The Next Generation
Dear parents,
Last week was the last class of the year at the School for Creative Judaism, the New Shul’s Hebrew school partner. Each year we have an annual theme, and this year’s was the Year of the Peacemakers, wherein students learned about activists for peace and justice from all stages of Jewish history. We ended our year in an action in a park in Brooklyn, in which the students became the peacemakers. Here’s the note I sent parents with my little summary of this special year of learning:
“Because our history taught us to care for strangers!”
“Because the Torah tells us to protect the vulnerable!”
“Because we will all need help one day!”
These were some of the answers students gave when I asked them why we are talking about the Fair Pay for Home Care campaign at Jewish school. After a year of learning about activists and peacemakers from across Jewish history, at our Shavuot celebration in Cobble Hill we met one from the present. Judi Williams, who works for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice told kids and parents that thousands of elderly and disabled people in NY state can’t find a home-care worker because the pay is as low as $10 per hour. They can’t afford to do this work under those conditions. She described the work the activists put in to pass a law in Albany that would raise it to $25 per hour, and how after the law passed Governor Hochul refused to add it to the budget, so the campaign continues. “God commands us in The Torah to protect the dignity of every human being,” she said, adding: “Justice justice you must pursue!” We decided there and then that we would end the school year with an action in support of the campaign.
Learning the stories and ideas of all of the peacemakers the students encountered this year - from biblical types like Aaron the High Priest and the Prophet Isaiah through Talmudic feminists like Brurya, vegetarianism touting rabbis like Israel’s first chief rabbi, Harav Kook and all the way up to modern heroes like Ruth Bader Ginsburg - prepared your children to take in the struggles of contemporary activists here in NYC. The context of millennia of Jews fighting for the rights of the poor and the vulnerable in the name of the Torah made encountering today’s Jewish activists make sense. Whether they were hearing about a Brooklyn Trans activist/artist who grew up a Hassidic boy, about an American-born Reform rabbi fighting for the rights of Bedouin Palestinians in the Occupied Territories or a young woman working to secure dignified living for the elderly or disabled in NY state , the kids understood that Jews stand up to injustice as part of our spiritual DNA.
At the action last week, watching parents and kids canvassing to spread the word about the home-care workers as they carried signs with verses from the Talmud, I felt proud of your little peacemakers, and hopeful for the future. “Hu ya’aseh shalom aleynu” as we sing in our prayers, “God will bring peace upon us,” may actually come true quicker than we thought with this next generation of Peacemakers.
Mazal tov to all of the amazing B’nai Mitzvah of 5782 at The New Shul, each of which did a mitzvah project to make the world a slightly better place:
Zeke Cohen
Matan Shulman
Rami Hertzig
Willow Mintz
Luca Assante
Alice Lewin
Sajid Cohen
Sadie Gordon
Naomi Robinson-Pasher
Kaitlyn Carroll
Emmy (Paley) DiClerico
Anna Donovan
Thank you for giving us the joy of working with your kids this year. We are already planning for next year’s theme, the Year of the Storytellers.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Misha