For many Jews, Christmas becomes a day of service

One synagogue in New Brunswick, N.J., brings in the homeless at Christmastime.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For many Jews around the country, Christmas has become more than Chinese food and a movie.

Synagogues, community centers and youth organizations are encouraging Jews to spend at least part of the day on community service. Projects can range from serving meals in soup kitchens to giving presents to poor children and adults, to volunteering in nursing homes and shelters.

A side benefit of performing such service on Christmas is that it might give others, who celebrate the holiday, some time off to spend with family.

“The push to service in general is growing,” said Cippi Harte, vice president for program services for the Jewish Community Centers Association. “It’s not just with young people, but with adults as well: Give back to the community.”

Judaism teaches the importance of “tzedakah” (charity or giving to those in need), “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) and “gemilut chasadim” (acts of loving kindness).

As for pursuing those ideals on Christmas, “It’s very easy to volunteer on a day when you have nothing to do,” said Melissa Crow, who headed a Christmas project for Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md. “It’s much more difficult otherwise.”

At Adat Shalom, volunteers serve meals on Christmas at Shepherd’s Table, a homeless shelter in Silver Spring, Md. Crow said there has been an overwhelming number of volunteers — “an abundance of riches.”

She remembers that when she was a child, her father, a physician, volunteered to take calls for other doctors on Christmas, and they would take calls for him on the Jewish holidays.

In much the same way, she believes she is setting an example for her two stepchildren, who accompanied her three years ago when she delivered gifts in the community. The older people liked having the children around, she said.

“Social action was not a new concept” for the kids, said Crow, an attorney who does immigrant-rights work. “They’ve always given money for tzedakah. The older one organized a project for her bat mitzvah. [This] was another way to contribute.”

Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, a reform congregation in New Brunswick, N.J., brings about 15 homeless people from an overflow shelter to the synagogue at Christmastime for food and lodging as part of a joint effort with area churches.

“We always take Christmas week,” said Ann Thayer-Cohen, who has chaired the synagogue’s “Mitzvah Day.” Mitzvah, which means “commandment” in Hebrew, is generally translated as a good deed.

Anshe Emeth’s Mitzvah Day is on Christmas.

“We have people who will make dinner so guests who are staying here have a meal for Christmas,” she said. They’ve also baked desserts and distributed them to other shelters.

Also on Christmas, volunteers perform service around the synagogue’s facilities — “painting, sorting or whatever else is need,” Thayer-Cohen said.

She said the number of Christmas Day volunteers ranges from 25 to 100, depending on the year. “It’s something for Jewish families to do,” she said. “They feel very good they’re helping.”

Congregants are invited to share dinner with the homeless. That’s been a real eye-opener, according to Thayer-Cohen.

“They get to see that some of these people who are homeless and in a shelter could be just like them,” she said.

There are activities for adults, teens and children. Among them, Mitzvah clowns are trained to entertain at a home for the aged.

For children, it can be a teaching activity, she said. “It is definitely putting hands on,” she said. “It’s not just reading in the book. It’s going out and doing.”

Thayer-Cohen said the Christmas activities at the temple have helped some people take the first step toward becoming more involved in social action.

That’s important, Harte said, “so it’s not just a once-a-year, periodic thing. It ends up being a more routine piece that spreads through someone’s life.”

But what about that Chinese restaurant and trip to the movies — traditions for many American Jews because they are among the only things open on Christmas Day?

Consider them the chaser for a day of social action, Crow suggests. “We don’t find those mutually exclusive.”