Among the many things we both cherish about TBE is the variety of opportunities the temple offers for community involvement. We are grateful to have become part of the Partakers Empowerment Program nearly a year ago and welcome the opportunity to share our experience here.

What hooked us initially was hearing Arthur Bembury, Partakers Founder and Executive Director, and TBE’s Amy Benjamin speak about the program.  There are many dimensions to Partakers, including PEP, the 12-week educational and support program for formally incarcerated. PEP offers the opportunity to be part of a mentoring team that meets weekly with a mentee (via Zoom these days). We are grateful to be paired up as co-mentors.

We have now mentored two women. It was clear early on in knowing each of our mentees that our commitment went beyond the official 12 weeks. Our mentees, I and L, are very different women with different personalities, life circumstances, and needs. However, there are certain hurdles that most women coming out of prison face and these have surely been there for our two resourceful and resilient women.

Being part of Partakers is humbling, frustrating, inspiring, and enriching. We are humbled to see how hard it is to make a better life for oneself after incarceration. It is frustrating to learn, yet again, how unfair so many of our social systems are. It is inspiring to meet women who are determined to move beyond their pasts and to build futures for themselves in a world that does not make re-entry easy. And it is enriching to work as a team and to make a difference—albeit small—in the lives of women who have been battling injustices their entire lives, for whom a safe space, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on are too often ideas and not realities.