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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/57411/full/57411/social-justice-jew-sets-a-high-mark-for-others-to-follow/ <br /><br /> <b>‘Social justice Jew’ sets a high mark for others to follow</b> <br /> Friday, March 12, 2010 | by stacey palevsky <br /><br /><p>Judaism compels us to heal the world — but the directive begs so many questions. Whose world? Where? How? When? A few weeks ago, I spent a Sunday afternoon at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, seeking answers to those questions and one more: Who inspires you?</p> <p><img alt="stacey palevsky" class="left" height="200" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/column_pics/column/stacey palevsky.jpg" title="stacey palevsky" width="126" />I left the museum with the answer to this last question. Jon Gilgoff, one of four activists to speak about their social justice work, inspired me.</p> <p>Gilgoff, 36, spoke on a panel during Inside the Activists’ Studio, an event organized by American Jewish World Service-AVODAH Partnership and Progressive Jewish Alliance.</p> <p>“I’m definitely a social justice Jew — healing the world is religion [to me],” said Gilgoff, founder of Brothers on the Rise, a youth empowerment organization that primarily works with boys of color living in low-income, urban neighborhoods in Oakland.</p> <p>I loved his nonprofit’s focus and mission. For the past three years, I have worked with Jewish teenagers. I find it easy to connect with the girls but the boys are often a mystery to me. So I called him after Inside the Activists’ Studio to learn more about his work.</p> <p>Gilgoff, a native of Queens, N.Y., was one of a handful of men in his social work graduate program at Columbia University. He quickly realized that young American boys — specifically minorities growing up in impoverished, urban areas — faced unique challenges: incarcerated parents, poverty, drugs, gangs and street violence, all of which reinforce negative stereotypes that are difficult to overcome.</p> <p>“People have been writing about this for decades,” Gilgoff said. “The question is: Who’s listening? Who’s outraged? Who will take action?”</p> <p>Passionate about these issues, Gilgoff formed a campus group to promote responsible male empowerment. He started a boys group at a N.Y.-based girls’ nonprofit after he finished graduate school. Two years ago, he launched Brothers on the Rise in Oakland.</p> <p>“Responsible men’s and boys’ groups are not trying to take back the throne at the castle — this is not a backlash against feminism,” Gilgoff said. “We’re saying that we have a great model from feminism and other identity-based movements, and we want to apply that to males, for their own empowerment and to act as allies to females.”</p> <p>Brothers on the Rise works with 200 boys at four Oakland public elementary and middle schools. At each site, Brothers on the Rise staff promote responsible male empowerment through education about healthy relationships, civic engagement and activism. The organization also provides boys with mentoring, academic support, peer mediation and leadership development, and offers classes for teachers and parents who are educating and raising young boys.</p> <p>It is one of only a few nonprofits nationwide where male staff focus on outreach to young males, Gilgoff said.</p> <p>“If boys can achieve individual success, create healthy relationships and contribute more to a just and equitable society, then we feel like we’ll be serving our boys and young men and creating the type of change we want … so that individuals don’t have to continually suffer under these oppressive conditions and inequitable communities,” he said.</p> <p>Gilgoff had little connection to Jewish life until after graduate school, when he went to Honduras in 2002 with AJWS. Five years later, he became a PJA Jeremiah Fellow. Both experiences taught him that his activism and his Judaism were intrinsically linked.</p> <p>“Continuing this rich tradition of service and justice and change work makes me proud to be Jewish,” he added. “We [Jews] have struggled, and we are surviving. To be an ally for communities struggling is … the biggest part of my identity as a Jew.”</p> <p>It also compels him to ask if we, as a Jewish people, are doing enough to help disenfranchised communities.</p> <p>“Things were a lot rougher for Jews like my father and uncle, who grew up in the projects and got beat up every week,” he said. “But we’re not struggling as much as we used to. We have this privilege now. So what is our role in the larger community?”</p> <p>That’s a good question. And Gilgoff is off to a great start.</p> <p><br /><strong>Stacey Palevsky</strong> lives in San Francisco. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:stacey@jweekly.com">stacey@jweekly.com</a>.</p>

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