SOCIAL JUSTICE
For nearly 60 years, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) has led the Jewish community in promoting Reform Jewish values in Washington, DC, and throughout the world. The dictate in Isaiah 1:17 to “seek justice and defend the oppressed” inspires our work each day. With long-term strategies that promote justice, we are responsive to immediate changes in our civic landscape.
2017 Religious Action Center Priorities
The RAC kicked off 2017 with 1,200 people at “Nosh, Pray, March,” a Shabbat worship and gathering for all those marching in the massive Women’s March on Washington on January 21.
In 2017, the RAC launched two initiatives for congregations: the Urgency of Now Campaigns on Transgender Rights, Immigrant Justice, and Criminal Justice Reform, and the Brit Olam Campaign. Both campaigns included lobbying, RAC tool kits disseminated to hundreds of congregations for work in these areas, and training for local leaders focused on how to change public policy and protect rights.
More than 140 congregations signed the Religious Action Center’s Brit Olam contract in 2017, proclaiming that their congregation would make social justice work a core part of their communal activities.
In 2017, the RAC established Reform Ohio, RAC-TX and RAC-IL and laid the groundwork for RAC in New York. Meanwhile, RAC-CA maintained its robust efforts to protect immigrants. With immigration and criminal justice reform at the forefront of our state efforts, Ohio helped lead the way in efforts to change statewide laws to allow formerly incarcerated citizens to rebuild their lives when more than 70 Reform Movement activists joined in a lobby day in the state capitol.
2017 Album Release: "Together As One: New Songs of Social Justice"
From praying to protesting, music has always been a key component of everything we do as Reform Jews. Released in November 2017, “Together As One” is a labor of love from some of the Reform Movement’s favorite artists. As musician Julie Silver described it: “This project put wind in my sails and motivated me to take action, with the guitar, with the pen, with my feet, and my voice.”
Funded and inspired by the activism of Isabel (Liz) Dunst, chair of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, this music will be around for a long time. “As a child of the 60s, I was brought up with social justice anthems like “If I had a Hammer” and while those still resonate, I know that next generations need to have new songs to inspire them to take up the fight. I hope that these songs will provide a spark to ignite a continuing passion to fight for the world we want,” she said.
Mitzvah Corps
Mitzvah Corps offers volunteer travel opportunities for teens to do good for others. In 2017, Mitzvah Corps assisted rebuilding efforts in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Additionally, more than 200 teenagers travelled with Mitzvah Corps across North America and around the globe to work with local communities struggling with refugee rights, civil rights, food insecurity, water conservation, and the environmental impact of urban development in Third World countries.
Mitzvah Corps operates two, week-long summer camps in Seattle that in 2017 served as many as 75 recently resettled refugee children from Syria, Iraq, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other locales. These teen-led camps run in partnership with the Seattle branch of the International Rescue Committee, HIAS, and Jewish Family Services. The partnership began in 2015 with just one camp, and expanded to two camps in 2017, doubling the number of refugee children served.
Providing a Camp Experience for Economically Disadvantaged Children: Camp Jenny & Camp CAR
Each year Camp Jenny brings together NFTY teens from NFTY-SAR (Southern Area NFTY region) and NFTY-STR (Southern Tropical Area NFTY region) to serve as counselors during a four-day camp experience over Memorial Day weekend at URJ’s Camp Coleman in Cleveland, GA. 2017 marked the 30th anniversary year of this unique program that serves children in the Atlanta public school system who are tutored and mentored by the NFTY teens during the year. To date, about 3,000 students from Atlanta have participated in Camp Jenny, aided by approximately 6,500 NFTY and other URJ volunteers.
A similar program, Camp CAR, is a project of NFTY-CAR (Chicago Area NFTY region), which works in a partnership with the Cooke Magnet Elementary School in Waukegan, IL. After working as volunteers with the students throughout the year in Chicago, NFTY members join the elementary-school age campers for a weekend at URJ’s Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute (OSRUI) in Oconomowoc, WI. In 2017, Camp CAR served 240 young people and their families.