Virtual Actions/Calls of Justice during COVID-19

As COVID-19 spread, and people everywhere were forced into their homes, T’ruah organized weekly online virtual actions, gathering our community together to learn, engage in ritual, and push our representatives to hear the “call of justice” that the Torah demands we amplify.   July 2020 7/28 Call of Justice: Take action for Essential Workers 7/21...
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Ways to Give

Thank you for your tax-deductible gift, which brings a rabbinic moral voice to human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories. Donate Online Donate by Mail Make your check out to: T’ruah266 West 37th Street, Suite 803New York, NY 10018 Join the Shofar Society By giving monthly to T’ruah, you amplify the moral...
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Judiciary Committee Hearing - State House Tuesday July 25 at 1 pm. Join us tinyurl.com/FreeHerHearing. #NoNewWomensPrison

MASSACHUSETTS: Second Hearing for the Prison Moratorium

For the last two years, T’ruah clergy and their communities have been organizing in support of the #NoNewWomensPrison campaign — an effort to stop a $50 million women’s prison project and instead invest in Massachusetts communities most affected by incarceration. The legislative centerpiece of the campaign is the Prison and Jail Construction Moratorium, which, on Tuesday, July 25th,...
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Rabbi Karen Bender and HUC student Samantha Thal

Sukkot: Sukkot and the Human Right of Dwelling Safely

Perhaps Sukkot is the festival of understanding our journey, for journeys have no concrete and steel foundations, only earth and sandy feet. And the yearning that should come out of this collective memory must be a passionate commitment to end homelessness everywhere, physical, spiritual, or national.
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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...
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How does it feel to be homeless in NYC?

“These are the names of the children of Israel, who came towards Mitzrayim.” (Shmot 1:1) I decided to experience firsthand what homelessness feels like. Having the privilege of serving a vibrant and amazing congregation in Manhattan’s prestigious Upper East Side, and living in that same neighborhood, I have never quite felt that my sense of...
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Doubled Justice, Single Planet

“Justice, justice you shall pursue.” (Deut.16:20) Perhaps no words from Torah are more famous, or more fully express the fundamental passion of Judaism for justice – justice for the poor, the widow, the orphan – for all those whom society might otherwise reject. Justice is even considered “more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Prov....
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