Activism

Selma‘s Missing Rabbi

By |

Including Heschel would not diminish the film’s emphasis on the centrality of African Americans in the civil rights struggle, but it would have lent the film more historical accuracy, not simply about one man but as a representative of the role Jews played in the freedom struggle and as a reflection of the Civil Rights movement’s inclusiveness.

Articles

The Demon in Darren Wilson’s Head

By |

The actions of police officers aren’t supposed to be governed by fear. But Darren Wilson’s were. Wilson’s actions, however, weren’t “his actions,” but rather an outcropping of what theologian Sarah Drummond aptly calls “an epigenetic, cellular memory of loss and its resultant need for a scapegoat.”

Editorials & Actions

Strategy to Deal with Racist Police Forces by Reginald Lyles

By |

For Whom the Bell Tolls
by John Donne and Reginald Lyles

Reginald W. Lyles  is 1.  the Senior Advisor for public safety to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan; 2.  a retired career law enforcement officer (Command level); 3.  a 30+-year Deacon of Allen Temple Baptist Church – one of the largest African-American churches in the country; 4.  and a recent Master of Community and Leadership Divinity graduate and Bible Scholar Award-winner of the American Baptist Seminary of the West. Deacon Lyles teaches, trains and advises churches, governmental, and non-governmental organizations locally and across the country on public safety and civil and human rights. No man is an island,

Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

Activism

Honor Block

By |

True to its reputation, the prison was violent. And ugly. I witnessed cuttings and stabbings in the yard. They erupted without warning, like lightning. At night in my cell, I heard the screams of men being beaten by the guards.

2014

Trayvon Martin: Reflections on the Black and Jewish Struggle for Justice

By |

Since the 1960s, efforts at coalition building and solidarity work between Jewish and Black communities have suffered and never reached the pinnacle that was reached during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. In 2013, the lack of deep and abiding connections between Black and Jewish activists became apparent in the disparate responses from Jewish communities to the events surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman. To reinvigorate a coalition among blacks and Jews we need to forge deeper ties across racial lines.

Articles

Nelson Mandela: A Jewish Perspective

By |

Jews love and loved Nelson Mandela. He inspired us with his insistence that the old regime of apartheid would crumble more quickly and fully when faced with revolutionary love and compassion than when faced with anger and violence. Mandela also challenged us to think deeply about whether the current situation in Israel/Palestine reflects the ethic of compassion that is so central to Judaism.