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Headlines from NFTY’s 75th Year
by The NFTY North American Board
As NFTY’s 75th year comes to a close, we find our Movement at a crucial moment in time. While we honor our rich history, we also look toward our vibrant future with much anticipation, joy, and excitement. This year it has been our privilege to serve as the leaders of NFTY, and we want to share and celebrate ten important headlines from NFTY’s 75th year.
A Jewish Response to the President's State of the Union Address
As the new director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech with fresh eyes, looking for areas where we can work with the president and Congress in the coming year to advance our Reform Movement's soc
Greetings from the New RAC Director
Dear Friends,
I write to you today from the Arthur & Sara Jo Kobacker building in Washington D.C., the home of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. I received the honor of a lifetime when Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, announced my appointment as the new Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. For fifty years, the RAC has been the hub of Jewish social justice and legislative activity in Washington, D.C.
I have the great honor of succeeding my mentor and friend, Rabbi David Saperstein, who, for forty years, has built the RAC into a powerful force grounded in ancient Jewish values of social justice for North America and across the world. The rabbis taught that in every age we see ourselves as if we ourselves were liberated from bondage. Our work for justice is bound up in the thousands year old essence of what it means to be a Jew.
A New Year’s Resolution to Ensure Safety for Survivors of Abuse
During my senior year of college, I worked as a courtroom advocate at the St. Louis County Domestic Violence Court, a division of the court system that deals exclusively with orders of protection in cases of domestic violence. I worked with petitioners – survivors of domestic abuse filing for an order – to assist their navigation of the legal system and to connect them to community resources to ensure they could feel safer in their everyday lives. I say safer, and not safe, because individuals
Aux Juifs de France
This is a prayer for the Jews of France after the terror attack on a kosher market in Paris.
Galilee Diary: The Neighbors
Whoever saves one life in Israel [i.e., of a Jew] is as if he had saved an entire world.
– Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5
Whoever saves one life is as if he had saved an entire world.
Moving Closer to Health Care for All
On Wednesday, Gallup reported that the uninsured rate among adults in the fourth quarter of 2014 averaged 12.9 percent, down from 13.4% in the third quarter of 2014. This past quarter’s uninsured rate is a 4.2 percentage point decrease since the Affordable Care Act‘s requirement that all Americans have health insurance went into effect one year ago. While these numbers illustrate a significant improvement in the percentage of Americans with health insurance, we must not lose sight of the importance of ensuring that all Americans are insured.
Remembering that Slavery is Not Just an Injustice of the Past
Too often, we conceive of slavery as problem of the past, a moral lapse that has been corrected. The truth is, however, that more people are enslaved today than were enslaved at any other point in world history. The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, estimates that 21 million people across the globe are trafficked into forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor and sexual servitude—all forms of modern slavery.
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, so named by the President in order to acknowledge this nation’s painful history of slavery and to highlight the nation’s commitment to freedom. For many Americans, January is also the exciting lead-up to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, this flagship of America’s pastime has become marred by some of the darker aspects of society today. According to leading advocates and law enforcement agencies, the culminating event of football season brings with it some of the largest sex trafficking operations in the country. While there is no concrete way to measure the number of people that have been, or will be trafficked in Glendale, Arizona over the weekend, Miami police in 2010 estimated that 10,000 people had been trafficked as prostitutes for that year’s game.
RAC Submits Public Comments to President’s Policing Task Force
The Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which President Obama created by Executive Order in December, convened for the first time on Tuesday, January 13. The first listening session was on “Building Trust and Legitimacy” and included testimony from five different panels of witnesses representing members of the law enforcement community, local politicians and mayors, community representatives and civil society leaders. The Task Force also solicited public comments – see below for an excerpt of the RAC’s comments and click here to read the comments in full.
UN General Assembly Meets for the First Time to Discuss Anti-Semitism
Just one week ago, on January 22, 2015, following a request by Member States in October 2014, the UN General Assembly convened a meeting to address concerns of a rise in anti-Semitism and related violence around the world. Representatives from some 60 countries came to speak about the necessity of stamping out anti-Semitic violence and discrimination worldwide.