Our Grow Justice: Fight Hunger garden project provides organic produce to approximately 300 homeless shelter residents annually, while educating our community around issues of hunger and food justice through volunteer opportunities, workshops, and demonstrations that incorporate Jewish values and lessons about social justice.
The PJCC’s pioneering “Grow Justice, Fight Hunger” community garden project has been named one of 22 innovative Bay Area Jewish initiatives in the Bay Area Edition of the 2017 Slingshot Guide.
In July of 2013, Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen led 7 design workshops at the PJCC in which people ages 2 to over 90 took part. Workshop participants were given Jewish texts as a starting point for design inspiration.
The overarching theme was “Justice, Justice, Thou Shall Pursue'” (Deuteronomy 16:20). The texts related to 4 areas that aligned with Judaism’s Imperative for Justice.
They are:
Once the groups assembled their ideas, Jay and the ceramicist, E. Blaise DePaolo, went to work on creating the mural art based on the personal design elements created by the community. Then, for 2 weeks inn October 2013, the community came together to paint the entire mural.
More than 700 members of the community participated in creating the mural either through design workshops or in paint sessions, all led by PJCC Artist-in-Residence Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen.
The Grow Justice Mural is divided into 4 equal sections and one title panel. The 5 sections represent the 5 Books of Moses. The 4 outer sections are open Torah scrolls and the 5th central section is a closed Torah Scroll.
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