Plant Justice Not Settlements
In 2016, T’ruah won an important victory for transparency when we persuaded the Jewish National Fund-USA to publish a list of its projects on its publicly-available tax forms for the first time. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that we now know that JNF-USA doesn’t just plant trees in Israel, but also...
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Previous Honorees
2023 Honorees Former Congressman Andy Levin A former member of Congress, union organizer, human rights activist, workforce policy expert and green energy entrepreneur, Andy Levin brought his unique expertise to the halls of Congress as the proud representative for Michigan’s 9th District from 2018 to 2022. While in Washington, Andy authored, cosponsored, and helped pass...
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An Open Letter from North American JewsCondemning Settler Violence and Settlement Construction
We, the undersigned, strongly condemn settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank and setting fire to their homes and property. The settlers’ actions are a chillul Hashem, a desecration of the Divine name. Their behavior flies in the face of our Jewish values of human dignity, human life, and true justice for everyone. For far...
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How Drawing Near Leads to Speaking Out
This drawing-near is ultimately what leads to Joseph’s emotions overwhelming him; breaking from silence into sobbing, he orders the room cleared and then reveals himself to his brothers. Our drawing-near is also what engaged our emotions and drew us from silence into speech.
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Learning to Open Our Hands
Our hearts and bodies want to give, but our brains get in the way.
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Holding the Space
We were told earlier in the Torah to love our neighbor and even the stranger as ourselves. But these commandments are included and yet reframed in our mitzvah, "V’Ahavta et Adonai," love everything/everyone. Signaling, perhaps, that we are also to understand love differently, that we are ready to learn a higher level of embodying love.
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The Power of Dreams and Our Power to Create Prophecy
...if, like this Pharaoh, we can move beyond the terror to seeking options with an open mind, we may find ourselves with more resources at hand than we ever realized was possible.
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Bamidbar: Finding God in the Wilderness
That the Torah addresses the concerns that civilization inevitably brings, along with awareness of the need for individuals to experience God in wilderness, seems to me a profound grappling with the needs both of human beings and of God’s non-human world.
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Shavuot: Revelation in Montgomery
We are called to elevate the difficult truths, and sometimes our complicity in them, in order to “lift them up” for tikkun — for fixing.
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