2021 marks 10 years of partnership between T’ruah, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to fight for worker safety, wages
NEW YORK — T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization that represents over 2,300 rabbis and cantors and their communities in North America, is marking a decade of historic partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a farmworker organization that continues to transform the Florida tomato fields through fair labor and wage advocacy. The partnership has brought more than 100 rabbis and other Jewish leaders to visit and march alongside workers, led communities across the country to advocate for improved labor conditions, and created transparency and accountability in the nation’s food system. T’ruah’s annual Human Rights Shabbat celebration, held Dec. 10-11, is dedicated this year to commemorating the partnership.
“It is an honor for T’ruah to be the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ primary Jewish partner for the last 10 years,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah. “The core Jewish narrative begins in slavery and ends in liberation. We cannot ignore modern demonstrations of forced labor that are the results of demands for cheap goods at the price of worker safety and wages. Our work with CIW aims to end these unfair conditions.”
2021 also marks the 10th anniversary of the implementation of CIW’s Fair Food Program, which brings together farmworkers, consumers, major food retailers, and growers to combat inhumane conditions and low wages for agriculture workers. Ten years ago marked the inauguration of the Fair Food Standards Council, the monitoring body through which the Fair Food Program achieves its transparency and accountability.
In the 10 years since the establishment of the program, tens of thousands of lives have been changed for the better. The program has led to over $36 million in Fair Food premiums being paid directly to farmworkers, reached over 72,000 workers in on-the-clock peer education sessions, and guaranteed zero tolerance for worker exploitation or sexual assault.
The #tomatorabbis, as members of the rabbinic delegations call themselves, have gone home to involve members of their own communities in asking major corporations to join the Fair Food Program in an effort to eliminate widespread labor trafficking and slavery.
T’ruah has worked with the coalition to bring Trader Joe’s, Ahold (parent company of Stop & Shop/Giant) and Chipotle into the program since its start. Rabbis and other members of T’ruah are currently organizing Jewish communities to ask Wendy’s to join 14 major corporations in doing the same.
T’ruah is dedicating this year’s Human Rights Shabbat to celebrating ten years of fair food and reflecting on how far the partnership has come as we gear up for the challenges ahead. Human Rights Shabbat is an annual T’ruah program, observed near December 10, International Human Rights Day. Jewish communities throughout North America have celebrated Human Rights Shabbat in coordination with T’ruah since 2008.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights mobilizes a network of more than 2,000 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism that, together with the Jewish community, act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
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-Deuteronomy 10:19
Most immigrants to the U.S. come seeking safety, freedom, and a better life, just as many of our families did. Jewish texts, history, traditions, and values compel us to welcome them with dignity and compassion.
But our country’s policies towards immigrants remain far from our shared vision. While the Trump Administration’s dangerous policies were blatantly rooted in racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy, President Biden has not made the improvements our communities have demanded.
The United States must follow international human rights law when it comes to asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants. Our government must also recognize and redress the systemic racism that permeates our immigration system, discriminating against immigrants of color.
In the fight for true immigrant justice and relief, we need all hands on deck.
Our work includes:
- Organizing clergy through our BIMA Campaign (Building Immigration Momentum & Action), encouraging rabbis and cantors to recognize how they can use their platform to change the narrative around immigration for the better
- Human rights delegations to the southern border for clergy, with our partners at HIAS
- Coalition work through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition
- Working with the All In For Registry campaign to update our immigration laws to allow millions of longtime undocumented US residents a path to permanent legal status
- Advocating to Congress and the federal government for a more humane immigration system that welcomes asylum seekers and refugees with dignity, provides legitimate pathways to citizenship for more of our neighbors, and reduces reliance on detention and deportation.
*In the Torah, the word "ger" refers to a person who came from elsewhere, but is now a long-term or permanent resident of their new community.
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"This year we are slaves; next year, may we be free."
—Passover Haggadah
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all other forms."
—Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
T'ruah is leading the charge in the Jewish community against modern-day slavery and human trafficking, focusing on the issue of slavery in supply chains. Our work includes
- Partnering with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to expand the Fair Food Program, the most effective slavery prevention program in U.S. agriculture.
- We are the only Jewish organization that is a member of ATEST, the Alliance to End Slavery &Trafficking, the premier U.S. coalition dedicated to supporting those vulnerable to trafficking.
- Supporting federal legislation to help survivors of trafficking.
- Training more than 70 rabbis in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to engage their communities in addressing slavery and trafficking locally.
- Co-leading the Jewish Coalition Against Trafficking, together with the National Council of Jewish Women.
- Partnering with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher Fair Trade Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
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more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history.
According to the most conservative estimates of the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people are held in situations of forced labor today: three out of every 1,000 people in the world.
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—Nedarim 49b
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Our work includes:
- Solidarity with farmworkers: Since 2011, T’ruah has brought more than 100 rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization that is transforming the Florida tomato fields from places of modern day slavery to some of the best workplaces in U.S. agriculture. The #tomatorabbis, as members of the rabbinic delegations call themselves, have gone home to involve members of their own communities in asking major corporations to join the coalition’s Fair Food Program, which raises the wages of tomato workers and ensures fair, regulated working conditions in the fields to end the conditions that have led to widespread labor trafficking and slavery.T’ruah has worked with the coalition to bring Trader Joe’s, Ahold (Stop & Shop/Giant), and Chipotle into the Fair Food Program. We are currently organizing Jewish communities to ask Wendy’s to join 14 major corporations in doing the same, and are partnering with the coalition to expand the Fair Food Program into additional states and crops.
- Building the faith-rooted movement for worker justice: Along with organizations and networks like the Interreligious Network for Worker Solidarity, T'ruah works to bolster national advocacy and organizing that builds up the worker justice movement and aims to stop the attacks on workers coming from both legislatures and individual companies.
- Selling fairly traded chocolate for Jewish holiday celebrations: T’ruah partners with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher fairly traded Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Local campaigns:
T'ruah's New York City cluster is partnering with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the Laundry Workers Center on their Cabricanecos campaign, standing in solidarity with migrant and indigenous workers who are seeking access to safer and more equitable working conditions at job sites across Brooklyn.
Partners:
Internally, T'ruah strives to live our values around worker justice. Whenever possible, our products, including paper materials and t-shirts, are union printed, and we use a union cleaning company for our office. We aspire to equity, transparency, and dignity in all aspects of our hiring process and in how we treat our employees.
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-Deuteronomy 10:19
Most immigrants to the U.S. come seeking safety, freedom, and a better life, just as many of our families did. Jewish texts, history, traditions, and values compel us to welcome them with dignity and compassion.
But our country’s policies towards immigrants remain far from our shared vision. While the Trump Administration’s dangerous policies were blatantly rooted in racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy, President Biden has not made the improvements our communities have demanded.
The United States must follow international human rights law when it comes to asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants. Our government must also recognize and redress the systemic racism that permeates our immigration system, discriminating against immigrants of color.
In the fight for true immigrant justice and relief, we need all hands on deck.
Our work includes:
- Organizing clergy through our BIMA Campaign (Building Immigration Momentum & Action), encouraging rabbis and cantors to recognize how they can use their platform to change the narrative around immigration for the better
- Human rights delegations to the southern border for clergy, with our partners at HIAS
- Coalition work through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition
- Working with the All In For Registry campaign to update our immigration laws to allow millions of longtime undocumented US residents a path to permanent legal status
- Advocating to Congress and the federal government for a more humane immigration system that welcomes asylum seekers and refugees with dignity, provides legitimate pathways to citizenship for more of our neighbors, and reduces reliance on detention and deportation.
*In the Torah, the word "ger" refers to a person who came from elsewhere, but is now a long-term or permanent resident of their new community.
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—Passover Haggadah
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all other forms."
—Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
T'ruah is leading the charge in the Jewish community against modern-day slavery and human trafficking, focusing on the issue of slavery in supply chains. Our work includes
- Partnering with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to expand the Fair Food Program, the most effective slavery prevention program in U.S. agriculture.
- We are the only Jewish organization that is a member of ATEST, the Alliance to End Slavery &Trafficking, the premier U.S. coalition dedicated to supporting those vulnerable to trafficking.
- Supporting federal legislation to help survivors of trafficking.
- Training more than 70 rabbis in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to engage their communities in addressing slavery and trafficking locally.
- Co-leading the Jewish Coalition Against Trafficking, together with the National Council of Jewish Women.
- Partnering with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher Fair Trade Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Three thousand years after the Jewish people are said to have been liberated from slavery, and 150 years after the Civil War,
more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history.
According to the most conservative estimates of the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people are held in situations of forced labor today: three out of every 1,000 people in the world.
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"Great is work, as it gives honor
to the one who does it."
—Nedarim 49b
Our tradition tells us that it is a Jewish moral imperative to treat workers fairly. But we know that in this country and around the world, the workplace is often ground zero for forced labor, exploitation, wage theft, and violence – especially for members of Black, brown, and undocumented communities, as well as those with temporary work visas. From the tomato fields of Immokalee, FL, to construction sites in Brooklyn, to undocumented workers excluded from COVID benefits, T’ruah rabbis and cantors across the country are in solidarity with workers standing up for dignity, equity, and safety in their workplaces.
Our work includes:
- Solidarity with farmworkers: Since 2011, T’ruah has brought more than 100 rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization that is transforming the Florida tomato fields from places of modern day slavery to some of the best workplaces in U.S. agriculture. The #tomatorabbis, as members of the rabbinic delegations call themselves, have gone home to involve members of their own communities in asking major corporations to join the coalition’s Fair Food Program, which raises the wages of tomato workers and ensures fair, regulated working conditions in the fields to end the conditions that have led to widespread labor trafficking and slavery.T’ruah has worked with the coalition to bring Trader Joe’s, Ahold (Stop & Shop/Giant), and Chipotle into the Fair Food Program. We are currently organizing Jewish communities to ask Wendy’s to join 14 major corporations in doing the same, and are partnering with the coalition to expand the Fair Food Program into additional states and crops.
- Building the faith-rooted movement for worker justice: Along with organizations and networks like the Interreligious Network for Worker Solidarity, T'ruah works to bolster national advocacy and organizing that builds up the worker justice movement and aims to stop the attacks on workers coming from both legislatures and individual companies.
- Selling fairly traded chocolate for Jewish holiday celebrations: T’ruah partners with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher fairly traded Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Local campaigns:
T'ruah's New York City cluster is partnering with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the Laundry Workers Center on their Cabricanecos campaign, standing in solidarity with migrant and indigenous workers who are seeking access to safer and more equitable working conditions at job sites across Brooklyn.
Partners:
Internally, T'ruah strives to live our values around worker justice. Whenever possible, our products, including paper materials and t-shirts, are union printed, and we use a union cleaning company for our office. We aspire to equity, transparency, and dignity in all aspects of our hiring process and in how we treat our employees.
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-Deuteronomy 10:19
Most immigrants to the U.S. come seeking safety, freedom, and a better life, just as many of our families did. Jewish texts, history, traditions, and values compel us to welcome them with dignity and compassion.
But our country’s policies towards immigrants remain far from our shared vision. While the Trump Administration’s dangerous policies were blatantly rooted in racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy, President Biden has not made the improvements our communities have demanded.
The United States must follow international human rights law when it comes to asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants. Our government must also recognize and redress the systemic racism that permeates our immigration system, discriminating against immigrants of color.
In the fight for true immigrant justice and relief, we need all hands on deck.
Our work includes:
- Organizing clergy through our BIMA Campaign (Building Immigration Momentum & Action), encouraging rabbis and cantors to recognize how they can use their platform to change the narrative around immigration for the better
- Human rights delegations to the southern border for clergy, with our partners at HIAS
- Coalition work through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition
- Working with the All In For Registry campaign to update our immigration laws to allow millions of longtime undocumented US residents a path to permanent legal status
- Advocating to Congress and the federal government for a more humane immigration system that welcomes asylum seekers and refugees with dignity, provides legitimate pathways to citizenship for more of our neighbors, and reduces reliance on detention and deportation.
*In the Torah, the word "ger" refers to a person who came from elsewhere, but is now a long-term or permanent resident of their new community.
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"This year we are slaves; next year, may we be free."
—Passover Haggadah
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all other forms."
—Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
T'ruah is leading the charge in the Jewish community against modern-day slavery and human trafficking, focusing on the issue of slavery in supply chains. Our work includes
- Partnering with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to expand the Fair Food Program, the most effective slavery prevention program in U.S. agriculture.
- We are the only Jewish organization that is a member of ATEST, the Alliance to End Slavery &Trafficking, the premier U.S. coalition dedicated to supporting those vulnerable to trafficking.
- Supporting federal legislation to help survivors of trafficking.
- Training more than 70 rabbis in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to engage their communities in addressing slavery and trafficking locally.
- Co-leading the Jewish Coalition Against Trafficking, together with the National Council of Jewish Women.
- Partnering with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher Fair Trade Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Three thousand years after the Jewish people are said to have been liberated from slavery, and 150 years after the Civil War,
more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history.
According to the most conservative estimates of the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people are held in situations of forced labor today: three out of every 1,000 people in the world.
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"Great is work, as it gives honor
to the one who does it."
—Nedarim 49b
Our tradition tells us that it is a Jewish moral imperative to treat workers fairly. But we know that in this country and around the world, the workplace is often ground zero for forced labor, exploitation, wage theft, and violence – especially for members of Black, brown, and undocumented communities, as well as those with temporary work visas. From the tomato fields of Immokalee, FL, to construction sites in Brooklyn, to undocumented workers excluded from COVID benefits, T’ruah rabbis and cantors across the country are in solidarity with workers standing up for dignity, equity, and safety in their workplaces.
Our work includes:
- Solidarity with farmworkers: Since 2011, T’ruah has brought more than 100 rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization that is transforming the Florida tomato fields from places of modern day slavery to some of the best workplaces in U.S. agriculture. The #tomatorabbis, as members of the rabbinic delegations call themselves, have gone home to involve members of their own communities in asking major corporations to join the coalition’s Fair Food Program, which raises the wages of tomato workers and ensures fair, regulated working conditions in the fields to end the conditions that have led to widespread labor trafficking and slavery.T’ruah has worked with the coalition to bring Trader Joe’s, Ahold (Stop & Shop/Giant), and Chipotle into the Fair Food Program. We are currently organizing Jewish communities to ask Wendy’s to join 14 major corporations in doing the same, and are partnering with the coalition to expand the Fair Food Program into additional states and crops.
- Building the faith-rooted movement for worker justice: Along with organizations and networks like the Interreligious Network for Worker Solidarity, T'ruah works to bolster national advocacy and organizing that builds up the worker justice movement and aims to stop the attacks on workers coming from both legislatures and individual companies.
- Selling fairly traded chocolate for Jewish holiday celebrations: T’ruah partners with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher fairly traded Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Local campaigns:
T'ruah's New York City cluster is partnering with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the Laundry Workers Center on their Cabricanecos campaign, standing in solidarity with migrant and indigenous workers who are seeking access to safer and more equitable working conditions at job sites across Brooklyn.
Partners:
Internally, T'ruah strives to live our values around worker justice. Whenever possible, our products, including paper materials and t-shirts, are union printed, and we use a union cleaning company for our office. We aspire to equity, transparency, and dignity in all aspects of our hiring process and in how we treat our employees.
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-Deuteronomy 10:19
Most immigrants to the U.S. come seeking safety, freedom, and a better life, just as many of our families did. Jewish texts, history, traditions, and values compel us to welcome them with dignity and compassion.
But our country’s policies towards immigrants remain far from our shared vision. While the Trump Administration’s dangerous policies were blatantly rooted in racism, xenophobia, and white supremacy, President Biden has not made the improvements our communities have demanded.
The United States must follow international human rights law when it comes to asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants. Our government must also recognize and redress the systemic racism that permeates our immigration system, discriminating against immigrants of color.
In the fight for true immigrant justice and relief, we need all hands on deck.
Our work includes:
- Organizing clergy through our BIMA Campaign (Building Immigration Momentum & Action), encouraging rabbis and cantors to recognize how they can use their platform to change the narrative around immigration for the better
- Human rights delegations to the southern border for clergy, with our partners at HIAS
- Coalition work through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition
- Working with the All In For Registry campaign to update our immigration laws to allow millions of longtime undocumented US residents a path to permanent legal status
- Advocating to Congress and the federal government for a more humane immigration system that welcomes asylum seekers and refugees with dignity, provides legitimate pathways to citizenship for more of our neighbors, and reduces reliance on detention and deportation.
*In the Torah, the word "ger" refers to a person who came from elsewhere, but is now a long-term or permanent resident of their new community.
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"This year we are slaves; next year, may we be free."
—Passover Haggadah
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all other forms."
—Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
T'ruah is leading the charge in the Jewish community against modern-day slavery and human trafficking, focusing on the issue of slavery in supply chains. Our work includes
- Partnering with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to expand the Fair Food Program, the most effective slavery prevention program in U.S. agriculture.
- We are the only Jewish organization that is a member of ATEST, the Alliance to End Slavery &Trafficking, the premier U.S. coalition dedicated to supporting those vulnerable to trafficking.
- Supporting federal legislation to help survivors of trafficking.
- Training more than 70 rabbis in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to engage their communities in addressing slavery and trafficking locally.
- Co-leading the Jewish Coalition Against Trafficking, together with the National Council of Jewish Women.
- Partnering with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher Fair Trade Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Three thousand years after the Jewish people are said to have been liberated from slavery, and 150 years after the Civil War,
more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history.
According to the most conservative estimates of the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people are held in situations of forced labor today: three out of every 1,000 people in the world.
Human trafficking does not occur in a vacuum but represents the extreme end of a continuum of worker exploitation and vulnerability. We therefore support worker-led campaigns to raise wages, combat abuses, and create meaningful enforcement mechanisms to implement hard-won rights.
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"Great is work, as it gives honor
to the one who does it."
—Nedarim 49b
Our tradition tells us that it is a Jewish moral imperative to treat workers fairly. But we know that in this country and around the world, the workplace is often ground zero for forced labor, exploitation, wage theft, and violence – especially for members of Black, brown, and undocumented communities, as well as those with temporary work visas. From the tomato fields of Immokalee, FL, to construction sites in Brooklyn, to undocumented workers excluded from COVID benefits, T’ruah rabbis and cantors across the country are in solidarity with workers standing up for dignity, equity, and safety in their workplaces.
Our work includes:
- Solidarity with farmworkers: Since 2011, T’ruah has brought more than 100 rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization that is transforming the Florida tomato fields from places of modern day slavery to some of the best workplaces in U.S. agriculture. The #tomatorabbis, as members of the rabbinic delegations call themselves, have gone home to involve members of their own communities in asking major corporations to join the coalition’s Fair Food Program, which raises the wages of tomato workers and ensures fair, regulated working conditions in the fields to end the conditions that have led to widespread labor trafficking and slavery.T’ruah has worked with the coalition to bring Trader Joe’s, Ahold (Stop & Shop/Giant), and Chipotle into the Fair Food Program. We are currently organizing Jewish communities to ask Wendy’s to join 14 major corporations in doing the same, and are partnering with the coalition to expand the Fair Food Program into additional states and crops.
- Building the faith-rooted movement for worker justice: Along with organizations and networks like the Interreligious Network for Worker Solidarity, T'ruah works to bolster national advocacy and organizing that builds up the worker justice movement and aims to stop the attacks on workers coming from both legislatures and individual companies.
- Selling fairly traded chocolate for Jewish holiday celebrations: T’ruah partners with Equal Exchange and Divine Chocolate, to encourage Jewish communities to purchase kosher fairly traded Chanukah gelt, kosher-for-Passover chocolate, coffee, and other products.
Local campaigns:
T'ruah's New York City cluster is partnering with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the Laundry Workers Center on their Cabricanecos campaign, standing in solidarity with migrant and indigenous workers who are seeking access to safer and more equitable working conditions at job sites across Brooklyn.
Partners:
Internally, T'ruah strives to live our values around worker justice. Whenever possible, our products, including paper materials and t-shirts, are union printed, and we use a union cleaning company for our office. We aspire to equity, transparency, and dignity in all aspects of our hiring process and in how we treat our employees.
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Worker Justice
