This spring, representatives from four local synagogues completed a course that will help to prevent abuse and harassment in their institutions.

The process began two years ago when 100 women gathered for the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago’s (JWF) Frame the Future Pop-Up Giving Circle, the culmination of their 20th anniversary celebration. Inspired by the #MeToo movement, the 100 women in the room chose to fund Sacred Spaces-a program to help prevent sexual and other types of abuse in Jewish spaces.

The JWF grant allowed Sacred Spaces to team up with Chicago organizations like JCFS Chicago, SHALVA, and the Chicago Board of Rabbis to learn what was already being done to prevent abuse and harassment in the Chicago community, and then to educate local synagogues about abuse prevention in new ways.

“Sacred Spaces didn’t come in to fix the community; rather, they’ve worked to leverage what’s already being done and learned how to best provide unique expertise and collaborate,” said Amy Saltzman, Program Officer at the Jewish Women’s Foundation.

In the end, the four synagogues representing different denominations of Judaism-Emanuel Congregation, Mishkan Chicago, Congregation Beth Shalom of Naperville, and Anshe Sholom Bnai Israel-committed to the program dubbed “Sacred Synagogues, Sacred Spaces.”

“This will make our community better, safer, and more comfortable for everyone,” said Chris Igo, who spearheaded the effort at Beth Shalom. She and others at the synagogue are currently working towards modifications of physical space, including planning for installation of windows in doors without windows, and ensuring lines of sight in all hallways. “We haven’t had any issues,” she said, “but it opened our eyes to the fact that we should have a proactive stance. We feel very committed to taking the information and education we received and trying to implement it in our community.”

The work began with the Safer Synagogues program from JCFS Chicago, which is one part of its broader Safer Community initiative to keep people of all ages safe from a variety of types of abuse. “[Once] the synagogues have the knowledge, we help them figure out the programmatic implications, as well as policies and procedures, to implement things we’ve talked about in our training,” said Ann Lubin, JCFS Chicago’s Senior Director of Jewish Community Services.

JWF and other local organizations partnered with Sacred Spaces to identify interested synagogues and to provide support during and after the intensive workshops. The subjects covered at the workshops included hiring and screening potential employees, safety in the physical space of a synagogue, organizational response to incidents of abuse, and policy development and implementation.

“We were seriously impressed with the dedication of the synagogues that participated,” said Sacred Spaces President and CEO Shira Berkovits, who is also a behavioral psychologist and attorney. “We could just see how invested each synagogue was in the remarkable work that they were doing, and it was inspiring to hear from them how warmly the work was being received by their communities. Chicago was a great city for us to pilot the Sacred Synagogues program since we were able to build on the work that JCFS has done.”

The project is particularly important, says Berkovits, because the synagogue is central to Jewish life. “A synagogue is a place of trust and welcome,” she said. “Unlike other places where only certain people are allowed in, the entire community comes together, and we feel like a family. When we create a sacred space, we need to make sure it’s not just about the prayers-we need to have systems in place to protect the people who enter our doors.”

The Jewish Women’s Foundation is an independent project of the Jewish United Fund .