Justice and Jewish Thought Class

This spring, JUFJ and the Avodah-AJWS Alumni Partnership are partnering to offer a twelve-week course that will explore issues of race, class, gender identity and sexual identity and how these intersect with and affect our identities as Jews and our work for social justice.

• Twelve Wednesday evenings, starting on February 4, 2009.
  
• Readings will include works by Judith Plaskow, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Audre Lorde, Paul Kivel, and many others. Click here to view the syllabus from summer 2008, when the class ran for the first time.
• Sessions will be interactive and participant-led.

Click here to download an application. Applications are due by Friday, January 9.

Email your application or questions to info@jufj.org.

After presentations on campaign proposals, followed by lively discussion and debate, "A Fair Purple Line" emerged as the clear winner. In the coming months, we will work to establish specific campaign goals, define our role in the coalition of organizations tackling this issue and educate and mobilize the Jewish community around fair transit in Maryland.

After more than two years of work by JUFJ volunteers, we're proud to announce that Green & Just Celebrations: A Purchasing Guide for Washington's Jewish Families is now available!

Here are just a few photos from our October 19th celebration of community and of the local Jewish commitment to social justice.

Following Labor on the Bimah programs in 28 local congregations, with six more on the way this coming weekend, JUFJ members participated in a vigil to support the rights of nursing home workers in ManorCare facilities. Rabbi Bob Saks spoke, reminding vigil-goers and curious passers-by that like the Amalakites, the archetypal enemy in Jewish tradition, unscrupulous nursing home workers exploit the most vulnerable among us.

"Montgomery County residents who hire nannies, housekeepers or cooks for more than 20 hours a week would be required to offer them a written contract that spells out working conditions such as wages and benefits," reports Ann E. Marimow in the Washington Post .