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♪ ♪ ♪ good morning. welcome to "mosaic. " an honor to be your host this morning. across our country, faith communities are faced with a different way of responding to life by all the things that happen in the world currently. things that happen in a school shooting, in a synagogue, things that happen in our political sphere. we would like to invite you into a conversation with two wonderful people to look at how we respond to the way the world is going these days. we would like to introduce you to rabbi julie, who is a senior organizer with the religious action center of reform duties. welcome. >> thank you so much. >> karen, who is the middle east project director for the jewish community relations council in

san francisco. welcome. >> thank you. >> why don't we jump in and in a general way talk about what your organizations do. then we can funnel that conversation into the ways in which you expressed your leadership in responding to these kinds of events that are happening in the world around us. >> well, the religious action center is the social justice, you could say, department or manifestation of the reform movement, of the union for reform judaism. that's a national organization, the religious action center. it has been around for a long time. people may be familiar with it. hopefully are. in 2012, rabbis and leaders decide we had needed to organize in california to impact statewide policy. it's under the umbrella of

the organization and integrated into the national organization, but we are a statewide network of reformed congregations putting together the justice work to be more powerful on a statewide level. >> thank you. we should say that the reform movement in american jewish life is part of the theological left branch of jewish life thee lodge lodgic -- theologically in the united states. >> the jcrc represents over 60 jewish institutions in the bay area on a wide range of issues. issues our community cares about. we build consensus. we take those issues, mobilize our community, turn it into action. we really are trying to amplify our commune's voice on issues we deeply care about. we are one of -- i think there's 100 jcrcs in the country that were formed in the wake of the holocaust when our community got together and realized we

need to be more effective in advocating for issues that impact our community. so we were -- we came together to bring the community together to increase that effectiveness. >> is it fair to let folks know in the broader jewish landscape, the jewish community relations council is community based that's not attached to any judaism? >> we represent across the different streams of judaism. >> can you talk about how you even understand, what is jewish response to an event in general? is that a fairway to way to focus on how we -- how do you think of jewish response to what happens around us? >> you are referring to a number of events that have happened

recent recently? my question -- it depends what we think of as a jewish event. when there's a synagogue shooting, we have a response that's public but also internal. when there's a shooting in a mosque or there's a natural disaster even, there are other kinds of reresponds. there's overlap because we care about human beings. but there's a kind of responseresponse people feel like we are personally under attack where we have to do both thinking on a policy level and thinking about how we care for our communities. >> interesting. karen, from your perspective? >> i think we're amplifying the needs of the community, the voice of our community in responding to these challenges. when something happens, you know, i think about it's not just to our community. it's to many other communities. our community wants to do something. our jewish values tell us

we have an imperative. we have an imperative. we see everybody in god's image. so when a tragedy happens, we say, what can our community uniquely provide in this situation to help out? >> believe it or not, we're going to take a break and come back to continue this conversation in just a moment here on "mosaic. " ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ good morning and welcome back to "mosaic. " we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with karen, the middle east project director for the jewish community relations council and rabbi julie. welcome back. we were talking a little bit about how your organizations view response in general to events and talked a little about the current events that have happened in the world of late. i was thinking as we were ending that segment that both of your organizations consistently respond to the world around us all the time. it's just that sometimes in the media we see a particular faith community responding to a particular event and we don't realize all the work they do otherwise.

i'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about really the nature of your ongoing response to the world anyway in an ongoing way. >> yes. i appreciate that question. as it happened just now in the past several weeks this season, the network of reform congregations in california has chosen a gun violence prevention campaign. they are local programs effective at reducing gun violence in communities where they are funded. drastically reducing gun violence by 40%, 50%. in oakland, stockton and in a couple of other states. we are looking for full funding for those all over the state because of how effective they are. this is the campaign we were in the midst of, including a call- in week to governor

newsom. this is what we were in the midst of when the shooting happened. we don't usually -- there's not usually such a confluence. in that moment, we were able to do what we would most want to do, which is want to mourn that attack and then to have something for people to do right here and now about gun violence. >> what is v.i.p.? >> violence intervention programs. they are operating in individual cities. >> there are state or county programs? >> we're looking for statewide funding to bring those to cities that don't have them or where funding doesn't allow them to fully operate yet. i will distinguish between those programs and the source of the shooting in san diego, because they aren't the same. these programs are operating in the communities where

gun violence is a part of everyday life, where people are most at risk for committing and being injure d or killed by gun violence. that's where the programs are most needed and effective. >> karen, from the jcrc perspective? >> you know, let me step back a little with the way we approach these issues, we try to be as proactive as possible. so when we look at many of the challenges, whether it's challenges to our democracy, whether it's gun violence we worked on as well, whether it's poverty or any host of challenges, we take what we call a community relations approach. we build relationships. we start proactively by building those relationships, working with our communities which we think is critical for us to advance any of the concerns that we have, it's critically important to build coalitions with other organizations, other faith organizations,

other organizations of interest that are working on the same issues we do. we build these relationships in, day in day out, so when something like this happens, not only do we have somebody to call, but we have somebody who we have been working with on advocating towards these ends. we're able to, i think, be much more effective, whether it's getting legislation passed, just bringing the community together to address the needs of the particular community in response to an event. >> that's the place we have a lot of overlap in our perspective is that it really is about building relationships. in working with synagogues for as long as we know, synagogues have had social justice committees. often those committees organize things a congregation can do. what you can do endless blood drives and clothing drives and food drives. at a certain point you need in addition to helping people with the emergency needs that people have, you need to look

upstream and say, why are people hungry? why are we having shootings in the everyday lives of people? we are looking at how we can affect policy. that takes building relationships like you said. >> that's a lovely point. we will take a quick break. when we come back, we can talk about, what is sustained response? re relations? he would will be right back.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning. welcome back to "mosaic. " we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation with rabbi julie and karen.

welcome become. we were moving in our conversation toward this deeper understanding of what i think of as -- i think other people think of, what's a sustained response after something leaves the news cycle but there's an issue at work? you were bringing up issues, what are the underlying currents of something around, for example, poverty. is there an economic issue or gun violence issues, is there an advocacy issue? can we deepen, maybe broaden the conversation to talk with you about how you understand what those elements are in terms of sustaining response, maintaining response, even building toward response that might be part of the larger picture than an event in a moment.

>> at this point, we have six issues that we work on. they all work toward our mission, which is to stand with vulnerable communities to build the state of california that we want to live in. we ask ourselves that question, actually. what is the california of our dreams? what is the next step we need to take to get there? in terms of sustaining ourour after a given campaign, we go back to that question and with go back to the issues we built our teams to work on. we have an issue team on each of six issues. housing, climate change, immigrants' rights -- let's see if i can remember them all. gun violence prevention. each of our teams is looking at the campaigns that we could potentially work with our partners on in a given season. we're doing that research and building those relationships so when one campaign ends, we

look for what's going to rise to the top as our next priority campaign. we have built relationships and been thinking about that. >> from the jewish community relations council perspective, how does that function? >> we have core issues that we always have to work on. when things come up in the community, it's all hands on deck, drop everything, respond. we focus on key issues that are relevant and that our community cares about. over the last number of years, we have taken up issue s around immigration, racial justice. this year we're looking at democracy. we feel many of the core issues come from a democracy under threat. what we have been doing -- our model we use is we study the issue. we take a year, we bring together our committees and groups, study the issue, bring in experts, host town halls. we give a chance for the community to hear from experts. also, give their feedback. we

craft our position statements and come up with action items to follow up on that -- on those particular issues that we have taken a consensus on. >> i'm curious to know within each of your perspectives, we know when groups come together, just a group coming together in and of itself is an accomplishment. and then paying attention to what each individual is saying in a group and how that process then yields something of a consensus. i'm just curious to know, how do you even decide, it's immigration or it's democracy or it's education or whatever it is? how do you even come to those themes to begin with? >> i mean, we look at what's going on in the community. where are we putting out the most fires? what are the core issues? what are the core root issues? that's where we came around racial justice, economic justice. it's not just looking at

incarceration rates. step back. it's an issue around racial justice. same thing with democracy. we bring our committees that are structured together, they come up with a consensus to look at this particular issue. and then it's a whole process of building consensus around that and consensus around detailed policy statements that lay out positions and then put together an action plan for mobilization around those issues. >> similarly, we work with each congregation. while we're building a state dl wide network, i have the opportunity to work with justice teams at each congregation. for them to think about, what do you care about? what's happening? where is your congregation on different issues? what will bring people together who want to have an impact? sometimes it's on something very local and sometimes that

will bridge to something larger. coming back to, like you said, root causes. in addition to the direct service work that congregations do, we want to help our congregations be part of addressing root causes through policy and through advocating. >> it's interesting. we need to take another quick break. i think part of both of what you are sort of alluding to is that it makes people feel that this enhances their jewish identity by being involved in these topics. maybe we can talk about that when we come back. join us in a moment here on "mosaic. " ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning. welcome back to "mosaic. " i'm honored to be your host. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation. welcome back, julie and karen. we were talking as we ended the last segment about this notion that this work for a lot of people in the jewish community, like people in every faith community, is actually something that animates their religious identity. i'm wondering, karen, if you can talk that aspect of the work in general. >> sure. i think a lot of people really relate to the aspect of social action, social justice. that, for them, is their expression of judaism. we have so many different and unique organizations. so many niches that people can go into to express their

jewishness, their jewish values, the way they come at it. this kind of work, mobilizing the community, working on i ssue u.s. issues you care about deeply. they could find a home there. >> would you say that's true from the jewish community relations council , that any age, any ability, is that across the board from your perspective? >> yeah. absolutely. these issues bring us all together. >> for sure. all the research shows that people are most proud of the commitment to justice of jews. when we get the opportunity to act for justice as jews, not just as individuals but with their congregations, with our organizations, there's a coming together of who we want to be.

we sometimes say that our lobby day, coming up on august 20 th, people can connect and come to lobby with us on august 20th in sacramento. we call it our high holy day sometimes. it's a way we're expressing what it means to us to be jewish by acting on the world around us and trying to impact policy. >> i'm wondering, from a jewish perspective the notions of justice in the world derive out of two biblical stories, the story of creation and exodus, where we are created uniquely in god's image. it's not just me, it's you, too. >> every person. >> as well as that we were freed from slavery. we come out of a place of oppression and moved into a place of freedom. those two core biblical stories yield these values that sort of animate us to do good in the world, do justice in the world. i'm wondering then how those notions actually then

define even the term justice. what justice actually is. because the word justice in other realms takes on different meanings. but for us, it's a particular way of seeing that term. can you talk a little bit about how that's what animates us when we decide what to do on immigration, education, poverty, gun control? >> similarly on other issues, we look to our history and to the way that justice is framed as something that we are connected to in part because of our own history. that's the history -- the biblical history and our history actually more recent. knowing what it's like to be persecuted. knowing what it's like to be on the outside and vulnerable, not to have the protection of law. all of those things we can feel it in our bones. we organize based on that history as well as on just knowing what is right. >> absolutely. on the issue of immigration, so many people that we have done

a lot of work -- we have done a lot of work on immigration. so many people came to this work because of their personal family story, whether they were refugees, their grandparents were survivors of the holocaust. it really infused them with the need to do that, the need to have a different way of looking at people that come in this country than the popular discourse right now. >> believe it or not, we have a minute left together. we have come full circle from beginning with how do we respond to a world event, whether it's a natural disaster that needs an immediate response and/or a violent incident like a shooting at a synagogue or mosque. i'm wondering, not to put you on the spot in a big way, but can you make a comment about what is hope out there for how we are -- our responses have an impact,

in a sentence or two? >> i will try a sentence. when we respond to a scary event, we need to both come together so we find comfort in each other and listen to each other, hear how we're doing and we need to say, what are we going to do so we don't act from fear. >> thank you so much. >> i would say something similar. in these times of increasing partisanship and instability, we need to stand together. we have a choice to make. we can respond together or we can respond separately. >> thank you for joining us here on "mosaic. " continue this conversation to do good in the world. thank you so much for being with us here on "mosaic. " ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪♪ ♪♪ dreams begin here. welcome to the goodnight club.