Signposts for a Troubling Future

Visiting Hebron, one of the first impressions that hits like a sucker-punch to the stomach is of a ghost town. Streets once bustling with thousands of Palestinians are now traversed almost exclusively by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Freedom of movement is squashed. Palestinian doors are welded shut and porches are caged in, ostensibly to protect...
read more

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.
read more
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?
read more
Rabbi Margo Hughes-Robinson

Beshalach: No More Solitary Confinement in NYC

There is a deep and abiding power in saying to those who have died as a result of solitary confinement. We cannot bring back those we lost, but we can sanctify their memories by continuing to fight for a city that is dedicated to human rights for all.
read more

Hope and a Listening Ear

I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. (Exodus 6:5) It seems these days I have an endless array of guest speakers in my congregation: about the Syrian refugee crisis, about the death penalty, about homelessness, about the violence fraying...
read more

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? 
read more

No More Sarahs

Last April, I traveled to Washington D.C. to visit my son at college. Georgetown University is a great place and, by all accounts, safe. We were in the bookstore when, suddenly, the entire student center was on lockdown. A policeman explained that the night before two students had been robbed at gunpoint outside the business...
read more

Summer Fellowship

Jump to: Information for Applicants >> About the Fellowship The T’ruah Rabbinical and Cantorial Student Summer Fellowship in Human Rights Leadership offers a select cohort of rabbinical and cantorial students the opportunity to work in a human rights or social justice organization, learn about human rights in Jewish text and tradition, and develop their moral...
read more

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

A D’var Torah for Parshat Vayeshev by Rabbi Jeremy Kridel “And I — where am I to go!?” (Gen. 37:30, trans. Everett Fox) Thus Reuben, the eldest of Jacob’s sons, cries out after Joseph is taken into slavery in Parshat Vayeshev, sold during Reuben’s absence. A closer look at Reuben’s story reminds us: Justice delayed...
read more

Sign up for updates and action alerts