JEWISH CHAPLAINCY OF THE UPSTATE
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
WELCOME TO JEWISH CHAPLAINCY OF THE UPSTATE
Non-affiliated Jews of Upstate South Carolina who are suffering from family or personal crisis now have access to a free ministry of pastoral care and counseling.
Jewish Chaplaincy of the Upstate is a non-profit, no-fee service directed by Rabbi Marc Howard Wilson. It addresses the most critical needs of Jewish people who are not affiliated with a particular synagogue – illness, hospitalization, visits to the homebound and nursing home residents, death, bereavement, and family or personal crises.
Rabbi Wilson comments, “Non-affiliates still have critical needs that demand our attention and compassion. Our nonjudgmental presence and assistance in their times of greatest need is a sacred obligation that is at the core of the Jewish heritage.”
“We are not creating a new synagogue,” Rabbi Wilson states in the strongest terms. “If anything, we will encourage the people we encounter to affiliate with a local congregation, and we will encourage the congregations to invite their membership. Nor are we a ministry that distributes charity. The sole focus of this ministry is helping people spiritually and pastorally in times of personal and family crises.”
For additional information or assistance, contact Jewish Chaplaincy of the Upstate at (864) 271-3715 or marcwilson1216@aol.com.
ABOUT RABBI MARC HOWARD WILSON
RABBI MARC HOWARD WILSON is a pastoral counselor and caregiver, speaker, columnist and a consultant specializing in organizational development, community relations and communications for congregational, corporate and non-profit clients.
He has served as a congregational rabbi for three decades, holding pulpits in Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte and Greenville, South Carolina. His essays have been published in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Charlotte Observer, San Francisco Examiner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greenville News Asheville Citizen-Times, Jüdische Allgemeine (Germany) and New York Jewish Week. They have been distributed by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, BeliefNet and Religion News Service. He has been the monthly back-page columnist for Greenville Magazine and writes a regular column for the e-zines Jewsweek (“Wilson’s Wisdom”) and eGullet (“Cardiac A’fressed”).
His speaking engagements have brought him to such diverse venues as church and synagogue scholar-in-residence programs, keynote addresses at Clemson University’s Institute on Community Development, Furman University’s Institute on Religion and Public Life, South Carolina United Methodist Church Convention, a variety of civic and religious groups, and numerous Jewish communities under the aegis of the United Jewish Communities’ Speakers Bureau.
As a rabbi, Wilson’s areas of expertise are in community advocacy, interfaith relations, organizational design/development and adult education. He is a summa cum laude graduate of DePaul University (Chicago) and was ordained by the Hebrew Theological College (Chicago), from which he also holds a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree and Hebrew teacher and principal certificates. He has also served as a Graduate Fellow at the Chicago Institute of Pastoral Care.
Wilson is the founder of two synagogue-based homeless shelters and has served in a variety of organizations, including Charlotte Area Clergy Association (Chair), Urban Training Organization of Atlanta (Co-Chair), Mayor’s Religious Advisory Committee (Co-Chair), Metrolina AIDS Consortium, Joint Urban Ministries, Bioethics Resource Group, Presbyterian/Mercy Hospitals’ Clinical Review Committee and advisor to two Clinical Pastoral Education programs. For his efforts and work with the homeless, he was named Community Servant of the Year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In Greenville, he is the founder of Faith Communities United, the first interfaith-interracial coalition in the Upstate of South Carolina and the Jewish Chaplaincy of the Upstate. He has been named one of Greenville’s 50 most influential leaders. He co-chaired the city’s first interfaith/interracial service to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and is working with Greenville County Council on declaring Dr. King’s birthday an official holiday. For these efforts, he received the African American Charity Coalition’s annual Human Relations Award, the first non-African American to be so honored.
Wilson's wife, Linda, is Program Director of the Upstate Homeless Coalition. He is exceptionally proud of their blended family of eight children and children-in-law, who include physicians, an IBM technologist, an MBA candidate, and a seminary student in Jerusalem/New York. None of this overshadows his boundless pride and love for his granddaughter, Sophie, named for his late mother, and his grandson, Simeon, named for his late father.
Beside his children and grandchildren, Wilson considers his greatest accomplishment having put his career on hold for five years to become the primary caregiver to his homebound parents . . . and making a kickin' kosher gumbo.
Read Rabbi Wilson's essays at MARC MUSING.
