T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

Ancient texts are extremely relevant to human rights issues arising today. T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights has changed the perception that the job of a rabbi or cantor is simply to lead ritual. These Jewish leaders are stepping off the bimah and onto the (figurative) battlefields for justice, showing their stance as moral leaders as well as congregational leaders. T’ruah brings together, mobilizes, and trains nearly 2,000 rabbis and cantors from all sects of Judaism, along with their communities, to protect and advance human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.

T’ruah trains rabbinical students and rabbis to understand human rights issues in the United States and Israel and to develop their rabbinic voice and persona, and gives them valuable skills in organizing, media, protesting, and having a public presence, all the while connecting a strong network of colleagues who support one another’s human rights leadership. Within six weeks of the 2016 election, T’ruah answered the call from clergy to come together for skills building and strategizing, and ran two trainings for 300 clergy. By pivoting to respond to the pressing needs, T’ruah demonstrated how Judaism speaks to the concerns of the moment and that human rights activism draws from the depths of Jewish tradition. T’ruah led a demonstration that included a mass arrest of rabbis in New York City in February 2017 and sent rabbis to be on the ground in Charlottesville, Virginia, the weekend of the white supremacist rally. T’ruah launched a synagogue sanctuary network with 70 communities committed to protecting immigrants facing deportation. At the same time, it kept up its long-term ongoing work—helping rabbis organize to support incarceration reform, pressuring corporations to ensure their produce is picked by workers protected from slavery, and improving agricultural working conditions with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. T’ruah has created a group of rabbinic leaders who lead both rituals and rallies, and the Jewish community is stronger for it.