TZEDAKAH

Charity, charite, caridad, nachstenliebe, carita. This is charity in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

Charity is an important word in any language. You may have noticed the Hebrew equivalent is not included. This is because in Hebrew there is, simply, no word for charity.

Instead, the word TZEDAKAH is used, which translates to justice. Judaism simply does not allow us to consider charity as an option, it is required. It is an obligation to seek justice, aid the poor, comfort the neglected, care for the ill, and support education. For the betterment of our community, we donate, collect, and distribute funds, all in the spirit of tzedakah… in the spirit of justice.

This is a bond that will always unite us. This is a bond that will bring us together. This is the spirit and soul of the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation. 

Giving Turns To Growing

If you missed last month's Did You Know?

A distinctive feature of our college scholarship program is we allow donors to add unique criteria, knowing that our foundation will discreetly find the right recipient. Of course, this type of criteria is not made ‘public’ so it is omitted from the annual scholarship printed program. We have many scholarships for students that have had difficulties in their lives either because of physical disabilities or other situations. Here’s a recent story of a scholarship that is only for ethnic or racial minority students. Especially given some recent troubling events we want you to know this.

While distributing this past spring semester’s scholarship grant, the DJCF noticed a course listed in the recipient’s class schedule: Jewish American History. Given this student isn't Jewish, we asked if receiving a scholarship from our Foundation played a role in selecting the course. Her reply:

“Yes, it absolutely did!

Your Foundation helped me so much, when I saw that a Jewish American History class was available I immediately signed up for it before it got full.

It will give me the opportunity to understand more about the generous Jewish community and what they had to face throughout time and it seems much more interesting to me than just regular American history."