Photo of the author, Rabbi Naomi Zaslow

Lech Lecha: A Wide Open Tent

If the tent, our home, is truly open on all sides, there is an understanding that each person is continuing onward on a different journey. Our Torah is blessing us to be just as supportive in saying goodbye as we are in saying hello.

Antisemitism Resources

T'ruah's collected resources on antisemitism.

Ballot box illustration

VOTING AND DEMOCRACY: One Possible Halakhic Approach

Rabbi David Polsky reflects on what Jewish tradition has to say about voting and democratic practice.

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ROUNDTABLE: How Can U.S. Jewish Communities Play an Effective Role in Coalition Work to Advance Multiracial Democracy?

by Ginna Green, Abby Lublin, Megan Black, Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, PhD, Matthew David Hom, and Graie Hagans
A panel of pathbreaking organizers, including Ginna Green, Graie Hagans, Abby Lublin, Megan Black, Matthew David Hom, and Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, PhD, on how Jews can advance multiracial pro-democracy coalitions today.
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Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein

VaEra: It’s Our Time to be the Protagonists of History

by Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein
In this moment, we do not know how things will turn out, in Israel or the U.S. But if Torah and history have anything to teach us, it is that whatever happens is not inevitable, and the catalyst will not be something we could have predicted in advance. This moment, like all moments, is full of possibility. It will be those with proactive vision who will move history, just as it always has been.
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screenshot of webinar with Jonathan Crane

Watch: Israel-Hamas War Public Webinars

Since the attacks on October 7, T'ruah has offered public webinars for prayer and mourning, to engage with the moral challenges of the war, and to hear from staff who traveled to the region.
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Rabbi Judith Edelstein, D. Min.

Ki Tetze: We Cannot Look Away

by Rabbi Judith Edelstein, D. Min.
You may be familiar with the notion about the wounded healer, popularized by the author Henri Nouwen in his book by that name. He asserts: “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed...
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Our Mishkan — Who Is In and Who is Barred Entry?

by Rabbi Doug Alpert
Our basic freedoms are under attack. The authoritarian extremists pushing these laws are saying that only they qualify to be in the Mishkan.
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Lessons for Democracy from the Holocaust

by Julian Zelizer
A d’var Torah for Yom HaShoah. In many respects, World War II seemed like a triumph of democracy. When the Allies defeated the Axis powers, the world celebrated that democratic nations had been victorious against fascism. On May 8, 1945, Victory Day, Americans danced in the streets and threw confetti from the rooftops to celebrate...
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Democracy: Remembering Where We Are Going

by Rabbi Gordon Tucker
A d’var Torah for Yitro (Ex.18:1-20:23) by Rabbi Gordon Tucker. The Book of Eikhah (Lamentations) contains this apparently oxymoronic phrase when speaking of how ancient Judea had lost its moral way: “It did not remember its future” (1:9). What could it mean to remember something that is not in the past? The usual ways of...
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No Shortcuts to Liberation, Alas

by Brad Lander
In this week's d'var torah on Parshat Shemot, NYC Councilman Brad Lander draws connections between patterns of oppression and resistance then and now.
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