JYCA

Tune into Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards Facebook Live on Thursday, October 29, at 4 pm PT / 7 pm ET for a conversation between Rachel Gelman, our Director of Programs, and three 2020 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awardees - Abe Baker-Butler, Sonia Chajet Wides and Noah Rubin - on the intersection of Jewish values and teen leadership. #DillerTeenTalk

We are incredibly excited to introduce our JYCA community to Binya Kóatz, Kat Macías, Kendra Watkins of Detroit Jews for Justice, and Carmel Tanaka of JQT Vancouver, who will all be special guests at Jews Against Marginalization (JAM)'s upcoming Queer and Trans Jews of Color, Sephardic, Mizrahi (JOCSM) Identities Panel, co-sponsored by Keshet. Learn more about each guest by clicking their photos, and sign up now for the panel at bit.ly/JAMQTPanel! JAM is our affinity space fo...r JOCSM youth, and the panel event will be on Tuesday, October 27th from 4:30PM to 6:00PM PST. All Queer and Trans youth and allies (ages 14-18) who identify as JOCSM are welcome to attend. The first hour of the event will be open to all JOCSM youth, and the last half an hour will be an affinity space for Queer and Trans JOCSM youth and the panelists. Interested youth can RSVP at bit.ly/JAMQTPanel, and adults can sign youth up at the same link.

We are excited to share that the incredible election organizing work of our Peninsula youth Halle Strause and Maggie Sena, as well as our alumnae Sara Shor, was featured in J. The Jewish News of Northern California! Here are some thoughts they shared about the importance of turn-out-the-vote efforts in the upcoming election. As Jewish people and as a marginalized group, I don’t feel completely safe under Trump’s administration, who encourages white supremacy groups and fuels... hate, said Halle Strause, a member of the youth-led Jewish Youth for Community Action, or JYCA." "Sixteen-year-old Maggie Sena, a friend of Strause’s who is helping to phone bank said she wants Biden elected because he’s more inclusive to everyone. Trump, she said, lacks the empathy to understand what it’s like to be [from] a marginalized group. A lot of the people... are really afraid of the divisiveness that Trump has created, [Sara Shor] said. One of the reasons they’re out is because they’ve seen how scary and toxic that divisiveness has been. I think Jews have a special memory with what that divisiveness can cause. We are so fortunate to have such engaged youth and alum in our community, working to better civic engagement in critical states. https://www.jweekly.com//my-security-as-a-jew-is-at-stake/

This past Sunday, we gathered with friends from Kehilla Community Synagogue and Jews On Ohlone Land for a Tashlich Action at the Berkeley Marina to stand in solidarity with the Sogorea Te Land Trust. JYCA youth spoke at the event and led a walk to the Berkeley Marina where over 100 community members gathered to sing, hear the Shofar and do Tashlich, a Jewish ritual around renewal and preparing for the new year. This is the first time that Jews were invited to perform our own ritual on the Shellmound, which is sacred ground for the Ohlone people.

Shana Tova! We hope that this High Holidays season brings you much reflection and healing, especially as we wrap up a tumultuous year with many unexpected challenges. We at JYCA are excited for what this sweet new year will bring, heading into our 25th anniversary. We look forward to another year of deepening community, pursuing justice and empowering youth activists. We will be kicking off 5781 with an in-person, socially distant Tashlich action with Jews on Ohlone Land on Sunday, September 20th at 3:00PM - all are welcome to join! Details are in the event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/256214892032925

Join Jews On Ohlone Land, Kehilla Community Synagogue and JYCA - Jewish Youth for Community Action for an outdoor, socially distanced community Tashlich ritual! The ritual will be on Saturday, September 20th starting at 3PM. We'll gather at the West Berkeley Shellmound at 1900 Fourth St at 3 pm for a short program and then walk together to the Berkeley Marina. Between 4:15 and 4:30 we will gather near Adventure Playground, just east of the Cal Adventures West Dock on the Berk...eley Marina for Tashlich. Please bring greens, duck or fish food, or another organic biodegradable material for your Tashlich. You're also welcome to bring a shofar to blow at our closing circle at the Marina. For more details, please check out the event page below. We hope to see you all there!

Enrollment for our Organizing Group (OG) program closes tomorrow, and we are excited to welcome our youth back! Check out this photo from OG retreat 2019! Youth can enroll in OG at bit.ly/OG-2020. About OG: All youth who have completed either the Summer Organizing Academy (SOA) or Leadership Group in Training (LGiT) are eligible for this program. In OG, youth build on skills learned in LGiT or SOA and take on greater leadership in JYCA. OG will run in a hybrid format, with virtual AND in-person options this semester. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the semester!

JYCA is proud to be one of 600+ Jewish groups that signed this New York Times ad saying Black Lives Matter. There have always been Black Jews in movements for Black liberation and in Jewish communities. We must continue to fight for a country where all of us are safe and free. Our Jewish community is proud to have signed this ad, and are proudly #Jews4BlackLives.

We are thrilled to announce that our Jews Against Marginalization (JAM) Program is now open for fall enrollment! Youth can enroll at bit.ly/FallJAM on a rolling basis. Due to COVID-19 adaptations, we are opening this originally Bay Area-based affinity space to any Jewish youth who identify as mixed-race, People of Color, Sephardi or Mizrahi across the nation. This FREE program begins on Tuesday, September 8th and runs through December 13th, 2020. The program features biweekly virtual meetings, optional in-person hangouts and electoral actions, and a retreat! Through participating in JAM, JOCSM youth can bond with other JOCSM teens, and create a sense of collective empowerment around their multicultural identities. Learn more at bit.ly/FallJAM!

We are grateful to be featured in a Jewish Currents article for our work to support the inclusion of Arab American Studies and Pacific Islander Studies in the CA Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC). Here is what our Executive Director, Rachel Gottfried-Clancy, and Gabriella Lerman, a member of our Jews Against Marginalization (JAM) program, shared - I want to see a curriculum and a process that brings all Jews, white Jews especially, into solidarity with Jews of color w...ithin the Jewish community, and with other communities of color, Gottfried-Clancy said. My fear is that this new curriculum takes away specifically the analysis around power and oppression. "Gabriella Lerman, a member of JCYA and rising senior at Berkeley High, said she is thankful for how ethnic studies classes have taught her to understand herself as a Jewish Latina, noting that ethnic studies’ analysis of white supremacy is crucial to understanding how antisemitism is linked to other forms of oppression, like anti-Blackness. " Check out the article here: https://jewishcurrents.org/california-compromises-on-ethni/

We are SO thrilled to welcome Rebekah Espino-Drobner, Gen Slosberg and Sam Davidson to our team! Rebekah is our new Director of Programs (she'll be co-directing with Rachel Gelman), Gen Slosberg is our new Program Associate, and Sam Davidson is our new Development Director. These three have already brought so much skill, passion and vision to the work, and we think it was beshert that they ended up on our staff. Click on their photos to read more about them, and welcome them to JYCA by making a tax-deductible donation in their honor at this link: jycajustice.networkforgood.com//106714-celebrate-new-jyca-

Summer with JAM has officially begun, and it’s a whole new flavor!! And guess whatit’s super easy to join this rad summer space for POC, mixed race, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish youth. Just DM or comment below if you think this is the right place for YOU! (Pssst! It’s an awesome, amazing group of folks and we want YOU to be there, too!) We can’t wait to JAM with ya!! ... #jewish #jewishyouth #jewsofcolor #pocjews #sephardicjews #mizrahi #sephardic #mixedrace #mixedculture #blackjews #joc #jocsmatter #jocsm See more

Check out JYCA youth leaders in this article from the J Weekly about the ways they've been showing up in the fight for Police Free Schools in Oakland. We're kveling over the ways they're stepping into leadership in this moment and calling on Jewish leaders to stand up for racial justice. Thank you to Black Organizing Project for leading us towards #PoliceFreeSchools and #PencilsNotPolice. OUSD is voting at 4 PM today on whether or not to disband the Oakland School Police Department. Make your voice heard by calling in and making public comment. More info on how to join in the comments.

This week has brought up pain, anger and rage as we collectively grieve and honor the lives of George Floyd, Tony Mcdade, Breonna Taylor, David Mcatee, Nina Pop, and the many other Black and brown lives that have been taken by police, hate groups, and individuals in this country, with little to no accountability or justice. . . . We don’t yet have adequate words for all that this moment of uprising and uncertainty brings. As we condemn the terror of white supremacy and state ...violence that has characterized our nation from its founding to this very day, we root in pride for the people rising up, speaking out, and moving us towards a more whole future. . . . We’re moved by the Black youth-led uprisings happening around the country. We know that ending systemic white supremacy, racism, and police brutality isn’t a fight that started this week nor will it end this week. As a multi-racial Jewish youth organization, we are not willing or able to sit on the sidelines. We know this is our fight, too. . . . We stand with Black Jews and all Black people in our organization, community, and the world calling for systemic change. We commit to showing up, in the streets and in our institutions, to supporting the #visionforblacklives, and to working internally to envision and fight for a world free of police violence where safety and justice are possible for all youth and all people. #BlackLivesMatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd #justiceforbreonnataylor See more