Who We Are:
Mission:
The Alberta Shul is a Jewish grassroots organizational hub in Portland, Oregon inspired by a historic synagogue.
We build, strengthen and empower Jewish life by creating space for learning and experimentation, community celebrations and spiritual practice and social justice engagement.
We strive to be a heart for Jewish life on Portland’s east side by providing a connection to our past while re-envisioning and creating our Jewish future.
Vision:
Since 2017, the Alberta Shul has been a social justice and activism-centered Jewish grassroots community. We see Judaism as a verb: we pray with our feet by combining ritual, learning, action, and activism.
We are a totally non-hierarchical organization: we have no rabbi or organizational leader, and we provide opportunities for leadership with no barriers, timelines, or costs. The Alberta Shul community serves Jews who, because of Jewish racism, classism, gender orientation or other barriers, feel excluded from "traditional" Jewish community.
Volunteers are at our heart! We love collaborating with community members to generate and produce events and programs.
What we do:
Alberta Shul events are unique, collaborative, interactive, and FUN!. We hold conversations rather than lectures, define Jewish lingo as we go, encourage questions at any time, and invite participants to respond to each other. Regardless of Jewish background or education, everyone has something to offer at an Alberta Shul event.
Since 2017, the Alberta Shul has been a grass-roots, community-led project of east-side Jews trying to make Judaism and Jewishness a vibrant part of our lives: We’ve hosted:
the annual Barbra Streisand Pedalpalooza Ride
the Hanukkah Rager featuring live klezmer by Michelle Alany and her band
community grape juice making
mushroom hunting havdalah
community swifts watching shabbat
Jewish disco
a Lag B’Omer beach bonfire
Rosh Hashanah in the Park
and more!
Moving into the future, we hope to keep hosting Jewish holiday and ritual events that center LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities and leaders. We also hope to re-focus on social justice events.
The Alberta Shul strives to be a safe space for Jews of all identities to learn, grow and build community in Portland, Oregon by centering social justice learning, practice, and action. Volunteers center their personal journeys, learn, share and teach how they are making an impact and to invite others to engage in this work as well.
Have a dream for an event you want to do? Want to lead a holiday ritual or experience? Have experience or skills and want to do something? We’d love to help you make your dream happen! Be part of the amazing team that makes the magic happen!
As many of you know the Alberta Shul dreams BIG! And we want you to dream BIG with us!
Some areas for how you can volunteer with the Alberta Shul include:
Event Creation (includes some funding to help fulfill your event dreams!)
Marketing & Communications
Accounting or bookkeeping
Leadership volunteering (join the Board!)
A note: Community members with the Alberta Shul come from all kinds of Jewish backgrounds, find different connections and meaning in their Jewish identities and may be curious about how Jew-ish-ness fits into their lives. Some of our members grew up with Jewish community and are easily able to incorporate Jewish ritual, identity and history into their lives. Some of us are converts, or didn’t grow up with Jewish communities, or are not even Jewish, but are in interfaith families, trying to embrace all their complex identities. We embrace everyone eager to make Jewish community in Portland a rich and vibrant part of our identities: if you don’t feel like you’re Jewish enough, you are enough here, and we’d love to organize with you!
Volunteer with us!
Contact us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!