Racial Justice
JCJ’s Awareness to Action: 21 Days Toward Racial Justice
Review our actions and opportunities from this campaign to confront racism, address our privilege, and stand up for racial justice. CLICK HERE to view.
The Jewish Center for Justice is committed to fighting back against persistent racial injustice that leads to the marginalization of communities and people of color. Black and brown Americans face higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and police violence. As descendants of those who faced extreme oppression, we understand that we cannot stay silent as fellow Americans are treated differently on the basis of their race or skin color.
- Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of incarcerated youth of color. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today. (Source: Center for American Progress)
- “The formal abolition of slavery did nothing to overcome the harmful ideas created to defend it, and so slavery did not end with emancipation and passage of the 13th Amendment: it evolved.” – (Source: Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director for the Equal Justice Initiative)
Connections: Jewish Sources
Why did God create only one person, Adam? All people are descended from a single human being, Adam… so that no one can say, “my ancestor is worthier than yours.” — Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
Prayer and prejudice cannot dwell in the same heart. Worship without compassion is worse than self-deception; it is an abomination. — Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence
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