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The theme of this year’s Inside the Activists’ Studio is “Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement,” and we know how challenging it can be to match your skills and passion to actual change-making. But we also know it’s a lot easier to find your voice with community support, and that’s why we’ve brought together a group of outstanding panelists to share their own experiences this Sunday. As a preview, check out some of their answers below to the question:
How do you amplify your voice for change?
 Phil Aroneanu: I’ve been an activist on climate change nearly all my adult life. Since I first learned about the climate crisis from a goofy high school physics teacher, and throughout the next decade, I’ve felt that climate change encompasses a whole range of environmental and social justice issues that I feel passionately about. At first, I wasn’t much of an organizer–my first effort in high school was to organize a “No Car Day” with some friends. We got the local bagel shop to donate bagels and cream cheese, which we handed out to all the kids who biked, skateboarded or walked to school. It felt good, and we got a write up in the local paper, but in some sense it was ineffective. Even if I “raised awareness” about climate change and transportation, how many people who received a bagel would actually think twice about getting in a car the next day? More importantly, it taught me to think bigger than myself; I wasn’t going to solve the climate crisis by trying to change personal behavior. That’s certainly a part of the solution, but to solve the climate crisis, we really need to change the way the world produces and uses energy, which is a much, much larger, multi-faceted challenge. Read more →
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On Sunday, May 20, Pursuers in NYC will gather for Inside the Activists’ Studio: Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement. The event will feature an incredible array of local Jewish change-makers speaking on a panel, presenting workshops, or performing. As a sneak peek, we chatted with workshop presenter Emily Saltzman:
What inspires you to work on issues of allyship (being an ally)?
 Mutual learning and meaningful connection inspire me to do this work. Learning from and reflecting on personal relationships is one of the main ways that I have seen myself grow over the years. I find human connection to be incredibly powerful, so I hope to work toward removing barriers that would prevent that connection from occurring. For me, true allyship is an integral part of organizing for folks who hold privileged identities and should not be taken lightly. I do this work because one of the effects of oppression is that it dehumanizes us. It prevents us from connecting to each other in meaningful ways or it can stop us from connecting at all. Read more →
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Giving doesn’t look like it used to. Our sense of community is evolving and expanding. We give globally as much as locally and the technology of giving has certainly gone beyond doling out coins.
Earlier this year, American Jewish World Service brought together talented designers nationwide to translate the concept of tzedakah - Judaism’s imperative to give to those in need – into compelling, relevant design. The Where Do You Give? National Design Competition challenged designers, artists and conceptual thinkers to create a 21st century icon inspired by the values and imagery of the traditional tzedakah box that reflects our increasingly interconnected, global and technologically accelerated world.
Join us on June 20 as we kick off a national exhibit of winning designs from the competition and celebrate a new movement toward thoughtful, imaginative and inspired giving.
Wednesday, June 20
7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
92YTribeca
200 Hudson Street
New York, NY
Speakers include Rebecca Stone, Karen Pittelman, Ryan Clifford. Facilitated by Sasha Feldstein. Read more →
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On May 22, AVODAH will honor three extraordinary change-makers at its New York Partners in Justice event: Rabbi/Cantor Angela Buchdahl, City Council Member Brad Lander, and alumna Denny Marsh. We spoke with Denny below to learn more about her work and her experience with AVODAH – click here to find out the details for the event and how you can join in celebrating her accomplishments!
 What was your journey to Neighbors Together?
I first came to Neighbors Together in 2004, when I moved from a small town in rural Iowa to Brooklyn to participate in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. After growing up and attending college in the Midwest, I was ready to try city living for a while. I knew that I wanted to work on anti-poverty issues and live intentionally alongside others who were engaged in social justice work. It also felt important to be able to explore my relationship to Judaism in the context of a supportive and diverse Jewish community.
AVODAH was a perfect fit–I was placed at Neighbors Together for one year as a full-time volunteer advocate, working with low-income people in the Ocean Hill/Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn to connect to critical resources such as housing, food stamps, employment training, health and mental health care. I had no idea how transformative that year would be, and eight years later I’m still hooked.
Read more →
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On Sunday, May 20, Pursuers in NYC will gather for Inside the Activists’ Studio: Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement. The event will feature an incredible array of local Jewish change-makers speaking on a panel, presenting workshops, or performing. As a sneak peek, we chatted with workshop presenter Erin Markman:
 What inspires you to work on issues of allyship (being an ally)?
The pursuit of liberation and love! That might manage to sound both grandiose and trite, but I really, deeply, mean it. I want to work toward a world where we all strive to be allies to one another, recognizing the systemic oppressions that circumscribe our lives and the interpersonal oppressions we perpetuate, and working collaboratively to undo both. That’s what’s going to make our movements work. It’s what’s going to move us forward together.
I want to do my best every day to hold myself accountable in the domains in which I have institutional privilege—being white, or able-bodied, or cisgender, for example. I want to hold myself accountable for assumptions, for microaggressions, for the false histories I’ve been taught, for the “-isms” I enact, for the oppressions that live inside me. I want to hold myself accountable to speak up, to challenge systems, policies, and practices that perpetuate oppression, especially when that act of challenging feels frightening. And I want as many relationships as I can get that make allyship explicit. Read more →
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A Project of :
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Jewish change-makers are inspired, motivated and fiercely smart. Jewish values urge us to question injustice, act, and take collective responsibility. Pursue sparks and sustains social change by channeling the unlimited passion and potential of Jewish change-makers
in their 20s and 30s into action for a more just world. Copyright 2010
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