It is a beautiful summer Friday in Seattle's University District, and Frances Kreimer, 21, is wrapped in a tallit, praying the morning service outside an international students' dorm. Inside, challah is rising in the kitchen, and Kreimer's four roommates are making preparations for the Sabbath. The five East Coast college students have come out West for the summer to create a unique experience combining social action, Jewish learning and communal living - not under the auspices of any Jewish institution or movement, but according to their own interpretation.

"Social justice, real and applied, is at the core of what Judaism means to me," said Kreimer, a junior at Columbia who is majoring in international relations with an interdisciplinary concentration in human rights. "My goal for the summer is to live intentionally, taking advantage of the full opportunity to integrate social justice into Jewish spirituality and practice and vice versa."

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