Messages from JCUA members
As we adjust to a difficult new political reality, we asked JCUA members to share their thoughts, emotions, and words of inspiration.
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“I am staying inspired by thousands of years of progressive Jewish values as we recommit to the long-term work of recognizing the inherent holiness in every person, welcoming the stranger, and ensuring our most vulnerable neighbors know that we are fighting with and for them.
Inspired by our ancestors’ unwavering pursuit of justice, we stand resilient against inhumane directives by drawing strength from our shared traditions and collective resolve, knowing that each step towards equity and dignity, no matter how small, is significant. Since we left Egypt, and for the foreseeable future, together, we will fight for a more just and compassionate world.” — Rabbi Scott Gellman, JCUA Board of Directors
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“Discard any remaining complacency you may have. Heed the call to grow your courage. Resist any urge to numb yourself or take cover from the task at hand. Take diligent care of your body and mind, and prepare to take a stand.
We lose energy and get nothing by focusing on and constantly reacting to the actions of attention thirsty individuals in positions of leadership. We gain strength, individually and collectively, by facing ourselves and one another again and again, with bravery, guided by principles.
We cannot allow ourselves to be comfortable with sociopathy and an intentional process of divorcing us from reality, from what we know to be true, right, fair, or moral. We cannot allow trust in distant, impersonal figureheads to become greater than the trust we have in ourselves and in the real relationships we have with people we know, respect and relate to.
Focus on your immediate community and learn more deeply who is around you, who you are really dealing with. Take risks wisely, be authentic and speak your truth to keep it always warm. Listen closely to others, seek to understand, and where possible build resilient connections that can withstand disagreement and difference. We overcome by living in reality, acknowledging painful and inconvenient truths, and making good faith efforts to build, to repair and to apply genuinely held morals to how we live life daily and respond to challenges.
My sincere wish for all who read this is the ability to rise to the occasion presented to us now, the task of making the world we envision.” — Erica Walker, JCUA and Kol Or member
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My knowledge of Jewish history has taught me to be very wary any time groups of people are being scapegoated for systemic issues. To that effect, I have been thinking a lot about trans people and immigrants, and how I can show up as a community member for them during this fearful time. I am feeling grateful to be part of JCUA, already plugged into networks and coalitions of people who share my priorities, and I am reminding myself that “hope is a discipline.” — Talia Yaari, JCUA Youth Leadership Coordinator
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“While I was going to speak to City Council about good public policy, equity, humanity, or doing the right thing, I was thinking about me and my Mom. While I reminded them that this nation and this city had been important partners as we worked to resettle thousands of Soviet Jews who were fleeing, as my Mom had, from a hostile place, I could not feel the fear that somehow someone would decide I was not a citizen because they wanted to protect our nation from ‘others’ who were not fully American.
The MAGA actions threaten people in ways I now understand much better. It is not about the rule of law or about who contributes to what in building this nation’s future. It is solely about who gets to be part of us and who gets cast as the other, as the not-us. And if it can happen to a Mexican or a Venezuelan or a Somalian today it can be me tomorrow. And this is what we cannot look away from. This is why the battle over immigration is about so important to continue to fight.” — Marty Levine, JCUA member (read Marty’s full piece )
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“Through mass protest we can stop Trump from fully implementing his agenda for mass deportations. In 2018, through mass protest, the American people stopped Trump’s child separation policy which was separating thousands of children from their parents and putting them in cages along the border. We need to convince our fellow Americans that mass deportations will destroy the mixed status families in which millions of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants live and be disastrous for our economy which depends on immigrant workers to plant and pick our crops, prepare our food, manufacture our products, and care for our homes, our children, our elderly, and our disabled.
Our religious fore parents who wrote the Torah wisely instructed us no less than 36 times to defend the strangers in our midst because they understood that one of the most important measures of justice in a society is how its immigrants are treated and that a society which mistreats its immigrants is ultimately a society in which the well-being of all, and especially that of Jews, is in danger.” — Kalman Resnick, JCUA member (read Kalman’s full D’var Torah via Mishkan)
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“I believe Adonai is the Lord over all. As such, when I see my neighbors, I don’t see them as separate from me when Adonai tells me how to treat the stranger, widow or orphan. We have learned through a pandemic just how connected we all are and the collective responsibility we hold for one another; that what we do to others, we do to ourselves. I know it’s hard for people to see eye to eye on a lot of topics right now, but I pledge to do what is best for the collective, no conditions attached.” — Cydney Wallace, JCUA Board of Directors and Kol Or member