The protest movement in the wake of police killings of African Americans that has targeted monuments to the Confederacy has also targeted statues of Christopher Columbus (including one in Tower Grove Park), Thomas Jefferson, a Texas Ranger (not one of...
The world has been changing drastically. This pandemic has forced us to rethink our values because it threatens our way of life. To many people, this ordeal has brought adversity, pain and sorrow. To me, however, this virus feels a lifetime away.I live...
This story originally appeared on Alma.As a white person, as a Jewish person and as the descendant of Holocaust survivors who have benefited from the German reparations program, I feel morally obligated to pay reparations to Black grassroots organizations...
Black lives matter. We begin here with this most fundamental acknowledgement of the inherent worth of your existence, the recognition of your most basic humanity, and the fact that we are all created in the image of the divine (b’tselem elohim). And...
America is a “medina shel chesed, a nation of kindness.” — Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson Sunday was Flag Day. In the midst of a pandemic, economic recession, and crisis over race and policing, I am daring to call for Americans to recover a...
Readers respond to Jewish Federation decision to drop adult learning classesA few weeks ago, I received the news that the Jewish Federation’s Adult Education program, CJL, would be summarily eliminated and staffers Cyndee Levy and Rabbi Tracy Nathan...
On June 8, Hennepin County (Minnesota) District Court Judge Karen Janisch signed a far-reaching order that, among other provisions, flatly prohibits the Minneapolis Police Department from using chokeholds or neck restraints of any kind “for any...
Over Memorial Day weekend, unspeakable actions occurred in my adopted hometown of Minneapolis, shocking and horrifying many into a natural desire to speak out against the recurring injustices. While those statements may make people feel better, they often...
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Jewish camp professionals don’t have much time to mourn the loss of the summers we’d planned. We must switch gears, roll up our sleeves and come up with a new 2020 vision. Luckily there are no better-suited dreamers and designers...
By Maharat Rori Picker Neiss
• Published June 5, 2020
It has now been over a week of protests, propelled by the unconscionable death of George Floyd but motivated by the deeply entrenched and systemic racism that permeates our society at every level. Our hearts break at the stories that underlie the suffering,...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The scene in Bethesda, Maryland, at a protest for Black Lives Matter looked like a religious service. That’s because it was. Throngs of people coming together, chanting and singing, engaged in chanting and responsive readings. It...
By Dr. Alison Spatz Levine
and Heather Maiman, JTA
• Published June 4, 2020
DENVER — In the summer of 1999, we slept head to head in top bunks at Camp Ramah in Canada. We also shared a viral upper respiratory illness that kept us from participating in the much-anticipated yom bli shemesh (a day without sun) while the rest of...
