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Donna Kirshbaum, rabbi of the String of Pearls Reconstructionist synagogue in Princeton, was part of a rabbinical student delegation to Ghana. On the 10-day trip, her group made bricks to build a village community center and visited AIDS clinics and a local herbal clinic that practiced nonwestern medicine.

"We got to see the clash of an ancient, communal, very village-based way of life with the conveniences and horrors of western material culture," she recalled.

The impact of that experience changed the way she looks at the developing world, and when Kirshbaum found out about the American Jewish World Service's (AJWS) pilot program, the Global Justice Forum, she saw it as a way to open the eyes of her congregation to the predicament faced by the global south -- from a Jewish perspective. "As is true of everything that AJWS does, it is well thought through. There is a Jewish text component, an action component, and a service component," she said. "It looked like a terrific thing."

The opening event will be a screening of the film "Darwin's Nightmare," Wednesday, Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m. at the Fahs Theater in the Unitarian Universalist building at 50 Cherry Hill Road in Princeton. For more information, call (609) 430-0025 or email rabbi@stringofpearlsweb.org. The documentary is about how a fishing industry based on non-native perch undermined the natural ecosystem of Lake Victoria in Tanzania and contributes to poverty, famine, and disease.

The AJWS film will be followed by three study sessions whose result will be an action plan intended to involve other like-minded groups in the area that "feel a deep sense of responsibility to global poverty," Kirshbaum said.

Larry Cohen, who now serves as the congregation's co-president (his title is Wise Fool), observed about the film, "The idea is to show that unintended consequences is something you have to watch out for, even when you are doing something you thought was good for economic reasons. It is hard to remember when you are up to the neck in alligators that originally the idea was to drain the swamp."

Kirshbaum knows that Judaism has many doors, but she thinks service is the right one to open right now for her congregation. "I go back to the traditional framework of deepening Torah, avodah (service), and gemilut hasadim (deeds of loving kindness)," she said. "I think right now, given the size and the makeup of our congregation, we are poised to work on avodah, service. Part of that is understanding how we can bring more tzedek to the world." And here she defined tzedek as distributive justice, or economic parity among the world's population.

This program also fits the broader mission of String of Pearls -- figuring out how to be 21st-century Jews. "It has to be about building relationship within the synagogue community, with the local community, and with the rest of the world, and I think this project is a good way to launch that," she said.

Because Kirshbaum views learning as a means to creating relationships and inspiring action, she is hesitant to call that AJWS program "adult education." "As adults, we have to make sure we are learning for the sake of doing -- that we uphold that Jewish value," she said, and indeed she is already hearing people use the language of tzedek in the synagogue. "I think this will give us more language, deeper language, and a more sophisticated grasp of what we are trying to do -- to be of service."

Congregation String of Pearls recently experienced a growth spurt -- from 51 families this summer to about 63 today. Asked to give a reason, Kirshbaum said, "Cynics might say it is the failing economy. Optimists might say the community has reached a certain point of visibility." In fact, she thinks that having a rabbi who wants to put roots in the community is helpful -- although she still lives in Philadelphia, she has committed to work within the community all week long, and if the synagogue continues to grow, she and her husband, who teaches at Beaver College, will consider moving closer.

Even though String of Pearls now has an office in Building A of the Princeton Professional Park, meetings are still held in homes whenever possible. "We don't want to lose our heimische, intimate feeling," Kirshbaum said. "We are making sure that the life of the synagogue is really carried by the community. That's part of being a synagogue that meets the needs of the 21st century."

Founding member Liz Cutler has had her hands on just about every activity of the congregation at one time or other -- publicity, tzedakah, running a teen group, organizing the Hebrew school, adult education, and even serving as a Wise Fool.

The congregation got started in 1991 around a shiva minyan organized by Rabbi Susan Schnur when her friend's husband died. "The people gathered, and it was such an intensely spiritual experience that the group decided to continue and meet once a month for spiritual engagement or a service of some kind," recalled Cutler.

The group adopted the name String of Pearls from an old Yiddish proverb. "Each of us was like a pearl on the grand string of life," said Cutler, "and we make up a gorgeous necklace."

In those early days, said Cutler, the group "pulled together a lot of people for whom traditional Judaism didn't work. They were disaffected and felt uninspired by traditional Jewish liturgy."

When Schnur, ill with lupus, left the congregation, the tightly knit group she left behind created a group of Helpmeets to move the group forward. Although other synagogues might call this group a board, explained Cutler, anyone in the congregation can join and any member who attends meetings can vote.

The expectation was that all members would help out regularly and that "the whole synagogue would be cooperative," said Cutler. One salient consequence of this approach is that because group members set up before and clean up after services, there is no need for a building or a staff.

After the synagogue outgrew rented space at the Masonic lodge in Princeton, it moved to the Unitarian Church, where it has been for many years. "It is a great space, has a beautiful sanctuary, and is ecumenical in feel," said Cutler. "We like the idea of sharing a faith space with another faith." The group has had a Torah on loan from Adath Israel in Lawrenceville for many years and is hoping to raise money to restore the old scroll.

String of Pearls went through several rabbis, most of them Reconstructionist and all part-time, as it tried to figure out what the synagogue would look like after Schnur left. The one of longest duration was Rabbi Daniel Brenner, who stayed for nine years and left a year-and-a-half ago. Under his guidance, String of Pearls affiliated with the Reconstructionist movement. Rabbi Vicki Tuchman served as interim rabbi before Kirshbaum was hired; Cutler said that she helped get the Hebrew school on its feet and got String of Pearls involved in the larger community, and she remains a member.

The synagogue has always had a Hebrew school (which now meets once a week at the Princeton Day School) and services at least twice a month, one Friday night (with about 40 attendees currently) and one Shabbat morning (with about 20 participants).

Cutler is very happy with her synagogue. The only change she would like is to grow enough to have a full-time rabbi. "It is thriving at the moment, and I like having a community small enough where you know everybody."

Kirshbaum agreed. "We are becoming a synagogue of relationship," she said. "We are small enough to be responsive to all sorts of needs. We like each other, and you don't find factions here.

Cutler has observed Rabbi Kirshbaum actively building this sense of closeness. "This year she has visited every single household, one on one, to get to know us," she said. "We feel loved up -- like someone is watching over us as a congregation."