Creating a Community of Belonging
Belonging is essential to a strong Jewish community
Belonging means feeling valued, even when we disagree
In a time of deep divides, within and beyond the Jewish community, we create spaces for respectful, honest conversation. As our community becomes more diverse in experience, perspective, and identity, belonging requires shared skills.
We support learning and dialogue not to erase disagreement, but to hold it with dignity, curiosity, and care.
Building Skills to Engage Across Difference
Belonging does not happen automatically in diverse communities. It must be built. Federation invests in leadership development that equips individuals and organizations with the skills to engage across difference with curiosity, humility, and care. These investments strengthen our ability to remain in relationship through disagreement and to lead with confidence in complex moments.
Our approach includes:
- Dialogue and learning initiatives that foster pluralism
- Convenings that bring together diverse perspectives
- Leadership development and skill-building grounded in shared responsibility
Support for this approach comes through strategic investments, including Federation’s Cornerstone Fund, which focuses on leadership development across life stages.
We invest in programs and partnerships that make Jewish life accessible, welcoming, and responsive across ability, age, and circumstance. From inclusive camps and youth experiences to senior engagement and well-being, this work focuses on the structures that make belonging real in everyday life.
Inclusion is not an add-on. It is core to building a Jewish community where everyone can show up, connect, and contribute.
Our inclusion efforts focus on:
- Disability inclusion and accessible programming
- Inclusive camps, youth, and family experiences
- Senior engagement and efforts to combat isolation and loneliness
- Mental health and well-being initiatives
Building Access Across Our Community
- Sulam: An independent nonprofit inclusion program embedded within Jewish day schools, serving students with learning differences through targeted instruction, classroom inclusion, and social-emotional services, so students can meet academic expectations while fully participating in Jewish school life.
- Pozez JCC Inclusion and Disabilities Services: Provides inclusive programs and resources for individuals with disabilities of all ages, including social skills classes, adapted sports, social opportunities for teens and adults, educational workshops, and curated community resources.
- Bender JCC Inclusion Program: Offers adaptive and inclusive programs for individuals with disabilities across the lifespan—from youth and family support to teen transition programs and adult social connection—creating opportunities to build skills, relationships, belonging.
- Sunflower Bakery: Creates pathways to employment for teens and young adults with learning differences through hands-on workforce training in culinary, pastry, and hospitality fields, combining job skills with real-world experience.
- Makom: Supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through personalized services that promote independence, community connection, and well-being—at home, in the community, and across life transitions.
Inclusive Camps
Jewish summer camp is a powerful entry point to belonging. Inclusive camps—and supports like One Happy Camper grants—help ensure children and teens of all abilities can access the transformative experience of Jewish camp.
Explore these inclusive Jewish camps:
- Lessans Camp at Bender JCC: Inclusive day camp for ages 12–21, supporting campers of all abilities alongside neurotypical peers
- Camp Kesher at Pozez JCC: Day camp for neurodivergent campers ages 14-27, offering inclusive activities and field trips.
- Camp Achva by Pozez JCC: Inclusive day camp for campers ages 5-14, welcoming campers of all abilities and backgrounds.
- Camp Ramah Tikvah Programs: Overnight camp program providing inclusive Ramah experiences for Jewish campers with intellectual, developmental, or learning disabilities.
- Sunrise Day Camp: Free, medically supported day camp for children with cancer and their siblings.
- Capital Camp’s Atzmaim Program: Overnight camp program for rising 3rd–10th graders, offering individualized support for full participation in camp life.
Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance & Inclusion Month (JDAIM)
Observed each February, Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance & Inclusion Month (JDAIM) centers disability inclusion as an essential part of Jewish life and belonging.
Disability includes a wide range of experiences—many of them non-visible—and intersects with mental health, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and aging. JDAIM invites our community to reflect on how Jewish life is designed so that people of all abilities can participate fully, with dignity and belonging.
For families with young children, PJ Library offers JDAIM resources, including book lists and conversation guides that help introduce disability inclusion in accessible, age-appropriate ways.
Where Inclusion and Belonging Take Shape
Our approach to belonging—across difference and through inclusion—is grounded in enduring Jewish values that guide how we show up, invest, and lead:
- B’tzelem Elohim (in the image of God) Every person is created with inherent dignity and infinite worth.
- Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) We are called to heal what is broken, within ourselves, our communities, and our world.
- Anavah (humility) We approach this work with humility, recognizing that our perspectives are shaped and limited by personal experience.
“It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but neither are you free to desist from it.” —Pirkei Avot 2:16
Guided by these values, we:
- Stand up against antisemitism and its impact
- Partner across Greater Washington to advance inclusion and belonging
- Examine our own systems for bias or exclusion
- Commit to learning, accountability, and growth
Together, these values guide how we invest, partner, and lead, ensuring that our community remains open, connected, and caring, even in complex and challenging moments.
