JCUA Leaders Go to D.C., Meet with Congressional Leaders and White House Staff

By Jane Ramsey, Executive Director, JCUA
And Irene Lehrer Sandalow, Director of Strategy and Jewish Affairs, JCUA

Ten JCUA leaders traveled to Washington, D.C. on July 28 to meet with congressional leaders and members of the White House administration as part of a two-day trip organized by the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a group of 21 nonprofit organizations promoting economic and social justice as a core tenet of Jewish life.

Included in the JCUA delegation were:  Rabbi Bruce Elder, Steve and Gerry Keen, Nikki Stein, Ira Azulay, Rabbi Joshua Salter, Leah Shefsky, Rabbi Michael Siegel, Irene Lehrer Sandalow and Jane Ramsey.

JCUA delegation*

That Thursday JCUA, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism coordinated meetings with congressional leaders and 40 Roundtable members. The meetings began with Reva Price, advisor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Price has a long history working in the Jewish community and provided us with an insider’s perspective on how to advance social justice issues on our agenda.

She shared the importance of the faith community in influencing the immigration debate, overcoming people’s fear of the “stranger,” and combating xenophobia. To win on immigration, Price encouraged us to create alliances with conservatives and the business community. She also explained that traditional advocacy tactics work and that calling and meeting with our congressional leaders makes a difference. “Take it to the public!” said Price, quoting Lincoln.

“Prophets of Hope”: The Importance of Unity in Economic Justice

This article, from the spring 2011 Latin United Community Housing Association (LUCHA) newsletter, emphasizes the importance of breaking down lines of race, nationality and social class and working together to ensure all Chicagoans have access to decent and affordable housing. In 2000, through JCUA’s Community Ventures Program, LUCHA was able to create 30 affordable apartments for single mothers and their children. JCUA Executive Director Jane Ramsey had this to say in the LUCHA article, “Prophets of Hope”:

“We are moved by our faith and family traditions to pursue justice, to create an equitable, healthy city and nation, welcoming to all and free from poverty, hunger and homelessness. Heeding the prophet Isaiah, we seek to unite many, to ‘undo the bands of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, divide bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into the house.’ These ancient challenges have long guided humanity. Let us here and now complete the task.”

[Read the full article.]

Making Passover Meaningful

“I feel that freedom is Judaism, that Passover is not 3,000 years old- that it is today, and that we are part of it.”
-Rabbi Robert J. Marx, Founder of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs

Every year, JCUA updates its Haggadah with current social justice issues for our Freedom and Justice Seder. The Haggadah provides materials to enhance Seder discussions and helps Seder participants reflect on what it means when it is written in the Torah:

“You shall not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).

[Download your free copy of the Haggadah]

Wishing you a happy and meaningful Passover!

Home: A Poem About Displacement

This poem, by Or Tzedek alumnus Benjamin Jacobi, was performed at the 2011 Freedom and Justice Seder organized by JCUA and Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation.

Home
Is where the heart is.
And the thing I find the hardest
Is to stop the cycle once it’s started,
So let’s start this
Now.
Home
Should not be merely a privilege, but a right.
But beyond where you lay your head at night,
It’s community, it’s relationships, and for this is what we fight. Displacement can cause destruction—the level of which is awesome.
To be uprooted is to suffer, a tree with no roots will never blossom.
It carries with it not merely change of location,
For a look at what it does let’s focus on incarceration:
Every sentence is life despite judge’s intended.
A prison term isn’t like you’re life’s suspended
Put on pause, press play once the term has been served.
No, the world spins while one sits—tell me is that what’s deserved?
A year, is not a unit of time, it’s a
Unit of missed birthdays, weddings, lessons, moments, memories
Or opportunities, promotions, new friends it’s these
Things
That are impossible to take into consideration.
This is my dissertation
I can offer no consolation,
Until one provides an alteration.
The system’s position on this is abdication.
One example not enough? You require further explanation?

How Can We Create Continuous Activism?

This article was written by Jane Ramsey (Executive Director, JCUA) and Irene Lehrer Sandalow (Director of Strategy and Jewish Affairs, JCUA), and was originally published in ZEEK, an online Jewish journal. Read the article where it was originally published here. The article discusses how to foster continuous activism in communities:

Why Did the Jew Cross the Road?

Jane Ramsey

The Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) was founded in 1964 by Rabbi Robert J. Marx to create a prophetic community with the oppressed.

Through almost 50 years of community organizing, JCUA has learned how difficult it can be to sustain passion and interest within the Jewish community regarding issues that address systemic injustice.

It takes time and effort to engage members of the Jewish community in the issues that affect their neighbors, and even more time and effort to develop this engagement into the kind of leadership and advocacy that leads to real change.

The first step towards justice work often begins by offering individuals direct contact with the communities and people most affected by an issue, and then adding layers of education and advocacy to the work.

For Esther Saks and Family, Social Justice is a Way of Life

A colorful quilt by the artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, hangs on the wall in the dining room of Esther Saks’ Chicago apartment in Lakeview. Its elements are finely detailed—down to the images of people woven into the fabric. And like the images woven into the quilt, so has the desire to do social justice work been woven into the fabric of who Saks is.

“Living a self-sustaining and self-supporting life is a given, but above that offering one’s resources, time and intelligence to your communities, takes the meaning of life next level,” said Saks. “Our family has always felt that one owes something to your community,” she said.

Saks, 80, shared this passion for social activism with her late husband Alan Saks, and in their 50-year marriage, the couple were deeply committed to many political and social justice movements and activities, and raised four daughters who followed in their footsteps.

“Both my parents and Alan’s parents led by example – we always tried to do the same,” said Saks.

Esther and Alan Saks

JCUA’s Judaism and Urban Poverty Program Kicks Back in Gear: Meet Miriam Grossman

Miriam Grossman, Educational Programs Coordinator

JCUA would like to welcome on staff Miriam Grossman, the new Educational Programs Coordinator. With her rich background in social justice work and knowledge of Jewish values, Grossman is sure to do well as she works on the Judaism and Urban Poverty (JUP) program.

This school year’s program will engage 200-300 seventh through tenth grade students in synagogues throughout Chicagoland—challenging them to think about the causes and potential responses to poverty, and Jewish approaches to alleviating poverty. The seven-week program combines creative activities with the study of Jewish texts and volunteer opportunities.

“I think that if you show kids a vision of a better world, it empowers them to act now as well as when they’re adults,” said Grossman.

Brainstorming ideas for new JUP session

Thirteen Chicago synagogues are involved with the JUP program this year. The sessions will be taught by trained synagogue staff and Nadiv fellows—young Jewish leaders in their twenties who spend a year studying Judaism and social justice, while teaching the JUP curriculum.

Grossman just finished up a training session with the Nadiv fellows [Get a glimpse of the session.] and said she’s excited to get things rolling.

“I’m really excited to work with these fellows and others involved with JUP to strengthen this program and to make it more interactive, more sustainable, and just have a bigger impact,” she said.

For more information on JUP, please e-mail miriam@jcua.org.