Resources
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Israel Must Purge the Bloodguilt of Settler Violence
Rabbi Jonah Winer argues that we must move the North American Jewish community’s discourse from a focus on the crimes of individual radical settlers, to the violence of the occupation and settlement projects as a whole.
High Holiday Sermon Resource: On Settler Violence & State Violence
Use these clergy resources to help your community make a narrative shift: expanding beyond rightful condemnation of settler violence to seeing and working against the violence of the occupation and settlement projects as a whole.
Antisemitism & Immigration: A Messaging Guide for Jewish Clergy
When the fight against antisemitism is used to harm immigrants, rabbis and cantors can be powerful voices to describe what’s at play and advocate for and inspire action towards our shared safety.
The Shield of Abraham Will Not Guarantee Our Righteousness
Human beings are very good at justifying war and all of the human rights abuses that war involves. We are easily convinced of the righteousness of our causes, and we eagerly seek reassurance that the innocent lives that our militaries have destroyed must not have been so innocent at all. One can see such desires...
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Our Immigrant Ancestor
Avraham Avinu, our common ancestor Abraham, was an immigrant. “Go,” God commands in this week’s portion, “from your land, from your native territory, from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Taking his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and his household members with him, Abram (as he is still named at...
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“The Part About The Stars”
The girl who will become bat mitzvah in my shul on Parshat Lech Lecha has noted that her special day falls a week before the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which members of her family witnessed. So she requested I let her leyn her portion from the Czech “Shoah” scroll in our ark. Those who possess such...
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A Feminist Lens on the Story of Sarah and Hagar
Many people around the world consider Genesis Chapter 16 of this week’s parasha—describing Hagar’s marriage to Avram, her pregnancy and her ill-treatment by Sarai—to be a glimpse of things to come in relations between Jews and Muslims, even between Israelis and Palestinians. While this perception distorts the long history of Jewish-Muslim relations through history, the...
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