Jewishly Connected, Joyously Diverse

Build a Jewish home worth celebrating

Live the values that brought you to Tivnu

You might room with the Tivnunik who led services at summer camp. Or cook Shabbat dinner with the one voted “Most Likely to Fight God.” And you might also find your own path, may be different than the one you started with. In the Tivnu bayit, you’ll discover opportunities every week to put your beliefs to work, to try out the behaviors that feel right, and to build a sense of belonging with your peers.

Tivnu motivated me to experience and practice Judaism in the ways that I want to, and I feel much less restricted about the ways I need to do that. It helped me understand the ways in which Judaism and social justice relate which inspired me to continue to be involved in both.

— Hadara G.

Open mic regular

Beliefs

Want to know the truth? We’re not interested in finding the one “best” set of Jewish beliefs. We’re interested in the beliefs you bring, and the ones that connect you to your Jewishness. So we’ll dive into the sources about how to make the world a better place, like the prophet Isaiah’s vision of a just society. We’ll find the connections between Jewish history and immigrant rights that you can only see at the Woodburn farmworker labor center. And if you find yourself singing songs in the Program Director’s backyard on a Friday evening, you know we’ll talk about what they mean to you around the Shabbat table later that night.

Behaviors

For the holiday of Sukkot, we'll get a crew of Tivnu builders to put up a temporary shelter in the backyard. Very traditional. We're also going to get a stack of junk food and build edible sukkot. Not so traditional. And when a houseless man walks out of the woods (true story!) and asks Tivnuniks if they can build him a sukkah for the holiday, well, that might be the best example of how we're constantly bringing together tradition and innovation. We're always working to match our community's values and each participant's priorities, so that when the next Shabbat or Jewish holiday comes around, we can hang up our work clothes and design some ways we can all celebrate together.

Belonging

Joining Tivnu is a chance to find your place in our group. But we want to help you feel part of the Portland Jewish world, as well. Like the bunch of Tivnuniks who helped the kids at a local Jewish school build a sustainable garden. Like the Tivnu chefs who decided that the best way to celebrate the Purim mitzvah of mishloach manot was to deliver home-made soup to hungry Portlanders. Like the two Tivnuniks who regularly walked to synagogue together, despite coming from very different backgrounds.

Tivnu is an opportunity to join a group of your peers. But it’s also a way to push those boundaries outward, and find a bigger world.