Last year, the Romemu community decided that concern with Social Justice and Social Action are at the core of our identity as a sacred community, and that we as a congregation should develop a substantial Social Justice and Social Action program, which will eventually be fully integrated into our religious, educational, and social programming.
The first phase of our initiative was to solicit community input, build relationships between members and identify the core issues of concern to our membership. Over the last couple of months, we held six house meetings throughout the NYC Metropolitan area so that members of Romemu could share their Social Justice and Social Action concerns and priorities with one another and build relationships. Over 50 people participated in these meetings.
On February 6th, we will have an open get-together with the Rabbi, at his home to report on our findings and look at the different ways in which we as a community can respond effectively. Please come to this meeting so you can plug into the initiative. Social justice work is only as strong as the community commitment to the work.
We will then enter the second phase of our initiative—the research and campaign identification phase. Now that we identified the core issue we want to work on this year, members of the committee are exploring different issues and campaigns. We hope to announce the third phase in time for Passover.
Romemu Social Justice Committee has created a Google Group that enables congregants to share information concerning events, actions, and topics of interest to members. This is a space to share information about what you are doing or would like to do now, while we continue to undertake process of faith based organizing in order to build consensus and identify the issues that we as a community would like to take on. Please go to this link to join the group.