Current Campaign
Climate Tzedek: Building our Power to Achieve Just, Science-Based Solutions to the Climate Crisis
As Californians, we know climate change is already here. To create the big shifts that will heal our relationships with the planet and with each other, we need to build a movement. Through RAC-CA's Climate Tzedek Campaign, we will build our power and voice as the statewide network of Reform congregations, working with partners, to achieve equitable, science-based solutions to the climate crisis and strengthen our communities as we do it.
Get Involved
Scroll down to register for RAC-CA emails with opportunities to take action with us.
Our tradition teaches that we cannot just sit by while extreme weather events and other climate impacts multiply – we must move into action. Climate Tzedek is our statewide campaign to address climate change with Reform Jews and our partners. On August 27, RAC-CA members gathered to talk with constituents in South Sacramento to build and show support for AB 421 in their district. This bill will improve the language and transparency in California's referendum process and help us defeat the referendum attempting to overturn the hard-won ban on neighborhood drilling for oil and gas.
Here are some of the video statements we made!
June 12 Climate Tzedek Campaign Update
Our Campaign update includes a report on the bills we're been supporting and our ACTION PLANS for SUMMER 2023.
Climate Tzedek Action Webinar Recording
Our tradition teaches that we cannot just sit by while extreme weather events and other climate impacts multiply – we must move into action. Climate Tzedek is our statewide campaign to address climate change with Reform Jews and our partners.
High Holy Days 5783/2022 Climate Texts and Sermons
High Holidays/Fall 5783/2022 Sermon Guidance
A Climate Reading of the Unetaneh Tokef
Climate Al Chet, Maggid Eli Andrew Ramer, Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, San Francisco
Sermons from 5783-2022/23
Our Recent Work
RAC-CA 2021 Legislative Agenda
RAC-CA leaders helped to pass SB 62, the Garment Workers Protection Act, to expand wage theft liability and hold retailers responsible to pay minimum wage and create safe working conditions for garment workers, who are primarily immigrant women.
RAC-CA lobbied our legislators in 2021 to pass SB 731 (Time Done) life-changing legislation to address the hundreds of barriers to reintegration faced by people who have paid their debt to society by creating a mechanism to seal arrest and conviction records after a person has fully completed their sentence, parole and additional time without conviction. This bill faced challenging opposition but has finally passed and been signed into law!
RAC-CA joined the VISION Coalition to press CalGEM, the state oil and gas drilling regulator, to require buffer zones between drilling sites and homes, schools and other places where people are impacted by toxic emissions from drilling. Our Hanukkah action brought us together to contrast the miracle of a small amount of oil symbolizing our freedom with the damaging effects of the long practice of drilling for oil in our own time and place. This campaign has won a proposed buffer zone and is ongoing.
Additional RAC-CA Victories
In 2019, RAC-CA set gun violence prevention and housing as our two top issues. With help from Reform communities across the state, RAC-CA helped triple funding for local gun violence prevention programs in California communities most affected by gun violence. We also backed a package of housing and homeless bills that will help build new affordable housing, protect tenants, and remove barriers for housing production.
Contact and support our team
- Contact Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller to learn more and get involved.
- Join our group in the Tent.
- You can support this critical organizing work in California online.
Donate to RAC-CA
Support the work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's RAC-CA.
RAC-CA Email Updates
Learn more about the RAC's key issues and get involved by signing up for the RAC-CA newsletters.
Learn More and Get Involved
Governance of RAC-CA
RAC-CA seeks to build our collective power to create the California of our dreams. Our structure includes professional staff, a statewide leadership team, issue research groups, and congregational social justice teams.
Issue Research Teams
The RAC-CA Research Team looks into upcoming campaigns, including legislation on climate change, criminal justice, immigration, health care, housing, and gun violence prevention and more. Comprised of leaders from our congregations across California, this team seeks bills and ballot measures to set our legislative agenda and mobilize congregational social justice teams behind our priority campaigns. The RAC-CA Campaign Team guides the work of the statewide campaign, leading trainings and mobilizing congregations to work with our partners to build and advance our campaigns.
