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The Pro-Democracy Faith Movement
February 18, 2021, 9:31 am Getty/Jim Watson/AFP
An imam holds hands with a Jewish faith leader during a press conference with an interfaith coalition of faith leaders on the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election and rising hate crimes outside the Masjid Muhammad, The Nation s Mosque, in Washington, November 2016.
Sam Hananel
Introduction and summary
This report was developed through a project with Auburn Seminary, which for more than 200 years has equipped leaders of faith and moral courage who are on the front lines fighting for the health and wholeness of U.S. society.
The past year has been an incredible test for American democracy. The coronavirus crisis not only crippled America’s public health and economy, but it also necessitated new ways of voting in a presidential election. This incited new tactics for voter suppression that compounded long-standing efforts to hobble the voting power of communities of color. The electoral p
Times of Israel blogger and Black History Month panelist Ed Gaskin. (courtesy)
Gaskin earned an M. Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and graduated as a Martin Trust fellow from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He has published several books on a range of topics with social justice themes, was a co-organizer of the first faith-based initiative on reducing gang violence at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has taught a seminary class on the topic of Christianity and the problem of racism for over 25 years.
Ginna Green is a political strategist, writer, movement-builder, and consultant, and partner and chief strategy officer at Uprise. A Schusterman senior fellow and a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance notable woman, Green is also a fellow at the Kogod Research Center of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and sits on the boards of Women’s March, Political Research Associates, the Jews of Color Initiative, Bend the Arc, and the Jewish Soc
American Jews are taking a hard look at racism in their midst
The challenge for white American Jews is to understand that they can be both targets of white supremacy and also accomplices. Rabbi Sandra Lawson, right, dances with others during Reconstructing Judaism s 2018 Convention in Philadelphia in Nov. 2018 the year she was ordained. Photo by Jordan Cassway
February 12, 2021
The boards of both synagogues were enthusiastic about hiring her.
But when they presented Lawson to the entire congregation, the membership backed down, acknowledging that while she was obviously qualified, they were not ready for a Black rabbi.
Lawson now wants to make sure other Black rabbis, and Jews of color generally, don’t have the same painful experience.
American Jewish leaders, shaken by last week’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and its antisemitic underpinnings, told the Secretary-designate of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, that he should create a new liaison to the Jewish community focused on domestic terrorism.
In a Friday call that was scheduled before Wednesday’s unprecedented assault on the Capitol, Mayorkas, who is Jewish, signaled that combating domestic terrorism would be a priority amid an surge of white supremacy and neo-Nazi activity, participants said in interviews on Sunday. It was part of a series of calls with Jewish leaders planned by the Biden transition team.