The Gathering | Seeing the pathways forward - Avodah

The Gathering | Seeing the pathways forward

Published Jun 1, 2022
Gabriel Dalton; Unsplash
There is a lot to grieve, fear and rage against right now. In some ways, that is always true. And yet, the harshness has felt especially powerful and exhausting recently as we mourn the violence and the lives lost both in Uvalde and in yet another racist attack against Black lives in Buffalo, mobilize for abortion access and reproductive health care, gird against laws criminalizing trans rights, and mark a million U.S. lives (and 6.29 million lives worldwide) lost to Covid.
 
At moments like this, it is crucial both to carve out space for grief and to follow those leaders who can inspire us and help us see pathways forward. There are the crucial messages from Jewish organizations and leaders that we must examine the connections between gun violence and white supremacy and in particular, understand the fight against antisemitism in a context that includes a commitment to fight white nationalism more broadly. There are the groups in Buffalo working on campaigns that can ensure their communities’ thriving over the long run and also working to provide food and other resources to meet immediate needs. I’m deeply inspired by the Trans Halakha Project from SVARA and its work “uplifting, prioritizing, and codifying the voices of trans Jews.” I’m moved by the journalists who are continuing to tell stories of lives lost to Covid and to tell us what we can and must change now to keep those losses from growing. And I’m inspired by the National Council of Jewish Women and other groups insisting we cannot allow for a U.S. without access to full reproductive health care, including abortion. The sources linked here and the ones we share below help to expand on all of this and more. May we all continue to find the teachers and leaders whose visions help to bring us forward and who keep us marching and building together.
 
— Sarra Alpert, Director of The Avodah Institute for Social Change

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