Social Action Committee
At a time when the community is suffering, no one should say, 'I will go home, eat, drink, and be at peace with myself.'
Our Mission & Purpose is to unite the actions of Gevurah [Strength] & Chesed [Loving kindness] into Courageous Compassion through a lay-led committee that will embody Asah [Taking Action] toward Tzedek [Social Justice] on a Community, Inter-Community and City-wide scale. We believe it is incumbent upon us to:
- Practice Romemu’s values of radical welcoming, authentic relationship-building, and active community-building;
- Stand up with and for each other and others during challenging times
- Respond to this critical moment in our community & city
- Discover and act based upon what Romemu members are uniquely poised to contribute to Social Justice work in Harlem, Washington Heights, UWS and NYC
- Acknowledge and utilize our power to shift our systems towards justice.
In order to manage the many initiatives of the Social Action Committee we have two working groups:
The Direct Service Social Action Team is chaired by Rev. Lauren Ahava Jacobs. Projects of this group include the Romemu Community Food Pantry and Winter Outerwear Drive as well as partnerships with other organizations to assist asylum seekers and formerly incarcerated individuals. Lean about volunteering with the Pantry and Winter Outerwear drive here. To inquire about others ways to engage with direct service email Lauren at laurenaj@gmail.com.
Social Action Advocacy Team is chaired by Iva Kaufman and Lynda Rodolitz. This group has been actively advocating for several issues including criminal justice reform, closing Rikers Island, and child welfare. Read more about Romemu’s advocacy below. To inquire about how you can get involved with the Advocacy Team, email ivakaufman@gmail.com or lyndarodolitz@gmail.com.
Interested in learning more about Social Action at Romemu? Please contact socialaction@romemu.
Thank you to our Social Action Volunteers
To support the work of the Social Action Committee, please consider a contribution to the Rabbi Rivera Social Action Fund and/or sponsoring a Social Justice Education Program.
Our Core/Guiding Values/Middot
- גבורה (Gevurah) – Strength
- חֶסֶד (Chesed) – Loving-kindness
- עָשָׂה (Asah) – Action
- צדק (Tzedek) – Justice
- Courageous Compassion — “Courageous Compassion is the act of utilizing mental or moral strength – even in the face of fear – to withstand danger or difficulty on behalf of another person or group because of sympathetic consciousness of the other’s distress together with a desire to alleviate that distress.” [Lauren Ahava Jacobs, Bank Street College of Education, 2017]
Our Goals
- Mobilizing our Membership by providing Opportunities for Service, Education, Advocacy and Organizing on relevant issues
- Outreach and Partnership with other Jewish & non-Jewish Social Justice Organizations
- Organizing Concrete, Effective Social Justice Actions including:
– Doing/organizing direct outreach to and service for groups in need
– Providing the community with education on relevant issues
– Participating in gatherings, meetings, conferences, protests and events
– Connecting with local legislators
– Advocating with/through relevant organizations
– Doing/organizing letter-writing, phone-banking & petition-circulating
– Doing/organizing canvassing/voter-registering, tabling - Engaging with and putting into action learnings about Socio-political Movements, Theories of Social Change, and Methods for building Power against Systems of Oppression toward Tikkun Olam.
Our Work and Offerings to the Community
Our work centers around issues including and not limited to:
- Children’s Rights & Welfare
- Youth Justice & Criminal Justice Reform
- Immigration Justice
- Housing & Food Justice
- Healthcare & Mental Healthcare Reform
Our offerings to the community endeavor to:
- Acquaint members with main concerns relating to each issue.
- Create curiosity about each issue and invite members to become active in a subcommittee working on the issue.
- Convey the process by which each system originally formed to help people can instead negatively impact the people it was designed to serve.
- Bring to light the already-existing campaigns and tools through which we can take action on the issue
- Encourage members to realize that there are concrete ways we can make a change.
In 2021, the Social Action Committee ran a five-part series of panel discussions on social justice issues and in December of 2022 we had a panel discussion on alternatives to incarceration and the crisis at Rikers Island. See recordings of previous events.
Advocacy in Action
Over the year the Romemu Social Action Committee’s Criminal Justice Reform and CARE Act Advocacy Team has advocated on two important issues – the Treatment Not Jail bill and Child Abuse Reporting Expansion Act.
On Shabbat, April 22, Rabbi Ingber issued a call to action on these important issues, encouraging everyone who can to join in this important day of advocacy. You can view his remarks in this video
Thank you to everyone who helped with advocacy on these issues. We made tremendous progress during the 2023 NY State Legislative Session. Please read this update from the Advocacy Team leadership that summarizes the progress we made last year.
The Advocacy Team is continuing to work on these issues this year. If you would like to learn more about advocacy and these issues and be among the first to learn of additional advocacy opportunities, please contact ivakaufman@gmail.com or lyndarodolitz@gmail.com.