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When health officials began releasing information on the swine flu epidemic, the Rev. Mark Sills made sure the words were translated into other languages so that non-English-speaking immigrants in the community could get timely updates.

Rabbi Fred Guttman spent two years raising $51,000 and organizing an interfaith group of clergy last December for a pilgrimage to Israel, where the 23 traveled, studied and lived together for 10 days.

Sills and Guttman will be honored Thursday with the 2009 Brotherhood/Sisterhood Citation Award, whose theme this year is “Live the Golden Rule.” Sills founded FaithAction International House, an effort to build community and reduce tensions among races, ethnicities and religions.

Guttman is the senior rabbi at Temple Emanuel, where the community comes together throughout the year, and most notably during the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration.

“They’ve both ... made sure that we understand what is within the potential of each person to build an inclusive and respectful society,” said Susan Feit, executive director of the National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont Triad, which gives the award.

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With Guilford’s school board suing county commissioners in an ugly impasse over funding and potential school closings in 1997, Rabbi Fred Guttman found a way to get the chairs of each board to meet him and a handful of clergy in the parlor of First Baptist Church.

“We laid out a compromise and promised our support to them if they presented it to their boards,” First Baptist pastor Ken Massey recalled of the meeting where Guttman took the backing of nearly 70 members of the interfaith community. “What drove the rabbi through the entire process was the singular goal of getting the best outcome for our children.”

Stories abound throughout the community of the rabbi’s influential leadership on often complex political and social justice issues.

“He is just such a strong and valuable community asset — and I’m understating that,” said Anthony Wade, the director of the city’s Human Relations Department.

Most recently, Guttman raised the scholarship funds for the interfaith trip to create better relationships among clergy, who are often the ones called upon in a community crisis.

“What Fred understands is the world is about relationships and you get through issues because of relationships that develop,” said the Rev. Sid Batts of First Presbyterian Church. “Fred is so genuine as a person, that you trust Fred though you may disagree with him on some issues.”

At the same time, the co-founder of the Greensboro chapter of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, who came to Greensboro in 1995, is a spiritual leader to more than 1,600 people.

“He is so full of ideas and wants to do so much for so many people,” said Ronald Milstein, the incoming chairman of the board at the synagogue. “It’s him having so many ideas in his head and balancing so many projects at once that it’s hard to focus him at times — I don’t know if I call it a flaw or an idiosyncrasy.”

Guttman grew up in Nashville, Tenn. — a minority, like many Jews in the South. After watching Mel Gibson’s controversial “The Passion of the Christ” a few years ago, he told a Greensboro College audience that it “brought back my own personal baggage of being 8 and in grammar school (and the stereotype of Jews being) money-grubbing, terrible, terrible people.”

An important mentor in his youth was his rabbi, who was active in civil rights and helping to integrate Nashville, which joined in the sit-ins a week after Greensboro ignited the movement.

“That was important to have someone week after week saying this is not the way the world should be,” Guttman said of Rabbi Randall Falk. “There’s a word, nudnik, for a person who is a pain in the rear. I’d like to kind of be a nudnik for justice.”

He has been involved in some of Greensboro’s thorniest issues — but also those simply making connections.

A year after his arrival in Greensboro, Guttman created a special Martin Luther King Jr. shabbat service at Temple Emanuel that has become a community event, with African American speakers and special music joining singers from both traditions.

Guttman this year organized a shabbat service for Jews in the gay community that drew hundreds, followed by a special Passover seder celebrating freedoms and exploring those not yet in their grasp.

Guttman has also led seven groups from Greensboro on the annual March of the Living, which draws thousands of Jewish high school juniors and seniors from around the world to Poland and Israel to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. They come back wanting to repair the world.

His idea for a Mitzvah day of Jewish service to the community now involves nearly 1,000 volunteers.

“I’ve been able to see through his work that one person really can make a difference in a community by using his voice and his hard work,” said daughter Maital Guttman, who films socially conscious documentaries.

“He is so good as a leader and a rabbi and a teacher in helping people see what could be, even if it’s a journey away.”

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As he has become a voice for Hispanic immigrants fearful of racial profiling, Mark Sills has challenged Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes over how government regulations regarding undocumented immigrants are applied.

“He has gone after me in a way that sometimes borders on attempted bullying — and it’s tough to bully someone who’s 6-8 and not scared,” Barnes said with a bit of amusement. “I respect his tenacity, his willingness to fight for what he believes in. I don’t agree with him.”

Sills would rather take the criticism than stay quiet on matters of conscience. The Methodist minister once sent the courts a letter asking that texts from all world religions be used for oath-taking purposes, after a Muslim woman balked at swearing on a Bible. He got threats for serving as a member of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined Greensboro’s 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings.

“It doesn’t bother him at all when it’s an issue of whether you treat someone as a human being or not,” said Peter Peiffer, FaithAction’s immediate past chairman. “Some of his work has been somewhat controversial at times, but then what is the point unless you are challenging people?”

Sills, a Greensboro College graduate, helped navigate the city through an effort to absorb Hurricane Katrina refugees — one the Pew Charitable Trust ranked in the top 10 nationally.

“I realize that in honoring me they are honoring first of all a concept that’s really central to my life — this concept of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and I see that as the core of all religious faiths,” Sills said.

Yet he is embarrassed to take all the credit, such as with the creation of the Potter’s House community kitchen at the ecumenical Urban Ministry when he was executive director.

“The idea came from our volunteers, the funding from throughout the community and the hard work of actually implementing it was done by scores of other volunteers and a handful of staff,” Sills said. “I got to sit in and run meetings that talked about and planned it. In many respects that’s the easy part.”

Not so, say other problem-solvers in the community.

“Mark is definitely humble,” said Anthony Wade, the director of the city’s Human Relations Department, who most recently has been involved with Sills on fair housing issues.

“Yet he gives strength to those around him by his quiet leadership as well as his sense of integrity.”

That’s something in his genes.

His father was a textile manager who followed a call into the ministry and his mother a teacher who saw children come to school barefoot in the winter.

“She took it upon herself to make sure every child in the school had shoes,” Sills said. “It was that kind of witness that I saw every day at home.”

This past year FaithAction has helped people of more than 50 nationalities. The work, with three full-time workers and community volunteers, includes classes in languages such as Chinese and Arabic and a “diaper closet” for clients trying to weather the recession. Often, days are spent helping immigrants who might not have all their paperwork in order and have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous landlords or employers.

“I see Mark as a prophet to the faith community,” said the Rev. Julie Peeples of Congregational United Church of Christ. “With great clarity of vision and solid grounding in faith, he reminds us to honor our calling to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry and work for God’s justice for all. And he manages to do all that with an open heart and a level head.”

Sills’ passion has kept the doors of the nonprofit open. It is mostly funded by donations, and Sills makes sure to squeeze every dollar, said Mattie Williams, the director of volunteers and administration.

“We have interns who come in here and I tell them this is a big old house and First Presbyterian let us use this building at no cost — our cost comes in trying to heat this building, so when you come in in the morning it gets turned on to knock the chill off, and then you use your coat,” Williams said.

Sills has not had a raise and not always his full salary since 1997.

“He wants the money to go into the programs,” Williams said. “We wonder sometimes ourselves, 'How does he do all of this?’ ”

Sills is reflective.

“I have to live my life with the attitude that justice and equity and fairness and mutual respect are all part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus,” Sills said.

“The way we show our love for God is showing our love for our neighbor. All these folks who live here, regardless where they come from, are our neighbors.”

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com