In the comic “The Tick,” the eponymous superhero notes that he doesn’t want to stop crime; he just wants to fight it.
That’s the kind of thinking Rabbi Camille Angel is trying to fight — er, excuse us, stop.
By all means, serving food in a soup kitchen or helping out sick people in a shelter is great. If you’ve got plans lined up to do that, don’t cancel them on Angel’s account. But instead of “one-off” social programs, her congregants at San Francisco’s Sha’ar Zahav have been attempting to change society — and it’s succeeding.
“We’ve been working for the last year and a half to move access to universal health care forward here. And we are recognized here in the city for having had a significant hand in bringing that vote to bear last July,” she said.
Angel’s congregants met with San Francisco administrators, members of the mayor’s staff and Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty — in all, around 200 one-to-one meetings.
Not only did they advocate successfully for the San Francisco universal health care legislation — which was passed by the aforementioned unanimous vote by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in July and will be phased in this year — but synagogue members even helped to craft its language. (Susan Lubeck, a Sha’ar Zahav congregant, notes that members were adamant about mental health conditions being covered.)
It’s a picture-perfect example of a brand of synagogue activism that goes far beyond tzedakah, and instead proactively attempts to bring about real social justice.
The annual gathering of the Jewish Funds for Justice, which plans and funds activities such as Sha’ar Zahav’s, will be held this weekend in Santa Clara. Along with members of the San Francisco synagogue, congregants from Tiburon’s Kol Shofar, San Francisco’s Sherith Israel, San Rafael’s Rodef Sholom and Los Gatos’ Shir Hadash will be among the 350 scheduled to attend the sold-out conference.
In conjunction with the gathering, Shir Hadash will be holding an event on Monday, Feb. 12 in which 400 congregants will host a pair of Santa Clara County supervisors in a push for countywide universal health care. Six years ago, interfaith activists successfully convinced Santa Clara politicians to provide insurance for all of the county’s children.
“We do collect clothing and go to shelters. But social justice is related to changing the way society works,” said Adrian Cerda, the chairman of Shir Hadash’s social justice committee.
“The idea is to change society so we don’t need tzedakah all the time. If everyone had access to good health care, we wouldn’t need health fairs. If everyone made a decent wage, we wouldn’t be baking food for people who don’t have enough to eat.”
While Jews have traditionally been in the forefront of most progressive social causes, synagogues were somewhat slow to join interfaith social justice efforts, and a concerted effort was made to include Jews in San Francisco and other cities. Sha’ar Zahav, for example, is the only Jewish congregation among around three dozen houses of worship known as the San Francisco Organizing Project. Similar interfaith coalitions exist in Marin, the East Bay and on the Peninsula.
“We realized a lot of interfaith groups weren’t interfaith, they were ecumenical, a coalition of different Christian groups,” said Ben Ross, the New York-based director of organizing for the Jewish Funds for Justice.
Synagogues began getting involved “in little pockets around 10 years ago. And in 2002 JFJ started initiatives to get more synagogues involved in this work or partnered with local organizations. In ’02 around 30 synagogues [nationwide] were engaged. Today, it’s around 80.”
The Reform movement has already heavily invested in social justice work, and Ross said he foresees the day the movement catches on among the other movements as well.
“It enables us to act powerfully on our most deeply held Jewish values,” said Angel.
“This is about affecting real policy change.”
For more information visit www.jewishjustice.org.