of the ACLU of Wisconsin. Ms. Farmer presented information about registration, voter identification, early voting, and absentee ballots. She concluded by offering concrete actions we can take to protect and expand the right to vote for every American. 

On September 13, Matt Rothschild of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign discussed the history and current practice of voter suppression in America and in Wisconsin. He made it clear that voter suppression is not a thing of the past; it is still very much at play in the present election. He presented a list of readings and resources to help combat voter suppression and support a healthy democracy. This program was sponsored by the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign and by Jewish Congregations for Social Justice, a collaborative effort of the social action committees of Temple Beth El, Beth Israel Center, and Congregation Shaarei Shamayim. 

If you're interested in learning more, we recommend that you watch the short 38-minute documentary “Suppressed: The Fight to Vote.” This online video is both engaging and enraging!

TBE formed a Civic Engagement Action Team this year and joined the URJ “Every Voice, Every Vote” campaign to promote nonpartisan voter registration and education activities throughout 2020. Those activities are reaching their peak this month as we work to get out the vote in Wisconsin and elsewhere. We work to support Jewish values in public life and to ensure that people who are often disenfranchised can make their voices heard as well.

It is not too late to join us. Every week we send out many opportunities to help. We make calls, send texts, register voters, put up yard signs for nonpartisan voter assistance organizations, do outreach to people living in apartment buildings and trailer parks, and more. Many of our activities can be done from home. There are also in-person registration activities for those who feel comfortable doing them. Madison has enough poll workers, but other cities are still in need. In particular, we encourage you to sign up to be a nonpartisan poll observer if you can.

To be added to our mailing lists, contact Marcia Vandercook, for the TBE Civic Engagement Action Team, or Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, for the Interfaith Civic Engagement Project co-sponsored by Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice and the Wisconsin Council of Churches. The two campaigns have been working together collaboratively and will continue to get out the vote before the November election.

Do you need your ballot witnessed? Two TBE members, Robin Sweet and John Grande, will come to the house of any voter who needs to get their absentee ballot witnessed in a socially distanced manner. You can contact them to set up a time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact Robin or call at 608-469-7469.

Thank you to all who have donated to the High Holy Day Food Drive. In your worship service program for the High Holy Days, you received the familiar food drive envelope. If you can still find it, please return it with a check payable to Temple Beth El with “food drive” on the memo line. If you can’t find it, no worries: make your contribution online here and choose “High Holy Day Food Drive” as the donation type.

Currently we are on 70% toward our goal. Last year we raised over $14,000, and with a greater need this year, we want to raise over $15,000 to help Second Harvest Foodbank and our other partners.

Most of the funds we receive go to Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. They have come to depend on our contribution each year, and we hate to fall short.

After the pandemic began, we made additional donations to support a variety of food pantries and emergency relief programs reaching different segments of the community: the Dane Sanctuary Coalition emergency food fund, the Latinx Consortium for Action Emergency Relief Fund, the Mount Zion Baptist Church food pantry, the Catholic Multicultural Center food pantry, and grocery boxes for Madison school families. These programs are still very much needed, and if we can we will support them as well.

So please give as generously as you can; any amount is greatly appreciated.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz box of large macaroni noodles
• 2 cans of Campbells cheddar cheese soup
• 16 oz of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 cups of milk (doesn't matter, skim or whole)
• 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce (give or take)

Instructions:

1. bring noodles to a boil, cook a little beyond the recommended time so noodles are soft
2. drain the noodles and return them to the pot
3. stir in cheese soup, cheddar cheese, milk and Worcestershire sauce and mix thoroughly
4. pour contents into glass oven safe dish
5. cover with tin foil and bake at 350 for at least 30 min or until cheese begins to bubble

Over the last few months, you have received information about the Temple Community Contribution program, which will be launched during our membership renewal period starting in late October. With this program, Temple Beth El moves away from a membership system based on a recommended percentage of household income, replacing it with one in which congregants choose an annual contribution amount reflecting our mutual shared values and responsibility to one another.

Your annual contribution will continue to fund our entire operating budget and will not be allocated to a specific area. The membership renewal packet will contain examples of costs in each of our foundational areas—beit knesset (house of community), beit t’filah (house of worship), beit midrash (house of study), and beit tzedek (house of justice)—as a representation of all that we do together as a community. This information can guide you when you are determining your 2021 contribution amount. Although your active involvement at TBE may focus on one or more of these areas, your financial contribution supports all of them, strengthening our entire community.

While the amount of your annual contribution might not change from your past contributions, we hope that the reasons for your financial support will align with the values most important to you. Your support provides a space, physically and spiritually, for Jewish life to thrive.

Look for your membership renewal packet to arrive in the mail at the end of October. Feel free to reach out to Stefanie Kushner, executive director, with any questions.

Join us for an information session about the Temple Community Contribution program on Wednesday, December 9 at 7:00 pm.

Register for the information session.

¾ cup sugar
¼ cup softened butter
1 egg
Ingredients:

• ½ cup milk or water
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 cups blueberries

Topping:

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ⅓ cup flour
• ¼ cup softened butter

Directions:

• Beat the sugar and butter together. Add egg and beat. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the blueberries and mix until smooth. Fold in the blueberries.
• Spray a 9" square pan with PAM and add the batter.
• Mix all the topping ingredients together until crumbly and sprinkle the topping over the batter.
• Bake at 375° for about 40–45 minutes.

Recipe from Joan Nathan as published in the New York Times

Ingredients

• 2 medium yellow onions, peeled
• 2 celery stalks
• 3 large carrots, peeled
• 1 fennel bulb
• 6 black peppercorns
• 2 ½ teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless salmon, whitefish or striped bass fillets, cut into 2-inch pieces
• ½ pound boneless, skinless trout, pike or carp (or a mixture of two), cut into 2-inch pieces
• 10 chives
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley, tarragon, dill and/or a combination
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4 to 6 tablespoons matzo meal
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 head radicchio or endive, or both, for serving
• Prepared horseradish, for serving

Directions

1. Fill a large, wide pot with 10 cups of water and place over high heat. While bringing to a boil, coarsely chop and add to the pot 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 1 carrot and the fennel bulb. Add the peppercorns and 1 teaspoon salt. Once water is boiling, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, while preparing the fish.
2. Coarsely chop the remaining onion, celery stalk and 1 carrot, then pulse in a food processor until finely chopped. Add fish, chives and 2 tablespoons parsley, tarragon and/or dill, and keep pulsing until fish is chopped but not mushy.
3. Move the fish mixture to a medium bowl and add eggs, oil, matzo meal, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (or more to taste) and the ground black pepper, and mix well with your hands.
4. Put your hands in a bowl of cold water. Using your hands, mold the fish mixture into a 3- by 2-inch oval patty (about 2 ounces) and gently place on a platter. Repeat with the remaining fish mixture, dipping your hands in water as needed.   
5. Pop the third carrot into the simmering broth and gently add the patties to the pot. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes until patties are firm.
6. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fish and carrot from the poaching liquid to cool on a plate. Slice the carrot diagonally into thin rounds.
7. Place each patty on a leaf of radicchio or endive or both. Set the sliced carrot rounds on top of each patty. Garnish with the remaining tablespoon of fresh herbs and serve warm or at room temperature with horseradish, preferably homemade. If making a day ahead, refrigerate, covered, then return the patties to room temperature before serving.

If you are inspired to combat voter suppression and make voting accessible and safe for all,
please join us for nonpartisan opportunities like these:

Action Alerts: support the postal service, support federal funding for states and
cities to run elections.

Advocacy: support the movement for voting in jails.

Advocacy: Access to the DMV to get an ID for voting can be a barrier. Write to Department of Transportation Secretary Craig Thompson and ask the DOT to increase the number of DMV locations, ensure they are on transit lines and are accessible to disabled voters, and increase hours to include some evenings and weekend hours.

Volunteering: phone banking, canvassing, texting to get out the vote. Sign up with the ACLU and Conservation Voters.

Education: attend programs on voter suppression, election litigation – join us on September 13 for Combating Voter Suppression in Wisconsin, a webinar hosted by Jewish Congregations for Social Justice and the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign. Register here

Election Day: sign up to be a poll worker or election inspector.

Thank you to our Social Action Shabbat speaker, Ryeshia Farmer, ACLU Rights For All Campaign Coordinator, for providing this list. She can be reached at rfarmer@aclu-wi.org or 414-272-4032 ext. 232.

If you are interested in volunteering with the ACLU of Wisconsin's Rights For All Campaign, this spreadsheet details opportunities available to you. The sheet describes each opportunity (extensive use of three strategy tool kits as well as situational/single-day commitments) and also indicates the time commitments and training necessary for each.

After you have reviewed the volunteer opportunities that the ACLU has available, you should use the Google Form to sign up for the ones that interest you! If you thoroughly complete the form, then the ACLU Rights for All Campaign should have all of the information needed to contact you and schedule one or more volunteer shifts as well as offer personal orientation and training as necessary.

At this time, for the safety of volunteers, all opportunities and training can be arranged remotely via social media, email/phone contact, or Zoom meetings, except working and legally observing election polls. For these exceptions, additional safety tips and protocol will be outlined in one-on-one training sessions.

Voting resources:
Wisconsin voting website 
Find your city clerk 
Find your polling place
Check your registration
Sign up to be a poll worker 
Legal Observer Info for Election Observers

Election protection:
866-OUR-VOTE
Election protection information from Common Cause
Facebook: Wisconsin Election Protection
Instagram: wisconsinelectionprotection
Twitter: @EPWisco

League of Women Voters Drop Box List

For more information and to get involved, contact:
Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, Wisconsin Interfaith Civic Engagement Project, wifaithvoices4justice@gmail.com, 608-513-7121

Marcia Vandercook, TBE Civic Engagement Action Team, marcia.vandercook@gmail.com, 608-239-7367

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