Ner Shalom Honors George Floyd
and Commits to Fighting Racism
Issued June 24, 2020
Today marks the shloshim of George Floyd, killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last month. During these 30 days of shloshim, more Black people have been killed by racist violence, resetting the shivah and shloshim clocks over and over, in unabating waves of grief and mourning.
The outrage is deep and deserved. The energy of young leaders of color, the growing awakening of a national conscience, the tearing away of the veils of denial, and the refusal to look away – all these things have made this moment more than a moment. After 30 days, the anti-racist uprising continues with unprecedented support and allyship.
It is easy to feel discouraged when looking at the vastness of injustice that has been laid on the shoulders of Black people and other people of color in this country. But Torah commands us to pursue justice without regard to our own despair. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said about the anti-racist struggle in 1963: “There are those who maintain that the situation is too grave for us to do much about it, that whatever we might do would be ‘too little and too late,’ that the most practical thing we can do is ‘to weep’ and to despair. If such a message is true, then God has spoken in vain.”
Now is the time to act. We need to look critically at our structures of power and how they maintain systemic racism. For those of us who identify, read, or live as white, we need to examine how we have benefited from an economy and culture rooted in racism.
At Ner Shalom we commit to a process of examining our own practices and unconscious biases. We have been proud to call ourselves a welcoming community, but now we have to take a deeper look at what “welcoming” actually means, including the unexamined privileging of whiteness in Jewish identity.
This is a time for us all to act. There are many ways to get and stay involved. Stay tuned for a new Social Justice page on the Ner Shalom website that will offer links for taking anti-racist action, including combating voter suppression, plus resources for learning. We will also shortly be initiating community conversations about racism.
In the meantime, here are some ways to get started:
Learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement and their learning resources. Click here.
Listen to what Black leaders and other leaders of color have to say and follow their lead. For instance, activist Angela Davis (on defunding the police), writer Ta-Nahisi Coates, filmmaker Ava Duvernay, legal scholar Michelle Alexander (“The New Jim Crow”). (Many more links to podcasts, books and blogs will be available shortly on our new Social Justice webpage.)
Read or listen to Reb Irwin’s words about Judaism and unlearning whiteness. Click here.
Listen to Ner Shalomer Dianna Grayer’s thoughts. Click here.
There is hard work ahead. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Tarfon famously says:
לא עליך המלאכה לגמור ולא אתה בן חורין להבטל ממנה
Lo aleycha ham’lachah ligmor
v’lo atah ben-chorin l’hibatel mimenah.
“It is not your duty to complete the work. But you do not have the right to sit it out.”
In Jewish tradition, during the days of shloshim, the dead still benefit from the merit of our mitzvot on their behalf. So now, while we are in shloshim for Rayshard Brooks, Robert Fuller, Sean Monterrosa, Jamel Floyd, and Malcolm Harsch; and still within the first year of mourning for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and others (learn more about them), let us recommit to performing the pressing mitzvot of learning, waking up, and dismantling the machinery of racism.
Ner Shalom Board of Directors
Ner Shalom Social Justice Committee
Shoshana Fershtman, Social Justice Committee
Reb Irwin Keller, Spiritual Leader
Art by Janet Rae Jorgensen.