Jewish Dialogue Group

Getting Involved

There are many ways that you can participate in our work! The following are just some possibilities. 

1. Organize a Dialogue Session for Your Community
   Are you part of a synagogue, school, or organization that might benefit from holding dialogue program for its members? If so, would you like to work with us to organize a program for your group? If you are not in a position to help organize a dialogue, could you refer us to someone else in your group who might want to get involved?

   We facilitate both one-time sessions and multiple-session dialogues that involve several meetings over a period of weeks or months. While our primary goal is to foster dialogue about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have facilitated sessions about many other issues as well. 

2. Host an Introductory Dialogue Session
   Several times a year, we hold introductory public dialogue sessions, open to any Jewish person who'd like to attend. These two-hour programs usually take place on weekday evenings or Sunday afternoons. We regularly hold sessions in Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and we hold occasional sessions in other cities around North America. We invite you to participate in one of these dialogues! 
   
   We are also seeking volunteers to host and help organize our introductory dialogues. Can you host a session in your home, synagogue, school, or community center? Do you know others in your community who could host a dialogue? If you can help us to bring this work to your community, please get in touch!
   

3. Facilitate Dialogue Sessions
   Our the past six  years, our volunteer facilitators have led nearly 200 dialogue sessions in synagogues, schools, and other venues around the Philadelphia area and New York. We receive more requests for dialogue programs than we can meet, and we are always looking for more people to help facilitate. We will hold training workshops for new facilitators in Philadelphia and New York in 2009.

4.  Write, Edit, or Design Materials for Our Programs
   We always need help with a variety of writing projects. We are seeking people to help write initial drafts, to edit and proofread our documents, and to do various kind of layout and graphic design work. Some of the materials we need to create include:

   • press advisories/press releases
   • articles for newspapers, magazines, and other publications
   • training materials
   • flyers
   • website content
   • our new guidebook to "deliberation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" 

5. Help Raise Funds
   We are a grassroots organization with a very small staff, and we rely on the energy and dedication of our volunteers to raise most of the money that we need to carry out and expand our programs. You can join this amazing group of people by:

   • hosting a house party 
   • helping to organize one of our benefit concerts
   • researching grant possibilities and writing proposals
   • stuffing envelopes
   • volunteering at a phone bank
   • inventing a JDG fundraising project of your own -- If you have an idea that you'd like us to work on with you, we'd love to hear about it!   
          

6. Donate
   Contributions from hundreds of donors around North America make our work possible.  To make a donation of any size, vist our donation page. In addition to financial contributions we are also seeking:

• donated space for meetings and workshops
• a high volume printer or copier
• a high quality video camera and editing software