 |
SOCIAL ACTION resources
|
|
|
making a DIFFERENCE
Third Time's the Charm
October 3, 2008
(1 Comment)
By Jill Zimmerman
First posted on the RACblog
On September 6th my best friend's uncles, Dan Henkle and Steve Kawa, walked down the aisle for the third -- and finally legal -- time.
Dan and Steve first became domestic partners in 1995 and were one of the few couples personally married by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom during the "Winter of Love" in 2004. (Steve is the Mayor's Chief of Staff.) They have shared a home in San Francisco for over 13 years and have two beautiful children, Katherine and Michael. But this September wedding was the first time the couple's commitment was legally sanctioned.
However, a California ballot initiative is threatening to take away the
right for couples like Dan and Steve to be married under California
state law. Proposition 8, which will be on California ballots November
4th, would amend the California State Constitution to say: "Only
marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in
California." Similar measures will be on the ballots in Florida and
Arizona, and one that would prevent gay couples from adopting children
will be on the ballots in Hawaii.
read MORE 
Filed Under:
Lifecycle | Social Action
|
|
This Week Is Like a Box of Chocolates
September 28, 2008
By Barbara Weinstein
Legislative Director of the Religious Action Center
I'm an I Love Lucy aficionado. I have seen every episode, can recite by heart the Vitametavegamin routine that ends with Lucy sloshed on the alcohol-laced health tonic, and know that the longest laugh the show recorded came when Lucy did the tango with a shirt stuffed full of raw eggs. But for my money, the funniest episode is called "Job Switching," where Lucy and Ethel get jobs in a candy factory. Watching Lucy-as-candy-wrapper try and keep up with the ever-faster conveyor belt of chocolates is watching a master comedian at her best.
Sometimes, I feel a bit like Lucy at Kramer's Kandy Kitchen. That's particularly true this week as Congress tries to work through myriad bills that have languished for months, while also dealing with the economic challenges on Wall Street, and trying to leave town to campaign before Election Day. The legislative team at the RAC has been busily strategizing, posting action alerts, firing off letters to members of Congress, issuing press releases, and trying to make sure that social justice values are reflected in our laws.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Community | Ethics | Social Action
|
|
Hechsher tzedek
September 10, 2008
By Larry Kaufman
Well, our Reform rabbinate has endorsed the Conservative "hechsher tzedek" stating whether or not the meat is kosher isn't just a factor of how the animal was slaughtered, but of how the workers were treated.
Back in the days when we were boycotting California grapes, we probably talked about social justice and prophetic values - but the Reform movement wasn't at the point where it could have talked about kosher and treyf.
As it happened, our speaker at Shabbat services on Labor Day weekend talked about his participation in the recent protest march at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville. (For those arriving in the middle of the movie, that's the large kosher meat company that's been the subject of a Forward investigation and of a raid and roundup of undocumented workers by the Feds.) I told our guest that I don't keep kosher, but I consider the Postville meat treyf.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Ethics | Social Action
|
|
Awakening to Action in Elul
September 8, 2008
By Micaela Hellman-Tincher
This past week marked the first week of the Hebrew month of Elul. During Elul, my mom calls me every day to blow the shofar over the phone, to get us ready for the High Holy Days. I have always been taught that the shofar was meant to be a kind of alarm that roused us from our normal lives and instructed us to prepare for the new year and the days of awe.
For me, Elul has also always marked the end of summer and the beginning of school, and shofar phone calls usually coincided with figuring out my workload for the upcoming year. This year Elul's shofar blasts mean something different as I start my work at the RAC. Elul's shofar calls come at a time when I am being shaken awake to realize the urgent issues facing the world around me.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Holidays | Social Action
|
|
A Journey of A Thousand Miles
August 6, 2008
(3 Comments)
By Rabbi Scott Sperling
There are moments when we can sense that history is in the making. Last month, I stood in a receiving line at Spain's famous Prado Palace so that I might shake hands with the kings of Saudi Arabia and Spain. In that experience and all that happened over the ensuing three days, I felt a part of such a historic moment. I was fortunate enough to represent the Union for Reform Judaism and our Commission on Interreligious Affairs at the Muslim World League's World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid, Spain.
This conference brought together approximately 300 delegates from every corner of the globe and who represented the broad spectrum of the world's religions. While the plenary sessions were interesting and occasionally heated and controversial, the real work of the conference took place in hallways and at our communal meals. I had conversation with an astonishing variety of people.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Community | Social Action
|
|
The Muslim-Jewish Tipping Point - Full Post
July 30, 2008
(5 Comments)
By Eboo Patel
(First posted on Newsweek/Washington Post's On Faith)
"Nobody believes you guys actually exist," I said to the group I was eating dinner with.
I was sitting with the North American Board of Reform Judaism's youth movement (called NFTY) at their summer leadership camp, Kutz.
These five teenagers were responsible for leading programming for thousands of young Reform Jews across the country. This year's study theme: Muslim-Jewish Relations. And these young leaders couldn't be more excited it.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Social Action | The Future
|
|
The False Choice of Peace v. Justice
July 23, 2008
By Jonah Perlin
(First posted on the RACBlog) The last month has been an important one for international
war crimes proceedings. Monday night the
"most wanted man in Europe," a Serbian war
criminal was captured. Even more remarkable, on July 11, just six
days before the 10th anniversary of the ratification of the Rome Statute which
established the International Criminal Court (ICC) -- a treaty which the U.S.
and Israel have still yet to become a party to -- Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the
maverick Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, announced that he was brining charges
against President
Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.
In
indicting Bashir the ICC not only made a commitment to holding individuals
responsible for the ongoing genocide in Darfur, it also sent a signal to all
sitting world leaders that they would no longer have immunity from perpetrating
unthinkable crimes simply because of their status as heads of state.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Ethics | Social Action
|
|
Dónde están las mujeres
July 17, 2008
(4 Comments)
By dcc
This week the Saudi government sponsored an interfaith meeting in Madrid, Spain. Rabbi Scott Sperling, director of the Mid-Atlantic Council of the Union and representative of the Commission on Interreligious Affairs, is there for the Reform Movement. Ari Alexander, co-founder of Children of Abraham, is also attending. He is live blogging at Mixed Multitudes about the event. He was shocked to see so few female participants at the conference. In a week were where we read Parashat Pinchas, a seminal work of feminism in the Torah, his point resonates even louder for me.
It is all too easy for men to say nothing about the lack of women in a room, Alexander writes. As a young man working in a world with far more women than men, but where there are very few women in positions of power, not saying anything is not an option. We must say something when there is a clear issue of discrimination. It is also the responsibility of all involved--both those in the majority and those being discriminated against--to work against these trends.
Take a look at Alexander's post. It is worth the read.
read MORE
Filed Under:
Ethics | Social Action
|
|
|
This past Sunday Rabbis Benjamin David (