RAC-NJ

RAC-NJ's work was made possible with generous seed funding from the Michael & Alice Kuhn Foundation.

RAC-NJ launched in August of 2020 to bring our Reform Jewish values of wholeness, justice, and compassion to the Garden State. As a project of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, RAC-NJ seeks to organize across lines of difference to ensure that our Reform Jewish values, including pikuach nefeshpikuach nefeshפִּקּוּחַ נֶפֶשׁThe concept that saving a life overrides all other biblical commandments.  (saving lives), chesedChesedKindness  (compassion), and tzedektzedekצדקJustice  (justice), are included in policymaking as our state leaders work to build a more just and compassionate society for all New Jersey residents.

Upcoming Events

RAC-NJ’s 2025 Campaign to Pass the Immigrant Trust Act

In February 2025, RAC-NJ decided to make helping to pass the New Jersey Immigrant Trust Act our primary 2025 issue advocacy campaign. This bill - S3672/A4987 - expands critical protections so that immigration questions only come up when necessary to determine eligibility for a program or service or to enforce state and local law AND advances accountability so that law enforcement agencies report on instances where federal immigration enforcement requested local agencies to cooperate with immigration enforcement, and instances in which those requests were granted.

Passing the Immigrant Trust Act is part of ensuring that New Jersey takes action to keep families together. The Immigrant Trust Act ensures that the programs lawmakers have championed over the last few years can reach their intended communities by ensuring that community members feel confident accessing New Jersey government/services, regardless of changes in federal administrations. At the state level, we cannot control how federal resources are deployed, but we can control how New Jersey's own resources are best directed toward further our state's own priorities.

Email your state legislators to ask them to support passing the Immigrant Trust Act. To learn more and get involved with our campaign, email Sarah Blaine or register now for RAC-NJ's March 27, 2025 campaign kickoff.

RAC-NJ Recent CAMPAIGNS

Ban the Box in Housing Campaign

In 2021, we won our Ban the Box in Housing Campaign with the passage of the Fair Chance in Housing Act. In partnership with Fair Share Housing Center, we mobilized our congregations, clergy, and lay leaders to pass legislation increasing access to safe and secure housing for formerly incarcerated individuals. New Jersey has the nation’s highest ratio of black-to-white incarceration, at more than 12 Black New Jerseyans incarcerated for every white New Jerseyan. Over 60% of New Jersey’s total prison population is Black, even though Black people make up only about 15% of the state’s total population. The Fair Chance in Housing Act requires most New Jersey residential landlords to remove questions regarding a potential tenant’s criminal history from initial applications for housing. This allows the potential tenant the opportunity to tell the landlord the person’s story of t’shuva – repair – instead of being rejected, sight unseen.

Every Voice Every Vote

In 2020, RAC-NJ’s Safeguarding Our Votes campaign reached over 400 New Jersey voters directly – and more who were trained by those voters – to teach people how to vote by mail in New Jersey. In 2022, RAC-NJ leaders organized congregations and congregants to collectively send more than 23,210 postcards to historically marginalized voters.

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About RAC-NJ

RAC-NJ launched in August of 2020 to bring our Reform Jewish values of wholeness, justice, and compassion to the Garden State. 

In addition to Ban the Box in Housing and our RAC-NJ’s 2021 Double Your Impact Civic Engagement Campaign, RAC-NJ continues to support the work of our partners at New Jersey Institute for Social Justice on their #DemocracyInADay Campaign to support passage of A4548/S2824, a bill that, if enacted, would make New Jersey the 22nd state to implement same-day voter registration. Similarly, RAC-NJ is a member of the Thrive-NJ Coalition, and supports the Coalition’s campaign to pass S3030/A4848, the Reproductive Freedom Act, into law. If enacted, the Reproductive Freedom Act will codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into New Jersey statute and ensure that New Jerseyans in need of reproductive health services including but not limited to abortion care will be able to access the care they need regardless of their financial resources or documentation status.  

RAC-NJ Leaders, Leadership Development, and Training

RAC-NJ is led by a Core Team of clergy and lay leaders from congregations located across New Jersey. RAC-NJ’s current Core Team members are: 

  • Rabbi Philip Bazeley of Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick 
  • Lynn Chaiken of Temple Emeth in Teaneck 
  • Liz Cohen of Temple Beth-El in Hillsborough 
  • Gail Donner of Congregation Kol Ami in Cherry Hill 
  • Nilene Evans of Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge 
  • Brion Feinberg of Temple Shaari Emeth in Manalapan
  • Cantor Jacqueline Menaker of Shirat HaYam in Ventnor 
  • Rabbi Jordan Millstein of Temple Sinai of Bergen County in Tenafly
  • Melissa Pescatore, Reform Jewish Educator at Temple Shaari Emeth in Manalapan 
  • Rabbi Ethan Prosnit of Temple Emanu-El in Westfield 
  • Rabbi Leah Sternberg of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills 
  • Barbara Schwartz of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange 
  • Ann Thayer-Cohen of Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick
  • Michele Zeldner of Congregation Kol Ami in Cherry Hill

RAC-NJ leaders also participate in its work through its research team, its campaign strategy teams, and congregational social justice teams working on RAC-NJ projects.

 

RAC-NJ Primary Partners