Democracy and Elections

The text studies, divrei Torah, action steps, webinar recordings, and links to partner organizations below are intended to help rabbis, cantors, and the wider Jewish community learn and take action to protect voting rights and the integrity of the democratic process.

Protest placards:

Buy full-size placards here.

• “Silence is Akin to Complicity”
• “This is What “Never Again” Looks Like”
• “Resisting Tyrants Since Pharaoh”

Text studies:

• Jewish Texts On Fair Voting and Just Elections
• NEW: Jewish Texts on Majority Rule
• Prayers for Our Country
• Updated Text Study on Policing
• Democracy and Power
• Security: T’ruah produced this source packet as part of the Yovel project in 2017. The question of security—what it means to be secure or to feel secure (two different things), and how we achieve that—is quite alive today as candidates debate law and order, protecting our international allies, public health policy, and economics. The texts gathered here offer a deep dive into security as an emotional and spiritual state for an individual and a society. To adapt these texts to the American context, disregard part one of the packet, which focuses narrowly on Yovel (Jubilee) as an agricultural issue in the land of Israel. Begin with part two, most of which (with the exception of the Zionist thinkers in sections E and F) is highly pertinent, as is part three.

Prayers:

• A Meditation on Voting
• Rabbi David Seidenberg’s Prayer for Voting

Webinars:

• Many Teachers Bring Teaching on Democracy Throughout our “Tikkun Leil Election”
• What the Election Results Mean with Sister Simone Campbell and Rabbi Jill Jacobs

Chaverim only. Please email programs@truah.org for the recording.

• Masha Gessen Briefing on Autocracy
• Chris Crawford and Emily Rodriguez on “What Chaverim Can Do to Protect this Election”
• Ben Poor “Im Lo Achshav: Making a Plan for Election Season”
• “Movement Chaplaincy”