Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) presents the Purim Ball!

The Aftselokhes Spectacle Committee and a coterie of celebrity brass bands, rock stars, Yiddishy supernovas, cabaret singers, activists, and jesters of all stripes present a very ancient, yet totally contemporary Purim masquerade Ball entitled “Your homentaschen are killing me!” to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim. At the heart of the party is an original show, grounded in the traditional pan-Jewish practice of staging transgressive folk plays reenacting the scroll of Esther and delivering a carnivalesque critique of power.

This year’s theme is the body, its resilience, its fragility, and its bounce, and we are using the bodies of the heroes of the megillah to tell stories from the disability justice movement and from the domestic employers and domestic workers teamed up in the new national Caring Across Generations campaign. Expect oversize costumes, puppets, and dazzling sets; the drag will be high, low and medium, and the age and gender spectrum will runneth over. So set your watch to the wrong time, dress up topsy-turvy, and meet us between 8 and late!

When: Saturday, March 3rd, 8:00 p.m. till late
Where: 220 36th Street in Industry City, Sunset Park, Brooklyn

More information about this year’s Purim ball can be found on the JFREJ website. Co-sponsored by Pursue.

We need volunteers on the day of and for spectacle-making already in progress to: Make jaw-dropping art objects! Pour ritually required drinks! Stamp trembling hands! Talk excitedly about JFREJ and our campaigns! Clean-up! Keep people safe! Strike the set! Demonstrate your ability to lift and carry heavy objects!

To get involved, email Hannah or call (303) 519-0083.

Next Tuesday night, Pursuers will explore the ins and outs of change-making Occupy Wall Street-style at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. As a preview, we asked artist and “Occupier” Rachel Schragis about her role and inspiration in the movement. Interested in joining us? RSVP here!

Why Occupy as a means of change making? What does it mean to you?

I want to answer this two ways. First, why engage in Occupy as a movement? And that’s because of its ambiguity, newness and visibility. The work I do within “official” working groups, actions, is work I believe is crucial, and it is hard. I’m not going to go into the challenges and powers of consensus-based decision making within any group that espouses itself to represent “the 99%.” Not to mention to problematize that language. What keeps me invested in Occupy is the platform this work affords me in the rest of my life, the work I’m doing alone in solidarity with Occupy. Even in this pretty murky mid-winter moment in the movement, people want to know what’s up with Occupy. And so I end up talking about gigantic ideas, about inequity and justice, axis of power, what it means to organize, what it means to resist, what activism exists before and outside of Occupy, in all different avenues of my life. I try to mine this potential, to do autonomous actions like making art related to Occupy, asking my boss if I can hold a teach-in about Occupy, contacting institutions I’ve been a part of in the past to see how I can be a bridge to their participation in OWS. Only some of these efforts have actually been fruitful, but the potential is so big, and I think we all can keep working to rise to it.

And secondly, why engage with occupying as a strategy? It’s a problematic word, with a history of violence that I won’t attempt to deconstruct here. Also, its not even a tactic invented by the movement–buuildings were “occupied” as a means of protest before this September. But right now the word in the public consciousness in this big way, and I feel that despite these complexities, a lot can come out of embracing it. The idea of “Occupy” asserts that there is no difference between ideological space and physical space. You can Occupy Zuccotti Park, Occupy Patriarchy, Occupy Judaism, and the relationship between these three statements is something we expect people to intuit, even though the actions we perform in relationship to these terms are hugely varied. The language itself asserts that the full struggles of what it means to be alive are not a separate thing from the physical reality of every day. This concept is so meaningful to me, maybe at the core of what it means to be an an object-maker, maybe at the core of what it means to care about the world. I feel so lucky to do work with “Occupy” as the underlying concept, because it’s a linguistic gift that I can use to help connect any action to the biggest questions about being alive. 

How do you balance this work with your artistic pursuits? Do you have advice for Pursuers looking to do both?

Ugh! This question is so gigantic! How do you define the relationship between artistic pursuits and civic engagement? I’ll share the definitions I’ve come to for myself, recognizing they are limited in scope: I define art as the object that results from learning. Artists learn about the world through making art. Some of that experience gets transmitted to the viewer, and the viewer also has their own experience of work that maybe they grow from. There is a thread of learning that runs through the thing, an inherent pedagogical quality to the whole thing. As a young artist, I try to first ask, “What do I need to learn?” and then ask, “What should I make?” And also ask: “Who is learning by seeing my work?” and “What are they learning?” and “What do I think is most crucial for myself and others to learn?” If you’re asking for tips about time management and prioritizing… I could really use some lately! All I’ve got for you is: if this is the problem you’re facing, it means you’re doing something right. 

I want to share my sources here, too. My ideas about art in relation to learning come out of my experience as an unschooling/freeschooling educator, watching how young people faced with total freedom about their education, lean on art-making. Charged with the huge task of choosing what they want to learn, the tangibility of “art” is a relief. I am a visiting artist in public schools now, and here I watch how young children make tools, toys, and presents, seamlessly integrating what we call “art-making” into their work and play. In trying to translate this observation in to my own life as a “grown up” artist, I’ve often returned to Howard Zinn’s essay Artists in Times of War (which you can read most of here), which talks about artists as public examples of citizenship. My current favorite resource for how to apply this stuff on a pragmatic level is an essay by Joshua Healey of Occupy Oakland on Tikkun.org, which you can read here.

How does your Jewish identity relate to what you do?

My hope is that at some point I will have a really fierce, gorgeous answer to that question, but I don’t yet. I stumble over it. I grew up in heavily Jewish circles on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so to me being Jewish is very much entangled in my class privilege and whiteness. I think of my Jewishness mostly in relation to words like oppressor, oppression, and ally. But I also think back to one of the earliest big Occupy events, the labor solidarity march in October. I was with JFREJ and we were singing Avinu Malkenu somewhat jokingly. Belting a song in the streets that I was taught as a child, and a song I had previously used for personal contemplation, made me feel grounded in a really moving way. I share this to remind myself that Judiasm is–and this sounds obvious–a cultural and spiritual site as much as a political one. If I want to assert that all people have the right to forge their own robust, interconnected political, cultural, and spiritual lives that are rooted in their histories and experienced, then I desire to make that true for myself, too. I know my Jewishness can be a sustaining bridge between my private and public lives, and that I’ve barely begun building it. I feel really young a lot of the time, lately, and this is an example of that.

What are you looking forward to about Meet the Change?

Articulation is an act that I hold close to my heart, so I value opportunities to reflect to others on what’s been going on for me this crazy year. And more importantly, a forum like this is an opportunity to glean language from others who are working alongside me to be change-makers. Like I said above, the role of Judaism in all this is a place in which I don’t have a ton of personal clarity, so I’m especially looking forward to being in a room where that is a factor I can witness. Pursue is not an organization I know a lot about, but some of the most brilliant people I know work for/with JFREJ, so when I saw they were signing on to this event, I was honored, thrilled and double-excited for the 28th.

This is a monthly series featuring jobs and opportunities in the Jewish and social justice spheres. To receive this list in your inbox each month, sign up for our national newsletter in the upper right-hand corner of the page. If you’d like to include a job here, email info@pursueaction.org.

American Jewish World Service.
2012 Summer Internship Program. More information. (New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.)
Rabbinical Students’ Delegation. More information. (El Salvador)
Director of Campaigns. More information. (New York, NY)
Reverse Hunger Campaign Policy Consultant. More information. (Washington, D.C.)

Brandeis University Office of High School Programs. Summer Employment Opportunities. More information. (Waltham, MA)

Cambodian Association of Illinois. Youth Programs Coordinator. More information. (Chicago, IL)

Contemplative Sufi-Jewish Retreat. May 11-13, 2012. More information. (Santa Rosa, CA)

Corporate Accountability International. Advocacy Writer. More information. (Boston, MA)

Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation. Youth Food Justice Coordinator. More information. (Brooklyn, NY)

DeLeT. Day School Leadership Though Teaching/Master of Arts in Teaching. More information. (Waltham, MA)

Do Something Awards. 2012 Nominations. More information. (National)

East Bay School for Boys. Teachers and Administrators. More information. (Berkeley, CA)

Eco-Israel. Fall 2012 Eco-Educational Farming Program. More information. (Israel)

G-dcast. Studio G-dcast Arts Residency. More information. (San Francisco, CA)

Greenbelt Alliance. Communications, Research, and Campaigns Internships. More information. (Bay Area, CA)

Green Hevra. Part-Time Program Assistant. More information. (New York, NY)

HandsOn Bay Area. Corporate Projects Leader. More information. (San Francisco, CA)

Hazon. Director of Development and Development Associate. More information. (New York, NY)

Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. Community Organizer. More information. (Chicago, IL)

Jewish Family and Children’s Services. Social Media Manager. More information. (San Francisco, CA)

Jewish Farm School. Spring 2012 Programs and Farm Apprenticeship. More information. (Putnam Valley, NY)

Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Editor, Reporter, and Correspondents. More information. (NY/International)

Jewish Women’s Archive. Institute for Educators. More information. (Waltham, MA)

Jubilee Shabbat. May 18-19. More information. (National)

Kayam Farm Beit Midrash. Shmittah Summit 2012. More information. (Reisterstown, MD)

Kolot Chayeinu. Managing Director. More information. (Brooklyn, NY)

Moishe House. Service-based house in partnership with Repair the World. More information. (National)

Moving Traditions. Communications Manager. More information. (Philadelphia, PA)

Ms. Foundation for Women. Fellowship Program. More information. (Brooklyn, NY)

Next Dor. Volunteer Coordinator. More information. (St. Louis, MO)

Progressive Jewish Alliance & Jewish Funds for Justice. Spring and Summer 2012 Internships. More information. (San Francisco, CA)

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Open House. More information. (Wyncote, PA)

Repair the World.
Communications Manager. More information. (New York, NY)
Jewish Service-Learning Manager. More information. (New York, NY)

Siach. 2012 Conference on the Environment and Social Justice. More information. (Israel)

Uri L’Tzedek. 2012 Summer Fellowship Program. More information. (New York, Los Angeles, Israel)

Please join us for the next People of the Book Club!

What: The Submission by Amy Waldman

When: Tuesday, March 27th, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. 

Where: AJWS 11th floor conference room, 45 West 36th St. 

Who: The discussion will be facilitated by Jon Moscow of Jews Against Islamophobia.

Special discount! RSVP for details about a 15% discount on the book at a local bookstore.

RSVP: slipkin@ajws.org

About the book: A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner’s name—and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country’s. The memorial’s designer is an enigmatic, ambitious architect named Mohammad Khan. His fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, and Khan himself—as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage and their ideals, all will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and understand, a national tragedy.

• Not surprisingly, the food justice victory by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) last week—in which Trader Joe’s finally signed a Fair Food agreement after years of CIW organizing—has made big news in the Jewish social justice world. While we covered the story of the tomato rabbis who visited Immokalee just last week, you can read additional coverage of their visit and the victory in the Forward’s The Jew and the Carrot blog, the Bay Area’s J Weekly, and the Huffington Post. And what will change as a result of this victory? “This is nearly a 50 percent raise for the workers,” said Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland.
   
• There are just 12 days left to submit your brilliant new idea for reimagining the traditional tzedakah box to the Where Do You Give? design competition! For inspiration, turn to the Where Do You Give? blog: last week, professor Deborah Skolnick Einhorn wrote about the tension between philanthropic funding of social services versus social change work, which can often address the root causes that create the need for social services in the first place. Given the current small percentage of U.S. philanthropy devoted to social change, she raises a challenging question: “Are there enough resources to really cure the root causes of day-to-day problems?”
   
• AJWS and Repair the World have teamed up for a new blog series called Shabbat Service. Each Friday, the series summarizes the weekly Torah portion and provides a tangible suggestion for applying its lessons for justice in today’s world. This week’s parsha, Mishpatim, contains the famous justice-oriented verse, “You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). Click here to learn more and take action on this obligation to help others as expressed in the parsha.

I was driving around New Jersey running errands when my phone started buzzing. One text read, simply, “We won!” The second text provided more information: “Trader Joe’s signed!” After several years of organizing, and right before a weekend of more than 40 protests scheduled around the nation, Trader Joe’s became the second grocery store chain to sign a Fair Food Agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), guaranteeing a wage increase for tomato pickers and ensuring that company will only buy from growers who agree to a code of conduct in the fields.

(You can read some previous Pursue blog coverage of the CIW and its campaigns here, here, here, and here.)

Farm work is one of the most dangerous and low paid work in the United States. Because farmworkers are exempt from most labor and minimum wage laws, wages for farmworkers have not rise in years. The Florida agricultural sector is particularly notorious, with slavery and human trafficking rampant (one federal prosecutor called Florida “ground zero” for modern slavery in America.”) The CIW is a unique, workers-organized coalition creating a better future by going straight to the top, negotiating directly with corporations and big growers.

Trader Joe’s joins Whole Foods, major fast food retailers such as Burger King and Taco Bell, and food service providers like Aramark in signing a Fair Food Agreement. In late 2010, the CIW scored a major victory when 90% of Florida’s tomato growers agreed to implement Fair Food Agreements and codes of conducts in their fields. Now, the struggle has moved to the major purchasers of tomatoes, the grocery industry. And the grocery industry has proven extremely recalcitrant.

I had just been in Immokalee earlier in the week, taking a group of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America (RHR-NA) “tomato rabbis” to meet with the members of the CIW, learn about modern slavery and farm worker conditions, and commit to organizing in their local communities. Their dedication, keen strategic vision, and desire to make better lives for themselves, rather than depend on charity, are inspiring. But I had not picked up any hints that Trader Joe’s was about to sign. Instead, I saw the members preparing for a bike ride to the new Trader Joe’s in Naples (the first in Florida and ironically right on Immokalee Road) to remind the company that human rights concerns were not a far away issue but in their own backyard. Our delegation of rabbis even hung a “mezuzah of justice” on the not-yet-opened store, encouraging Trader Joe’s to do the right thing. Apparently, our voice, combined with countless others, was effective. On February 9th, Trader Joe’s signed a Fair Food Agreement.

The Trader Joe’s victory is notable not just for the extremely persistent, hard work of the CIW but also because of the degree of involvement from Trader Joe’s customers. Members of the CIW told me that they built up their Trader Joe’s campaign because so many customers were asking for postcards and manager letters, and staging local protests. They wanted ways to make their voices heard and they followed through. 

Buying the right products (whether local, organic, less processed, or Fair Trade) is the right thing to do, but it isn’t a mitzvah and it isn’t activism. For all Michael Pollan may have told us to “vote with our forks” to change the food system, we cannot truly achieve systemic change unless we are willing to be activists: raising our voices, speaking to corporations, and joining together in solidarity with the struggles of those who produce our food.

I’ve also often been concerned that the Jewish food movement is more concerned with the question of “Who grows your food?” and the connection to land, along with mindful eating and thinking through what goes onto our plates, without aligning ourselves with the movements of those people who pick, process, pack, and serve us the food. But many Jews from coast to coast, whether as part of their synagogues or as individuals, joined their voices to those of the CIW to demand that Trader Joe’s support the Campaign for Fair Food. May the CIW go from strength to strength and may soon many other grocery chains follow suit.

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is Director of Education and Outreach for Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.

In his recent piece on the Huffington Post, Max Klau of City Year (and former AJWS group leader) writes that “causes of justice and equality have always been advanced through the collective efforts of vast numbers of civic leaders working together for change.” He highlights one person in particular: Bayard Rustin, the man behind the hundreds of thousands of people who made it to the National Mall for Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Without the crowd—and the organizers that got them there—the speech would not have had nearly as great an impact as it did, nor would the struggle for civil rights have been nearly as successful.

The relationship between leaders and participants in social justice movements can be tenuous. History remembers iconic figureheads, while behind the scenes, connections are quietly forged that bring change to fruition. On the other hand, the challenges of working within a large group of people can seem insurmountable. How can movements embody the kind of respectful and participatory decision-making and collective action that they hope to bring about in society?

Pursue is not a single issue-focused project. Yes, we are serious about our food justice work (and taking action to Reverse Hunger), but we are not policy or advocacy experts, and individual Pursuers work on a whole range of social justice issues in their volunteer and professional lives. What we strive to do, however, is to build a network of young Jewish change-makers that understand the power and potential of working together to achieve justice. We offer skills workshops so that people can become leaders not for the sake of attracting followers, but to become adept at facilitating change-making efforts among a wider group of people. Even our City Team embraces a non-hierarchical collaborative work mode. 

And we take it upon ourselves to learn from the best: organizers, mobilizers, and advocates who harness the collective energy of communities to make real change. On February 28th, we’ll be learning from the change-makers of Occupy Wall Street, a movement that has truly dedicated itself to consensus-based action across gender, class, race, and political affiliations—and has captured the world’s attention in the process. Join us as these “civic leaders” facilitate for us an opportunity to meet and network with other like-minded change-makers. The classic Margaret Mead quote rings true: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Suzanne Lipkin is Pursue’s Program Officer for Operations at AJWS.

On February 5, 2012, Pursuers in NYC participated in a Forum Theatre Workshop with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, facilitated by Katy Rubin & Concrete Justice. Developed by Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal, the Theatre of the Oppressed is an interactive, physical and playful tool used to investigate situations in which we are denied our basic rights, personally and collectively. To read a recap of the workshop, click here.

Photos by Dara Yaskil.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” --Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Valentine’s Day was at its best when I was in grade school. Long before Target was a staple in Toledo, Ohio, my sister and I would roam the Valentine’s Day aisle at K-Mart looking for the best cards to give to our classmates. We’d get home and go through the red and pink colored box of paper valentines to find the most lovey-dovey ones for the boys we crushed on and the most generic sentiments to the people we didn’t care for. In our grade-school hand writing we’d spell out “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY” on each card and put them in the envelopes (if they were the good cards). Loaded with valentines, candy hearts, and enough SweetTarts to keep us amped for two days, we’d hand them out to our classmates at school. 

In high school, Valentine’s Day became a competition. As a student at an all-girl Catholic school, no Valentine’s Day was considered a success until you heard your name being called over the PA system to report to the office. Certain classrooms had windows positioned around the main entrance and my classmates with boyfriends at the boy’s school would watch with anticipation as van after van of delivery men marched into our school to deliver flowers. My senior year of high school, I got called down and returned to class with a dozen red roses from my boyfriend. I have to admit that it felt special to have the eyes of my classmates on me as I went from class to class with my flower store vase filled with red roses. 

So here I am decades later, a lesbian a few months into her Jewish identity after my August 2011 conversion. Deciding how or if I celebrate holidays that are secular or Christian has been a part of the process. Thankfully, Valentine’s Day goes by much like Easter: without the slightest amount of remorse. To love isn’t about one day; it’s about a lifetime, which is arguably harder to achieve. Loving your family, friends, and partner often doesn’t require that much dedication or work because it comes from a place of constancy. Fights can create temporary riffs, but once the dust settles, the parties involved quickly realize that while feelings may have been hurt, the love never fades. Loving strangers is harder and can require more work because it comes not out of familial obligation, but out of conviction towards creating and maintaining justice. To love and care about someone you don’t know can be the greatest and most fulfilling type of loving a human being can do. 

Love that works toward securing the right for people to love who they wish, the right of farmers to earn a living wage, the right for people to achieve their civil rights is a kind of love that requires effort. Love isn’t always beautiful, and it’s been lamented by many a rocker that love hurts. Love is complicated and can’t be watered down into a Hallmark holiday because love isn’t red roses or even perforated valentines from K-Mart. Real love involves more giving than taking. This Valentine’s Day, there’s a movement to make February 14th Generosity Day. Generosity Day encourages people to give more than flowers and chocolate by giving respect to people who are different then us. Give love in the form of eye contact to the homeless we encounter on the street. Give generosity by opening ourselves to the varying types of diversity around us. 

It’s interesting that Valentine’s Day is situated in the middle of Black History Month. Perhaps it’s a reminder that Martin Luther King Jr., one of the civil rights movement’s most identifiable change-makers because of his non-violence stance on fighting for civil rights, was the epitome of loving unconditionally. Using the knowledge he gained from Gandhi, he inspired the black community through scripture and taught that acquiring justice through words and actions rather than violence was the way to creating real change. Jews often reference Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s involvement with King in the south and quote his famous line, “I prayed with my feet,” when thinking about putting our social justice work into actions rather than words. It’s wonderfully apt that Heschel borrowed those words from another Black American thinker who believed in the power of love over any other means to achieving justice for Black Americans, Frederick Douglass, who said, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. 

It was only through love and generosity that Douglass was able to bend the ear of Abraham Lincoln. Only through King’s message of love have we reached a place where his dream can become reality. Love comes in many forms: through flowers and chocolates but also through words and actions. Spread generosity this February 14th and all the Valentine’s Days in the future, so that love and justice can stretch for miles beyond this one calendar day.

Erika Davis is a Temporary Program Associate at AJWS. She also works as a freelance writer for Sh’ma, Jewcy, and Tribe Vibe while maintaining her personal blog Black, Gay and Jewish. Erika likes Syrian Jewish cooking and is convinced she makes the best hummus in Brooklyn. She is a volunteer with Be’chol Lashon and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

As someone who is both involved with theater and in the middle of my year as an AVODAH Corps member in Brooklyn, Pursue’s event hosting the Theatre of the Oppressed workshop was a perfect combination. Theatre of the Oppressed combines a mix of improv games that focus on creatively rethinking our assumptions and social structures. The workshop’s dynamic facilitator led a series of games and activities that forced the group of 20- and 30-somethings to act silly and be creative in a way that is often hard to achieve in young adults. 

While we did several theater exercises and games, one in particular stood out for me. We were each asked to bring five pieces of “clean garbage” from home, and when we entered the workshop room in downtown Brooklyn, we placed our items on two long tables. There was anything from sketches to tea bags to plastic wrappers to empty liquor bottles on the table. When it came time, we were split into two groups and asked to make a person out of the pieces of “clean garbage.” We sat in a circle on the floor and each placed a piece of garbage down, hoping that the end result would resemble some sort of body. Throughout the process, I noticed myself feeling tense, getting angry when people were placing pieces in a spot I arbitrarily didn’t agree with. “Fine,” I resolved, “do what you like.” As we reflected on the experience later, I realized that I wanted to control the situation and was not comfortable with letting the group come to a shape on its own.  

What we created was something more beautiful and interesting than I certainly would have come up with on my own. We discussed where did this person come from, what its gender was, how old the person was. We named it a “trans pregnant man” who had a sparkle trail/leash with an animal/tail/extended leg. It was loony and silly, but we also discussed our issues with making quick judgments and assumptions, and what it’s like to read a body without having any real knowledge of the person.  

Thinking about this exercise in the context of my year in AVODAH and involvement with Pursue around Jewish social justice, calling out my assumptions about people is a really useful tool. While living in my house with 17 other Jewish people (16 of whom are women), it is easy to pre-judge people and imagine I know how each one will respond. Taking the time to actively rethink our assumptions and play with ways responses to those assumptions helped me to reimagine the ways that I interact with my housemates, my co-workers, and tenants I organize with in the Bronx.

Elise Goldin is an Evanstonian recently transplanted to the wonderful city of New York. Co-founder of Jewish Solidarity with Native American People (JSNAP) and a member of Young, Jewish, and Proud, Elise loves working on issues of social justice. She also enjoys dance parties. Elise currently works as a tenant organizer as part of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps.