A Community of Parents: A grassroots resource guide & interactive community to parenting & Jewish Living

The Particulars

In the first posting, we provided a general introduction to "A Community of Families". This posting offers some more details. More are to follow in subsequent postings:

A COMMUNITY OF PARENTS - A grassroots resource guide and interactive community for parents seeking an integrated, holistic approach to family and Jewish living... Helping connect parents Jewishly with their children and other families.

We hope this venue provides an opportunity to compare notes, vent, bond– and perhaps discuss your and your family's Jewish journey with other parents and families. In its best form, it provides a unique way to joinother parents in an online exploration of Jewish identity and practice.At the very least, it's good to know that there is a world beyond the daily chores andpressures and that others share your challenges and concerns.

It is hoped that "A Community of Parents" might include:
* "Parenting Jewishly in a contemporary world";
* "Family, parenting and Jewish Parenting Resource Center";
* Other family issues (Family and elderly loved ones);
* Open Forum Topical get-togethers (Jewish in the Global Shtetl):
* Why Be Jewish Series;* Ways to Be Jewish Series
* Online community - discussions, blogs, book club, recipe networking,Jewish books, parenting stories, buy & sell, Q&A, "Ask A Rabbi","Families Day Together" ideas, etc...and more







Introducing " A Community of Parents"


Carpools, chores, careers, curriculums at school, consumerism, culture’s influence on our kids. These are but some of the short list of issues that face parents and families on a daily basis – not to mention the old-favorites: management of time and money.

In the midst of dinners, bills, homework, lessons, hobbies, messy rooms, and too much time before the TV/computer/video games, what is the place of “Being Jewish” in the contemporary Jewish home ? More importantly, how is it relevant to the 21st century lives our families are living ?

With the above in mind, this blog and the activities it supports have been organized by a group of Jewish families.

We are not institutions. Nor are we rabbis and or Jewish scholars, educators or fundraisers. Instead we are merely families to whom being Jewish matters – but to whom how one lives Jewishly is an ongoing dialogue and consideration.

We are not Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal or Cultural Jews, but in fact we are partly all of the above. In a Jewish world that is changing, and whose traditional demarcations in the future may not be as they have been in the past, we seek to be partners in this discussion and process of transformation and re-definition as how being Jewish might apply to our lives and those of our families.

As parents, we consider ourselves explorers. As Jewish parents we are also on additional journey – one that has us traveling new roads, experimenting with ways to be better parents wrestling with what it means to be Jewish, and how it is relevant to our lives and as parents and families.

To us parenting Jewishly means utilizing Jewishness and Juadaism s a map or guide book to help start our family’s journey. Jewish values, beliefs culture and rituals all serve as entry points through which families can begin or proceed on their individual Jewish journeys.

We see parenting Jewishly as not the means to an end but rather an evolving process that will continue as we and our families continue to grow.

This Community of Parents is one of our tools to assist us in this process.