Shleimut: noun (Hebrew): wholeness, completeness, integration
Shleimut is a Jewish multi-disciplinary approach to health, healing and wholeness.

Judaism holds a holistic view of health and a belief that community plays an integral part in maintaining health and promoting healing. These traditions are at the core of Shleimut, an innovative program in which mental health and physical health professionals (e.g., a social worker and a nurse) work with clergy as an on-site interdisciplinary team attending to the mental, physical, and spiritual health and healing needs of a congregational community.

Through a partnership between Jewish Community Services and local synagogues, Shleimut works to deliver an integrated, caring response to health and healing.

Shleimut activities may include: psychological or spiritual counseling, health education, health screenings, information and referral, liaison with other health-related resources in the community, support or educational groups, health advocacy, health outreach, health-related social action projects, training volunteers for visiting the sick, and other activities.

Synagogues are communities where people share major life cycle events – from birth and coming of age to marriage and death. But we face many other life challenges, such as illness, stress, parenting, and caregiving, for which community and faith can strengthen us and enhance our well-being. As synagogues offer educational programming, volunteer opportunities, and social activities, so too can support services become a normative and accessible part of communal life. By making these services available within congregations, Shleimut fully supports and promotes health and healing not only by responding to trauma or crisis, but also by engaging in activities of prevention and early intervention.

For more detailed information about Shleimut and its history, click here.  For additional resources click here.

If you would like information about bringing Shleimut to your congregation, organization, or community, please contact: Jacki Ashkin, LCSW-C, at 410-843-7404 or jashkin@jcsbaltimore.org.