Jews for Racial & Economic Justice

With deep sorrow, we mourn the passing of Adrienne Cooper.  Adrienne was a board member and long time friend of JFREJ.  She was honored at the 2010 Meyer Awards just last year for her work pursuing justice through music and other inspiring cultural work.  Below is the citation presented to her at the ceremony, written by Jenny Romaine and Jenny Levison.  May her memory be for a blessing.

JFREJ's 15th Annual Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Risk Taker Awards were a smashing success! The JFREJ community and allies came out in full force to celebrate a year of hard work - and the decades of inspiring work of our honorees! Freedom Riders Reverend C. T. Vivian and Joan Pluene, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Lucia Allain from United We Dream inspired us to take brave lessons of struggles won and re-commit ourselves to the fight today!

Enjoy some pictures below from this beautiful event.

To support JFREJ, please make an end-of-year donation here. Thank you for your support! 

Judith Felsenfeld, a JFREJ Employer for Justice, tells her care story at the JFREJ Membership Meeting. JFREJ leaders are actively involved in the Caring Across Generations Campaign here in New York. Powerful stories lead to powerful organizing!

Watch her story here.

On November 20th, JFREJ members gathered to learn about the transformative Caring Across Generations Campaign, play with the Purim Spectacle Crew, and make key decisions about the future of the Housing Justice Campaign in light of our current #Occupy movement moment.

JFREJ member Rachel Schragis's drawing of the Occupy Wall Street Movement's Declaration, The Flow Chart of the Declaration of the Occupation of NYC, has inspired people throughout the world. Within days of posting the image on Facebook, it was reposted across the internet, every place from Al Jazeera to the Art Info blog. Emails continue to pour in from around the country from people seeking copies for their homes, classrooms, offices and local occupations. It is currently on display at Printed Matter and Bluestockings Radical Book store, with more to come. In response to this outpouring of interest, OWS is sponsoring a large poster edition, available soon.

Alan Levine, founding member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and member of the OWS legal team, represents Occupy Wall Street in court! 

Alan argues, "This is in no respect a private space. They'd like to say its a camping case. Its not a camping case; its a First Amendment case. They are sleeping there 24 hours for expressive purposes. Their protest hasn't caught on around the country and around the world because its a camping case. Its a speech case. And its  a speech case in the heart of the financial district. Its about Wall Street; its about the 99% and the 1% . . . It is symbolic conduct; it is therefore fully protected by the First Amendment."  

Read about JFREJ in the New York Times article, "Cries of Antisemitism, but Not at Zuccotti Park"

Right-wing representatives from the Republican National Committee to Rush Limbaugh have tried to discount the Occupy Wall Street movement by claiming it is antisemitic at its core. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, working alongside Occupy Wall Street organizers and Occupy Judaism, is fighting this accusation.