Racial justice

The Spiritual Task of Our Time
A D’var Torah for Parshat Beshalach by Rabbi Tova Leibovic-Douglas Someone asked me recently if I was a “Social Justice Rabbi.” I found the question odd, so I replied, “If you mean a rabbi that cares about everyone’s human rights and our world? Then yes, I am a Social Justice Rabbi.” And I continue to...
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Peace is Easy: When Everything Has Gone So Far Afield, How Do We Make Peace?
A D’var Torah for Parshat Vayishlach by Rabbi Rachael Bregman I live in the land where Trump and Biden signs face off from across property lines. We are told daily that our brothers, our neighbors, are a threat to our lives, are our enemies, because of how we vote. My “other” is not an abstraction,...
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Be the Window
The window – where the dove returns with an olive branch – is about hope and connection. The window is an escape from the crushing waves of the endless news cycle of fear and violence. The window is a possibility of change – of redemption.
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Why Sukkot Matters This Year More Than Ever
This work is essential, now more than ever. But this work is also exhausting. Just like the holiday of Sukkot, our world is also one of contradictions. There is good within all the chaos, although right now it might be hard to see.
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Reawakening the Justice of the Upper World: A Musical T’ruah
In this week’s parshah, Moses delivers a speech in the form of a song, marshaling the witnesses of heaven and earth to give ear to his words.
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Unloading Our Neighbor’s Donkey: A Paradigm for Antiracism
Loving our neighbors is not merely feeling affection towards them; it is joining them when that which gives them life has collapsed and fallen and striving to raise it, and them, up. When our neighbors are harmed, we hurt too; we are interdependent.
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Doing Justice Justly
When our methods are just, our system doesn’t grant privileges to the powerful and strip protections from the vulnerable. As the Torah formulates it this week, “You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes.” The justice system ought to represent all equally...
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COVID-19 and Racism with Tish James 5/21/20
“This crisis has illuminated the stark inequalities that have existed in this country long before this crisis but have now been brought to the forefront.”- Attorney General Letitia James Letitia “Tish” James, the first woman of color to be elected to the position of Attorney General in New York State, spoke with T’ruah about the ways...
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Circumcised Hearts and Stiff Necks
...when we circumcise our hearts we can then turn our necks outward to the world, vulnerable, nakedly open to the experiences of others. The internal work cannot be separated from the work of changing the world, of standing shoulder to shoulder with those who are oppressed. We cannot have one without the other.
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To Transform Our Economic System, We Need to Challenge Inheritance
Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, the daughters of Zelophehad, recognize and name another crisis, which is that the inheritance laws are set so that families with only daughters are unable to inherit land and instead their families lose their access to land. The five women respond powerfully to the crisis of their father’s death, and a structural shortcoming, with an eye towards intergenerational shifts rather than short-term reform.
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