“Leadership is hard, it is supposed to be intentional and generative, ideally it is unselfish... Influence is valued over authority, leading by example is a pre-requisite, humility and walking humbly with G-d and sharing G-d's teachings is the first and most important step.” — Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein in this week’s dvar Torah
We're bringing that spirit of accountable leadership into practice with two Chicago events in the coming weeks, where we'll dig into hard questions about Jewish safety, solidarity, and our own implication in structures of power and supremacy.
We also just launched a membership program! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work, on a sliding scale starting at just $5/year. We’re also taking pre-orders for our High Holiday/Tishrei reader!
Sunday, August 23 at SketchPad, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM CDT — Kosher dairy lunch served! Please RSVP so we know how much food to order!
In-person registration / Zoom registration
Come to our latest in our Jewish Reckoning with Power learning series. We’ll be learning with Rabbi Will Friedman and Prof. Rachel Havrelock!
Rabbi Will Friedman: “‘Legitimate’ Violence and Its Costs: Limits to and Consequences of Self-Defense and War”
Individual and communal self-defense (”war”) are widely accepted in both secular and Jewish ethics as legitimate uses of violence, as long as they stay within defined limits. A careful reading of traditional Jewish texts, however, reveals a discomfort even with these “legitimate” uses of violence. Through an examination of halakhic sources on self-defense and aggadic reflections on violent Biblical narratives, we will expose an alternative ethical universe that recognizes the extraordinarily high price of killing and may even hope to eschew it entirely.
Dr. Rachel Havrelock: “The Joshua State: National Religion in Contemporary Israel”
Building on events that follow publication of The Joshua Generation, we will look at how militarism has both displaced Judaism in Israel and how it has transformed it.
Each event in the series will be livestreamed/recorded in order to allow everyone to watch speakers in other cities. (You can watch recordings of previous events on Halachic Left’s YouTube channel.)
We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.
What your support gets you:
☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity
🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings
👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt!
💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift!
Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!
After a successful first printing run of our Pesach reader, we’re doing it again with our upcoming High Holiday/Tishrei reader. Get a nicely bound copy (or five!) to put on your shelf, give to friends and family, leave around shul somewhere where someone might pick it up… 😏
Confirmed writers include Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rana Bickel, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, Rabbi David Polsky, Ya’aqov Lawrence Shenkin, and Prof. Daniel Boyarin!
PRE-ORDER DEADLINE: Sunday, August 23 — this is the same day we plan to release the reader for free online so you will have a day to decide whether you want to order printed copies.
Pre-order guarantees your copies, we will order extra printed copies available for purchase on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Purchasing printed copies helps cover the cost of writer honoraria. Thank you for helping us pay our writers!
$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)
To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.
“Moshe’s most important quality is his humility. The very doubts and angst he expresses at various points indicates that he knows fully well that his position is not about power, but something quite different. This is what Ramban wants us to understand – this is not about doubt or hesitation regarding the task of leadership, but rather an acute understanding of the gravity it holds.”
7:00 PM Private home in Ravenswood, address provided upon registration. Kosher food options will be available.
Join NIF NewGen, IfNotNow Chicago, and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity”, without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?
There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.
While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.
The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.
Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.
Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.
Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.
Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.
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