2021 has been an incredible inaugural year for the Tzedek Team. We have evolved from a couple of initial Zoom calls, through gathering ideas and input from participants and other members, to delivering two cohorts of anti-racism training, along with a social justice themed Seder and engaged in the 21 day racial equity challenge,
Integrating Jewish learning with social justice work has been a key part of our thinking; Rabbi Benji and Yael have consistently integrated that educational element with all of our activities. In addition, we specifically decided to work with the Jewish Justice Centre and Glitch to lead our anti-racism training course to ensure that we maintain the Jewish and Torah lens through which we focus our activities. Each of the study packs from the six-week programme has contained texts from the Jewish canon to inspire and educate us.
“For members who had lost some connection with the shul, involvement in social justice work has been a completely unexpected way of reconnecting with the community.”
Tzedek team members demonstrated our commitment to engaging with the broader community by participating as observers in a massive London-wide Zoom Citizens UK event focused on identifying social justice focused policy demands from mayoral candidates in the 2021 mayoral election.
We learned through our community organising training run by Citizens UK about the importance of one-to-one relationships in building and strengthening our shul community. Professional staff, Tzedek team members, and lay leaders attended this training and as a result many of us have engaged in one-to-one conversations with other members whom we did not know well previously. These deepening relationships are key to continuing the strength of our congregation.
We have made great initial steps in bringing social justice activity into our congregation, while still being in the very early days of imagining what could be possible and and are now in the midst of writing our first anti-racism policy as a synagogue and beginning to engage with issues in our local area like homelessness and refugees.
If you would like to get involved with our Tzedek Team, click here.
