“Care, Not Criminalization March” on May 24th at 5pm

On May 24th, the #CareNotCuts and The People’s Plan Coalition (of which VOCAL-NY and JFREJ are a part) will be hosting the “Care, Not Criminalization” mass mobilization. We will be gathering with a broad coalition of New York City groups (including T’ruah EMI partner Freedom Agenda) to demand a city budget that funds dignity, safety, and opportunity for all...
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Stop Torture Now: A Complete Rabbinic Sourcebook

This is T’ruah’s primary resource booklet on government-sponsored torture, originally published in 2005. It includes the shorter versions of Rabbi Melissa Weintraub’s articles on torture and Jewish law, insertions for High Holidays services, materials for study and discussion, and the original public letter to the Bush Administration, signed by over 800 rabbis and cantors. The full-length versions...
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Migrants on God’s Land

That’s how I found myself chanting and marching, yelling to children that they were not forgotten, that they were loved – while holding the hand of my youngest son, whom I love so much it hurts. Having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside of your body.
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Photo of the author, Rabbi Toba Spitzer

Pesach: No One Is Free Until All Are Free

How can we take on our own “marking of the doorposts” for this moment? What am I prepared to do, or say, to help bring this cursed war to an end? How might I “mark” myself as someone committed to the collective liberation of Palestinians and Israelis?
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Elana Nemitoff

Elana Nemitoff completed her first year of Rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem, and is excited to be taking a year off in order to improve her Hebrew and explore the landscape of Judaism in Israel. Having received a B.A. in psychology from Washington University in St Louis in 2012,...
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From Furious to Curious

I wonder how the story would have unfolded if God had been curious rather than furious, and if when Moses came down from the mountain and witnessed the dancing, he had been able to pause and observe, noticing the feelings arising and waiting to respond until his anger had quieted down. Was it reasonable to expect these newly freed slaves, who were just beginning to experiment with their sense of autonomy, to simply wait patiently for Moses to return? 
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The Voice of God

The image of God—tzelem Elohim—is often front and center in animating Jewish human rights work. The recent release of the movie Exodus: Gods and Kings (which, admittedly, I have not seen) gave me pause to contemplate the tzelem’s counterpart—the voice of God. Director Ridley Scott is taking some flak for casting 11-year-old Isaac Andrews as...
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“Satiety Leads to Rebellion”

The problem with taking my children to Disney World is that upon returning home, they kvetch about wanting to return to the Happiest Place on Earth. The thousands of junky Disney calories and hundreds of amusements lead my children and, I must ruefully confess, me, to “grow fat and kick”,” in the words of the...
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