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Democracy & Voting Rights
“A ruler is not to be appointed unless the community is first consulted.” -Babylonian Talmud Berachot 55a Since right-wing politicians in many states are working to undermine the basic process of voting and the people’s trust in our election institutions, the work we do is crucial to securing our rights to vote and participate in the democratic process. We work to support rabbis, cantors, and the wider Jewish community in learning and taking action to protect voting rights and the integrity of the democratic process. We also work hard to protect the values of freedom of speech. This includes the right to boycott. Regardless of whether we support the choice of whom is being boycotted, the power to speak, not just with words, but with money, is an essential right under the First Amendment. Our work includes: Recruiting poll chaplains to support election sites through de-escalation. Collaborating with A More Perfect Union to support rabbis and cantors in building relationships with their local election officials, and build trust in election processes. Creating Jewish teachings and thought leadership on democracy through Emor. Joining interfaith partners to advocate and build support for legislation that would support, protect, and expand the right to…
Worker Justice
Since 2011, T’ruah has brought more than eighty rabbis and fifteen lay people to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization that is transforming the Florida tomato fields from ground zero for 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 CIW’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 CIW 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 fourteen major corporations in doing the same, and are partnering with CIW to expand the Fair Food program into additional states and crops. In addition to the #tomatorabbis delegations, T’ruah’s work has included organizing Jewish community members to join protests in New York and Columbus, testifying on behalf of the Jewish community at the Wendy’s shareholder meeting in 2016, working with rabbis to organize delegations to local grocery stores…
Mass Incarceration
T’ruah’s campaign to end mass incarceration engages rabbis, cantors, and their communities in making concrete change locally and nationally in reforming our broken system of mass incarceration. We believe that the goal of our criminal justice system should be teshuvah, not simply punishment. I realized [visiting a congregant in prison] that I was privy to a view that few of us ever get: a glimpse behind the walls into the masses of people that we, as a society, send outside the camp…I have thought about [him], his fellow prisoners, and our broken justice and prison systems every day since.” –Rabbi Michael Lezak, Congregation Rodef Shalom, San Rafael, CA Our work includes: Advocating for an end to police practices that result in disproportionate stops, arrests, and deaths of people of color. Organizing rabbis and their communities to protest police violence and to demand full investigations in cases of killings by police officers. Advocating for more just sentencing policies. Organizing to end prolonged solitary confinement, which international law experts have classified as torture. Helping Jewish communities to volunteer with incarcerated individuals and their families, employ the formerly incarcerated, and engage in local campaigns to change state criminal justice laws. Educating the Jewish community about…
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Year-in-Israel Program
The T’ruah Year-in-Israel program offers rabbinical and cantorial students spending the academic year in Israel the opportunity to develop their rabbinic voice on human rights issues in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. This is a two-tiered program: The Year-in-Israel program is open to all North American rabbinical and cantorial students spending the year in Israel. The T’ruah Israel fellowship is an application-based program, through which a small cohort of students participate in leadership development and help to run the Year-in-Israel program for their peers. The program is led by Rabbi Ian Chesir-Teran, Rabbinic Educator in Israel and by Neta Hamami Tabib Dror, Israel Program Manager. T’ruah’s Israel Fellows provide additional leadership. The program consists of: Monthly on-the-ground learning experiences visiting with Israelis, Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and asylum seekers affected by human rights issues. Study of Jewish texts that address contemporary human rights concerns. Relationship building with future colleagues across denominational lines. Developing a rabbinic voice to speak about these issues with congregants. Friday excursions return to Jerusalem two hours before Shabbat begins. We encourage you to sign up for the entire year, as each session builds on the previous ones, and as…
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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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Chayei Sara: Power Rooted in Life, Not Trauma and Death
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