In the last year, our youth-led, Reform Jewish gun violence prevention campaign engaged hundreds of student leaders around civic engagement and reducing gun violence in America.
This past January, I, along with my confirmation class, had the opportunity to attend L’Taken, the RAC’s social justice seminar for high schoolers.
At the annual meeting of Temple Emanuel of Kensington, Maryland, the temple's 7th grade religious school class introduced a resolution on gun violence prevention.
In my world, I cannot walk around at night without an escort. In my world, one in five American women and one in 71 men will be raped.
My first personal exposure to gun violence was as a teenager. I had a weeklong internship at a courthouse, and coincidentally a murderer from my hometown was being sentenced that week. A young man had shot his grandmother with the family hunting rifle.
My
In response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, communities across the country have come together to help protect our schools and our students.
Photo: Alejandro Alvarez
On February 14th, our country suffered another unspeakable tragedy – 17 students and teachers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were killed in a mass shooting.
Photo by Hector Emanuel
Why is this night different from all others? It is the essential question that the Jewish people ask themselves at the Seder table as we celebrate Passover.
I am indescribably proud to have marched with the Reform Jewish Movement at the March for Our Lives in Washington, DC. The songs we sang in the morning, and the powerful speeches that the teens leading our work made about their experiences struck a chord in me. I was inspired by the message that my fellow Jewish students sent – that we will not stand idly by as our country suffers from an epidemic of gun violence. But more profoundly, I reflected on the impact of the violence that affects many of us in our schools and communities in one form or another. I was struck by how deeply these tragedies can mark us, forcing us to grow up in a matter of minutes or days, dramatically shifting our worldviews and understandings of identity.
Six minutes, and twenty seconds was the time it took for the gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to take the lives of 17 innocent people.
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