Pursuing racial justice work enables white Jews to untangle the ways in which we have been aided by white privilege and structural racism so that we can undo its harm to Black people — Jewish and non-Jewish — and to ourselves.
For a person who is an alcoholic or for a family that contains an alcoholic, little or no acknowledgement is given to the recognition that a glass of wine can often be toxic.
According to Mordecai Kaplan’s teachings, which have long resonated with me and so many others, to be Jewish in America is to live simultaneously in two rich civilizations, the Jewish and the American civilizations, both full of promise and character-shaping values. To be Jewish in America is to draw deeply from both of these civilizations in order to contribute meaningfully to both of them. As deeply as Kaplan believed this, living it out was often challenging in his day. Increasingly, it is challenging in our day as well.
Halakhah is in the doing, and our ability to pass that practice down to the next Jewish generation depends on whether or not we can give it the significance it had for the lives of our ancestors.
By telling and re-telling difficult, even ethically repugnant, stories in the Torah, we may move from silence to healing and from narrowness to expanse.
The Reconstructionist Network
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
