14 Jewish social justice change-makers in New Orleans recently wrapped up an 8-week adventure reading, questing and learning about Justice and Jewish Thought in neighborhood cohorts.
In their final gathering, these New Orleanians made a plan for action, inspired by their time pondering racism, classism, gender, sexual identity and community organizing in the Jewish community. They blessed their work with a Hadran (Hadra-what?!) and hope to take action together, and across Jewish, race, faith and generational lines.
Check out their plan and prayer below, and if you’re an inspired resident of New York City, you can join in the next incarnation, launching in the Big Apple in February 2011 – get all the details here. The final day to register is Friday, January 28th.
JJT Communal Blessing: Hadran (What is a Hadran?)
Inspired by the history of Jews taking radical stands, we accept upon ourselves the responsibility to create a time and space to build a trusting, safe, and comforting community through potlucks, learning, action and (vegan, gluten-free) karaoke!
Action Items and Next Steps
- Anti-Racism: Connect with ARWG (Anti-Racism Working Group) for leadership training and to support their programming
- Gender: Work to make sure all Jewish spaces in New Orleans have gender neutral bathrooms
- Ritual: Have a Freedom Seder
- Be an Ally: Act in solidarity with local POC-led (people of color) community and activist organizations
- Read: Create a Jewish Justice communal lending library
- Go Way Back: Have conversation with grandparents about being Jewish in America
- Group-learning: Start a Jewish social justice Beit Midrash
- Food: Start a Jewish Food Justice zine
- Organized Jewish Community: Bring the spirit of Justice and Jewish Thought into area synagogues
- Dialogue: Start an interfaith dialogue group about justice
- Speak-out to the organized Jewish community: Write Shabbat sermons for the larger community
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Will the gender-neutral bathrooms be in addition to the gendered bathrooms for us pre-post-gender types and those of us who feel vulnerable/uncomfortable/unsafe in intimate mixed situations? And is the city really going to incorporate this idea? I’d love to see more about how this conversation has evolved over time and how you came to this decision. It’s really huge. Can you produce that or refer us to it?
Thank you for your comment, it’s exciting to know that there is an interest in this group and our ideas. We met as a formal reading group for a few months in the late fall and at our siyyum (closing session) we decided it might be helpful for us to brainstorm any ideas and feelings we were having at that point. It took a free flow form and we decided to write all ideas down, that we could later unpack and further explore. One of the topics that the group felt passionately about was inclusivity, specifically with transgender and gender queer communities. One of our ideas to make Jewish spaces in the community more accessible and welcoming was to introduce the possibility of having gender neutral bathrooms in public and community spaces. We also appreciate your comment about keeping these public spaces welcoming and safe for those who are not as comfortable in “intimate mixed situations”. Our intention is never to make one group comfortable at another group’s expense. At this stage, this is still a vision of what we would love to see and are just starting these conversations with various community organizations. As we have these conversations and start seeing results (if any) we will post them on the blog to share what is working or not working. Thank you again for your interest, we’re excited to share as we go and invite more comments and questions along the way!
Thanks for filling us in! Looking forward to hearing how it goes!
If you’ve interested in the vegan gluten free karaoke part of our blessing, check out my video blog! vgfk.wordpress.com