Counting everyone, including the stranger, for the 2020 Census
A d’var Torah for Parshat Naso. “The Eternal one spoke to Moses: Take a census.” This week’s Torah portion, Naso, focuses on one of the multiple censuses that was carried out, the census of the Levites in the desert. This year in the U.S. is our year to carry out the census — to be...
read more
Building Structures to House All Images of God
It is incumbent upon us to create spaces for God to come into the world. I would add, if we are not doing everything we can to create structures to house all holy human beings, then we are not doing our part in imitating godliness.
read more
Report from El Paso, November 2019
A firsthand account from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T'ruah Executive Director, of the joint T'ruah-HIAS border delegation, November 2019.
read more
Opening the Door at Passover
At the first Passover, we marked our doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb to protect us from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:23). Although that was a one-time ritual, doors continue to be a central symbol of the holiday. It is a symbol that seems more relevant than ever in an age when nativism...
read more
Ending Solitary Confinement
JUMP TO: Current Campaigns Why Jews Should Oppose Solitary Confinement It is not good for a human to be alone. —Genesis 2:18 Either companionship or death. —Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 23a Current Campaigns National T’ruah endorses the historic End Solitary Confinement Act, introduced by Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) (alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D. (NY-16), Adriano Espaillat...
read more
Peering Outside the Camp
“Joseph’s master had him put in prison…but even while he was there in prison, God was with Joseph.” -Genesis 39:20-21 Bulletproof glass separates me and my congregant. David [not his real name] and I sit opposite one another, in identical, soundproof, cinder-block visiting cubicles at a prison an hour’s drive from my home. He’s wearing...
read more
