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Posts by author:
Suzanne Lipkin
Happy Passover! As you celebrate this holiday of liberation with your friends and family, we hope you’ll remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose yahrzeit was this week: “No one is free until everyone is free.” Below, we have compiled a number of Passover resources to bring the experiences of those who are struggling for social justice locally and globally to your seders. We encourage you to check out these links and share them with your guests as we continue to work together toward liberation for all people:
- First, let’s start with the haggadah. This book that we use to tell the Passover story each year is being constantly reinvented, and this year is no exception. In the New York Times, author Jonathan Safran Foer explains why he spent so much time creating the newly published New American Haggadah with fellow author Nathan Englander. For an amusing aside to the publication of this haggadah, read Food Politics author Marion Nestle’s account of a piece she submitted to the project that was never published.
- Some of the major social justice themes of the Passover story that painfully still apply today are slavery and immigration. Rabbis for Human Rights-North America is dedicated to fighting modern day slavery and has assembled several Passover resources on the topic; to learn more about slavery in contemporary times, read their article in The Forward. For readings related to immigration, AVODAHnik Ilana Krakowski shares lessons from Jews United for Justice’s Labor Seder in this blog post, and HIAS Pennsylvania has put together a reading for the four cups of wine that tells four stories of immigrants in the U.S. today. Read more →
Tagged as:
holidays,
nu,
passover
- This January, a group of rabbinical students traveled with AJWS to Muchucuxcah, Mexico to learn about grassroots international development—and how they can have an impact. Hebrew College student Lev Meirowitz Nelson wrote this week about one particularly meaningful project he observed: a fishpond that will help the community achieve greater food sovereignty in the face of an influx of seeds from large agribusinesses. He and his fellow travelers brought their observations home through a lobby day in Washington, D.C., bringing AJWS’s Reverse Hunger campaign to with eight Congressional offices.
- The Tav HaYosher program of Uri L’Tzedek recently certified its 100th kosher restaurant for meeting fair labor requirements: Bibi’s in Los Angeles. The milestone was marked at a celebration called FesTAVal, during which food from Tav-certified restaurants was served and Uri L’Tzedek co-founder Rabbi Ari Hart and Tav compliance officers Dasi Fruchter and Emily Winograd spoke. So now that they’ve reached this achievement, what’s next? Fruchter urged the crowd to send postcards to kosher restaurants they know have not yet been certified, encouraging them to “get with the program!” Read more →
Tagged as:
AJWS,
ethical consumption,
food justice,
interfaith,
nu,
service,
women
- This Shabbat, take a break from technology and participate in the National Day of Unplugging. Devised by the Sabbath Manifesto, a group dedicated to helping people slow down their lives one day a week, NDU 2012 begins this evening at sunset. To get ready to shut down your devices and reconnect with people and places, check out the Sabbath Manifesto’s Ten Principles to guide you into a calm and meaningful day of rest.
- The Journal of Jewish Service this week released a special issue of its publication dedicated to the field of Jewish service-learning. The issue, produced through a collaboration between Repair the World and the Jewish Communal Service Association, features a number of articles by friends of Pursue, including our own Erica Hymen on mentorship and AJWS’s Ruth Messinger and Jordan Namerow on manual labor in service projects. Read more →
Tagged as:
media,
nu,
poverty,
service,
shabbat
- Breaking news: several Jewish social justice activists, including AJWS’s associate director of advocacy, Ian Schwab; the Religious Action Center’s Rabbi David Saperstein, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ Rabbi Steve Gutow, were arrested today along with actor George Clooney, Martin Luther King III and members of Congress in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C. The group was protesting the Sudanese government’s blockage of humanitarian aid to its citizens. To see photos as they come in, check out the RAC’s Facebook album, and read this article in the Jewish Journal for more context on the protest.
- It’s here! The voting period for the 70+ submissions received in the Where Do You Give? National Design Competition opened yesterday. You can vote once a day in each category – Tzedakah Box, Interactive, and Out of the Box – through March 30th. The submission with the most votes in each category will become one of the finalists and be a part of the national exhibit kicking off this summer, with the potential of winning the Grand Prize. You can also view all the submissions and descriptions on Where Do You Give?’s Facebook album. Read more →
Tagged as:
ethical consumption,
judaism,
nu,
Sudan,
tzedakah
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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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