In the Jewish calendar right now, we’re counting the Omer, the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. The ritual of the Omer is simple: each night we count another day. We show up, again and again, and mark the passage of time.

While Passover is a holiday about liberation and Shavuot is about revelation, the Omer is about the deliberate, grounded, and steady work of getting there.

That’s what much of JCUA’s organizing looks like. There are certainly moments of excitement and catharsis (like when our members protested outside Amazon on Monday) but organizing often requires us to simply show up day after day to move the work forward. We show up at a training, or a meeting, or a call. We cultivate our discipline and build toward something we can’t yet fully see.

This month’s newsletter is full of that kind of showing up: taking to the streets and to Springfield, deepening our racial justice practice, welcoming new members into the work, making police accountability real, and much more!

Shabbat shalom,

Jonathan Elbaz (he/him)
Director of Development & Communications

 

From the Streets to the Capitol

On Monday, JCUA joined our PowerUp coalition partners to deliver a message to Amazon: pay what you owe! Corporate giants like Amazon owe billions in taxes that should be funding our schools, our healthcare, and our futures — and billionaires like Jeff Bezos are propping up the Trump regime to amass even more wealth. So we’re organizing to fund our future.

Two days later, JCUA headed to Springfield with our Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Illinois Revenue Alliance coalitions to push our legislators to strengthen protections for our immigrant neighbors and make the wealthy pay their fair share. We rallied, marched to the capitol, and got commitments from state legislators to support our platform.

Contact your state representative and senator today and ask them to support the 2026 ICIRR platform!

Join our Racial Justice training

Join us for JCUA’s annual Racial Justice Training on Sunday, May 17th from 9:30 am – 4:30 pm at SketchPad.

Led by a multiracial team of staff and leaders, this day-long training is designed for everyone looking to strengthen their ability to dismantle racism and white supremacy within themselves, in their work with JCUA, and throughout their lives.

We’ll explore our own racial identity development, white supremacy norms and their impact, the history of white supremacy in America, and how we can build sustainable pathways to resistance and resilience. This training is open to all JCUA members, congregation partners, and coalition partners.

New Member Orientation

Are you new to JCUA? Have you been around a while but haven’t figured out how to plug in to our work? Join us on Zoom on Wednesday, April 29th at 6:00 pm to learn about JCUA’s history, our community organizing model and coalitions, and how you can get involved. You’ll also hear from longer-time members about what brought them in and what keeps them coming back.

District Councils

In 2021, JCUA and our coalition partners passed the landmark Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance, which created elected councils in each of Chicago’s 22 police districts to hold police accountable to the communities they serve.

These councils meet monthly, and we encourage all JCUA members to attend yours! Find your district and meeting details on the Chicago Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) website.