RACIAL EQUITY
Racial Equity Task Force and Our Mission
The Jewish value of tikkun olam, or “repair of the world,” is central to the Racial Equity Task Force’s (RETF) commitment to working for a more racially just and equitable world. We believe tikkun olam is active, not passive. Acts of antiracism are acts of world repair. Antiracism is about opposing the superiority of one race over another, opposing white supremacy culture, and advocating for racial equity. White supremacy culture is the ideology that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to BIPOC and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Racial equity exists when one’s race does not determine one’s life outcomes. The RETF is committed to understanding and dismantling white supremacy culture and systemic racism wherever we encounter it, beginning with ourselves and our JRC community.
Contact: RETF@jrctogether.org.
JRC’s RETF will:
- participate in antiracist trainings;
- provide opportunities for antiracist learning to JRC and the larger community;
- participate in, and promote, antiracist social activism;
- continue the ongoing and perpetual work of imagining and building an antiracist congregation and synagogue.
In doing so, we will:
- center racial equity as a guiding principle in decision-making;
- explore JRC’s and our own relationship to white supremacy culture, including but not limited to white fragility and white privilege;
- ground ourselves in the understanding that liberation for one is liberation for all;
- model an antiracist approach within our task force;
- operate from a place of open-heartedness and grace; and
- acknowledge the limits of our current understanding and the evolving nature of antiracist work, and commit to periodic re-evaluation of this statement.