Author: Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Nearly one out of six people worldwide do not have access to safe sources of drinking water. It’s an alarming reality in a world with the abundance and the technology to bring clean, safe water to so many more people, and trends are moving in the wrong direction. But dozens of events worldwide, and major speeches from the likes of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are trying to change that.

March 22 is annual World Water Day, and this year’s day of action focused on water quality awareness and the centrality of clean water access for good health. World Water Day was established in 1993 to bring global attention to water issues, and every year focuses on a unique angle on water issues. This year’s theme, Clean Water for a Healthy World, aims to “raise the profile of water quality at the political level so that water quality considerations are made alongside those of water quantity.”

Two leaders of the Obama Administration’s global environmental environment and health team spoke on this vital issue in honor of World Water Day; EPA Administrator Jackson addressed the Association of Metropolitan Agencies on the need to ensure access to safe drinking water at home, and Secretary Clinton spoke at the National Geographic Society on the deep connection between water access and global development. These women both made clear that access to safe drinking water is a human rights challenge and a necessary prerequisite to a healthy society, and that there is much we can do to help alleviate the global water crisis.

It’s a timely and urgent theme. Despite advances in global development, 1.1 billion people worldwide continue to rely on unsafe sources for their daily drinking water, and more people die from water-related causes than all forms of violence according to the United Nations. And the situation is getting worse, as Secretary Clinton explained: “by 2025, just 15 years from now, nearly two-thirds of the world’s countries will be water-stressed. Many sources of freshwater will be under additional strain from climate change and population growth. And 2.4 billion people will face absolute water scarcity – the point at which a lack of water threatens social and economic development.”

We can all celebrate World Water Day by taking steps toward smarter water use in our own lives, helping to ensure access to clean and safe water for more people at home and around the world. We can also call for legislation that protects our water supply at home from dangerous pollutants, urge our representatives to support policies to guarantee sufficient development aid to countries facing water scarcity, and join global advocacy campaigns to raise public and political awareness of world water issues. And we can make sure that we continue these actions every day of the year, not just on the annual World Water Day.

In the East Room of the White House late this morning, members of Congress and other advocates (including the Director and Associate Director of the RAC, Rabbi David Saperstein and Mark Pelavin!) assembled to hear remarks from President Obama and Vice President Biden and observe the long-awaited signing of the health insurance reform bill, passed late Sunday evening by the House of Representatives.
(Photo from whitehouse.gov)

“Today,” Obama stated, “after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied – health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America.” You can read President Obama’s remarks at the signing here.

Now that the House has passed the Senate version of reform legislation and an additional bill which includes various improvements to the legislation, that “reconciliation bill” must now be sent to the Senate for debate and passage.
Mark Pelavin and Rabbi Saperstein took these photos on their cell phones amidst the excitement!

Contact your Senators now to ensure this package of fixes is passed, and increased access to more affordable health insurance access can be a reality for millions of Americans.

Above: Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the RAC, poses with former Senator Harris Wofford at yesterday’s signing celebrations; RAC Associate Director Mark Pelavin chats with Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; David chats with Rep. John Dingell; Mark poses with Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin as they wait for President Obama to arrive

Last week, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, issued a strong and nuanced statement regarding the current events in Israel, specifically addressing the East Jerusalem building announcement and Vice President Biden’s recent trip to the region. Rabbi Yoffie expressed the URJ’s position on Jerusalem, which, “like most American Jewish organizations, supports a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. This means that we believe housing units constructed in Jerusalem by Israel are not settlements and they are not illegal.”

The tenor of Rabbi Yoffie’s remarks, which were picked up by Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the Forward, and JTA, is expressed in dictum that “a great many things that are legal are not prudent or wise – and building in Arab sections of Jerusalem in the current political climate is one of those things.”

Rabbi Yoffie’s statement also reiterated the Reform Movement’s enduring position on Israel, emphasizing our commitment to a achieving a two-state solution with active North American involvement in peace negotiations.

Further, he commented that “if a peace agreement becomes a real, viable possibility, Israel will likely be prepared and willing to compromise in a fundamental way on Jerusalem…but first, peace talks must begin.” His full remarks are available here.

On the Washington, D.C. scene, Prime Minister Netanyahu is here and will meet with Vice President Biden tonight and with President Obama tomorrow. Many are looking to these meetings as a significant and necessary step toward repairing the U.S.-Israel relationship and potentially getting peace negotiations back on track.

Additionally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the AIPAC Policy Conference this morning, expressing the “clear goal” of both the United States and the Reform Movement: “two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security.” Secretary Clinton also spoke to the threat of a nuclear Iran, which she proclaimed unacceptable not only for the security of the state of Israel, but also for the Middle East region, the United States, and the entire international community.

In the coming days, we’ll be watching these meetings closely and the actions of both the U.S. and Israeli governments. What do you think about the current situation in the Middle East? Leave us a comment below or send me an email with your thoughts!

Zach Goldberg attends Congregation B’nai Shalom in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Last Sunday during Confirmation class, Rabbi Gene Levy brought the JCPA Child Nutrition Seder to our attention. The short, brightly colored Haggadah contains “a Seder dedicated to child nutrition and hunger awareness.” The other 10 confirmation students and I, along with Rabbi Levy and Sheri Simon, sat in a circle and read through the booklet. The discussion that followed was both insightful and engaging.

Each step in the traditional Seder had a passage, reading, or statistic that related it to the problem of hunger in children in our country. All of us were amazed at some of the dismal facts. For instance, 17 million children went hungry at some point in 2008. As teenagers ourselves, this was particularly dismaying. Perhaps the most poignant part of the Seder is the Four Questions. In this Haggadah, we ask not “Why is this night different from all other nights?” but rather questions such as “What does it mean to be hungry in America and what is the main cause of hunger?” The traditional four children story has four very personal first person narratives about young people who do not have enough to eat, or who participate in important free school lunch or other nutrition program. Each step of the Seder opened our eyes to a different aspect of hunger in America.

After we finished reading through the Haggadah, our group reaction was very strong. One of my friends, Laura, told us how her friend at school often went hungry at home. We talked about how important free lunch and breakfast at school programs are, and how they help many kids get the nutrition they needed. We were so affected by the seder that we felt like we had to take action. Now we are currently planning to collect backpacks full of food through our Temple. These backpacks will be given to local elementary schools to give to children in need. The food inside is meant to help get hungry children through the weekend, when there is no school at which to get a free meal. We will soon be asking our congregation to donate snacks that are healthy and ready to eat; no microwaving or cooking required. We, as a class, feel like this is a great way to make a real difference in our community, which fits right into what we have been learning in Confirmation, especially when we attended the RAC’s L’Taken seminar.

To wrap up our class for the day, we participated in another act of social action. One of our Senators, Blanche Lincoln, is the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees child nutrition programs. We took paper plates and markers and each one of us wrote Senator Lincoln a personal message on the back of a plate. We urged her to support the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, with an increase in funding of $5 billion over 5 years. This bill could go a long way towards continuing and improving child nutrition programs in the United States.

So, I urge you to take a look at the Child Nutrition Seder, and include some, if not all, of it at your Seder this year. It is a great way to learn more about child hunger in America, and to make your Pesach a little bit more meaningful this year. I also urge you to write your members of Congress about supporting increased funding in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act.

If you’re internet savvy enough to be reading this blog post, there’s at least a reasonable chance you’re also one of the 400 million people around the globe who has a Facebook page, the 100 million who use MySpace, or the 35 million on LinkedIn. You might be on Twitter, write a blog, use Google Buzz, share photos on Flickr or Picasa, or participate in one or several or many of the myriad social networking sites and services that have sprung up over the last two decades of the internet age.

And why not? They’re a great way to connect with friends, share pictures, videos, meaningful events and even random musings and thoughts. I personally use Twitter, have a blog, use Facebook, and am trying to figure out Buzz; I know social networking can be a lot of fun.

If you’re an FBI Agent, however, Facebook might be your beat.

According to documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI and other federal and state agencies use undercover profiles on Facebook and other social networking websites to conduct covert surveillance on individuals who use these services. This sort of information gathering does not appear to require that the subject be a suspect in an investigation nor are there apparently legal guidelines and protections for the information gleaned. Although this surveillance technique is apparently legal, the documents did not “discuss any mechanisms for accountability or ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly,” said Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the Civil Liberties Foundation.

So check out the article, visit the EFF’s website to see some of the organization’s other efforts to ensure government transparency, and if you use Google Reader or another RSS feeder, subscribe to Wired Magazine’s “Threat Level” blog, which details threats to internet security and privacy.

And next time someone new wants to be your “friend” on Facebook, maybe you should ask her, “Are you a cop?”

 Update on Immigration Reform:

Yesterday, the chief authors of much anticipated comprehensive immigration reform legislation, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), published an op-ed in the Washington Post outlining their framework for action on repairing our broken immigration system.

Despite our nation’s opposition to illegal immigration, the majority of Americans support legal immigration and the Senators have introduced four pillars for reform that will protect workers, secure borders, and create a path to citizenship for those already contributing to our country:

• requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure workers are properly documented
• fulfilling and strengthening the commitment to border security and interior enforcement
• creating a process for admitting temporary workers
• implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here

The Senators’ blueprint for reform is not perfect.  Though I praise their inclusion of a temporary worker program, a path to citizenship, and a commitment to border security, it remains to be seen whether a biometric employment verification system will be effective in protecting legal workers.  A biometric system based on Social Security numbers must safeguard individual privacy and ensure that all who are eligible to work are in no way disadvantaged by human or systematic error.

Sen. Schumer and Sen. Graham have introduced a realistic proposal for immigration reform.  Now they must take the next step; they must heed the calls of their constituents on the National Mall this coming Sunday and introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Below is a statement from President Obama on Sen. Schumer and Sen. Graham’s framework for immigration reform:

In June, I met with members of both parties, and assigned Secretary Napolitano to work with them and key constituencies around the country to craft a comprehensive approach that will finally fix our broken immigration system. I am pleased to see that Senators Schumer and Graham have produced a promising, bipartisan framework which can and should be the basis for moving forward.  It thoughtfully addresses the need to shore up our borders, and demands accountability from both workers who are here illegally and employers who game the system.

My Administration will be consulting further with the Senators on the details of their proposal, but a critical next step will be to translate their framework into a legislative proposal, and for Congress to act at the earliest possible opportunity.

I congratulate Senators Schumer and Graham for their leadership, and pledge to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year on this important issue so we can continue to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.

This Sunday, I’ll be eating bagels. I won’t be seated in my grandmother’s dining room or slouching in a diner booth, I’ll be in downtown DC with Jewish people from all over the country preparing to rally for immigration reform. Though I eagerly anticipate learning, poster-making and marching with my friends, colleagues and fellow-advocates, I won’t lie, I’m excited about the noshing too. There are few activities that unite and elate the Jewish community quite like a bagel brunch with assorted cream cheese, and this weekend there will be bagels galore!

On Sunday, March 21st tens of thousands of passionate advocates are expected to descend on the National Mall (between 7th and 14th streets from 2-5pm) to remind President Obama and Congress that comprehensive immigration reform must happen in 2010! It is time to revamp a system that leaves our country less secure, separates families, encourages unscrupulous employers and consigns 12 million individuals to the shadows of society.

We must alleviate the backlog that keeps families apart for decades at a time. It is essential that we establish humane and effective measures to ensure the security of our borders. And our economy only stands to benefit from temporary-worker programs that respond to the needs of the labor market and strengthen our industries.

This Sunday is your opportunity to show our nation’s leaders that we’re not intimidated by tough issues; we’re ready to fight for immigration reform. Fueled by bagels, passion and a vivid connection to the immigrant experience (read: Passover), join your Jewish community as we March for America! Cherish your chametz while you still can and join us beforehand at Hillel International (800 8th St NW) for the Jewish bagel brunch. March 21st is three days away. Will you harness your bagel power?

In this blog series, based on the Focus story “Israel by Israelis,” in the Spring 2010 edition of Reform Judaism Magazine,
you will discover what it’s really like to live as a Reform Jew in
Israel from the personal stories of 18 Jews who champion our Movement
in the Jewish state.

Israeli Reform Jews–some born in Israel, some via aliyah–share their stories about the agony and the ecstasy of living in this still young and struggling Jewish state.

Today, participants will respond to two questions, listed below.

Are there aspects of Jewish life in your former country you
wish you had now in Israel, as well as aspects of Jewish life in Israel
you wish your former country would emulate?

Rich Kirschen: I miss the Jewish New York scene, good
deli, public speaking in English. Sometimes, after giving a speech in
Hebrew, I wonder if I didn’t sound a little like Latka from Taxi.

If North American Jews could learn something from Israelis, it
would be having a sense of peoplehood. I am concerned that, in the U.S.
and Canada, Jews are turning Judaism into a religion and losing the
idea that we are also in fact a nation.

David Forman: I do not miss very much about Jewish life
in North America, except the greater tolerance of different Jewish
lifestyles and the exciting creative experimentation in religious
services and at our Union camps. Still, none of these can compare with
the 24-hour-a-day Jewish lifestyle that defines life in Israel.

Levi Weiman-Kelman: I miss separation of religion and
state, decent Chinese and Mexican restaurants, and going to the
supermarket without getting into a heated political discussion.

Miri Gold: I miss the American system of democracy. In
Israel, while serving as “mayor” of my kibbutz during elections for
regional council head, I invited both the incumbent and the challenger
to speak in our dining room. The other kibbutz “mayors” from our
region, who supported the incumbent, berated me for having given the
rival candidate a chance to speak. When I protested, “It’s a
democracy,” they shot back, “Oh, that’s your American democracy!” Well,
I’m proud of that American democracy. In the Israeli parliamentary
system, Orthodox parties have disproportional clout because the party
forming the coalition must bow to their partisan demands to remain in
power.

Tamara Schagas: I’ve found that Diaspora Jews feel a
deeper interconnection with Jews in the rest of the world than do
Israelis: They visit other Jewish communities, express interest in
their history, and learn about them. Israeli Jews, on the other hand,
are aware that Jews live in other countries, but don’t necessarily feel
as connected to them. Jewish identity in the Diaspora is built around
religion; in Israel, it’s built around national identity. I wish we
would learn from each other.

Michael Marmur: I miss cricket, crossword puzzles, and
the more mature political culture of Britain, home of “the mother of
Parliaments.” In Israel we sorely need a culture of free and informed
discourse without the shouting and screaming.

What do you like most and/or least about living in Israel?

Rich Kirschen: I love the connection to Hebrew. Even the Coca Cola bottles say “Hag Sameach” (Happy Holiday) on Rosh Hashanah. I hate the fact that Israelis always think they’re right.

Hannah Yakin: I like when total strangers smile and say,
“Shabbat Shalom” on the way to and from synagogue. Also, I appreciate
the way people meddle in one another’s business because they feel
responsible for each other’s well-being: the men and women in the
street who advise me to cover my head against the sun, or tell me to
pick up my grandson if he is crying in his stroller.

Going home after a routine eye examination, I was blinded by
the bright Jerusalem sunlight. As I stood helpless on the sidewalk, a
woman offered to help. I explained my problem and asked if she could
take me to my bus stop. Not only did she lead me by the hand as if she
were my nursemaid, she gave me her sunglasses, waited with me until my
bus came, asked another woman to help me get off the bus at the right
stop, and refused to take back her sunglasses when we parted.

Dalya Levy: I love that people care deeply about their
country and want to make it the best place possible. When an Israeli
does something noteworthy, the whole country stands a centimeter
taller; when an Israeli does something awful, the whole country bears
the shame and feels that it reflects badly on us all. We spend lots of
time worrying about why, with all our brains, determination, and
incredibly talented young people, we aren’t the number one country in
everything–education, sports, culture, art, cuisine, etc. Striving to
be the best gives us a vitality that I never found in the States.

Stacey Blank: Israel is a family-friendly country and a
great place to raise kids. Children are welcome almost anywhere–at most
restaurants you see people out with their kids, and summer street
festivals are always a family affair, with free events like music
concerts and puppet theater for kids. When I walk down the street with
our two-year-old son, even macho Israeli guys smile at him.

What I like the least is the narrow-mindedness of many
Israelis, who see the world as either black or white, especially when
it comes to religion. Also, sometimes the endless, heated debates get
tiresome. The practical American side of me just wants to get to the
point.

Hanan Cidor: I love the Israeli style of arguing about
everything, because it signifies how much we truly care about what is
happening to friends, family, and country. Israelis feel strong
solidarity with one another, and no one is ever a stranger here. We
like to treat everyone as family, as if we know them personally, even
if this is the first time we’ve ever met. Whatever might happen to me,
I feel I’ll never really be alone in Israel. What I like least is
constantly having to explain, to the outside world and, more
importantly, to myself, why I want to live in Israel and what it means
to be an Israeli. I doubt that most Americans or Canadians wrestle with
such questions.

Matthew Sperber: As a parent and grandparent, I like
living in a little country because my children and grandchildren can
never be very far away. Traveling from Israel’s most southern point to
northern point only takes seven hours. Also, in a small country, one
person, one family, and one community can make a real impact on
society.

Evan Cohen: Roni, our “specialty vegetable guy” in the
Machaneh Yehudah market, noticed that for two weeks in a row I was
buying less than usual. He called me over and said, “Listen, if times
are tough, you don’t have to be embarrassed. Get whatever you need;
it’s on me. When things get better, which they will, you can pay me
back.” When I explained to him that I was buying less because we’d been
invited to friends’ homes for Shabbat two weeks straight, he smiled and
said, “Welcome to Israel.”

What drives me crazy is the feeling of entitlement and lack of
personal responsibility among many Israelis who see everything as the
government’s responsibility, rather than their own. That explains why
garbage fills our parks, there are many fatalities on our roads and
highways, and other societal ills.

Miri Gold: I don’t like the Israeli bureaucracy. It’s
not uncommon for me to stand in a line for a long time at a government
office, only to discover I’m missing a critical form I didn’t know I
needed.

Worse, though, is the treatment Reform converts receive at the
hands of Israeli officials. One such convert, a Russian woman, was
happily married to an Israeli Jew for seven years. When he died, the
Interior Ministry tried to revoke her permanent status and deport her,
along with her children from a previous marriage. The fact that she
converted through the Reform Movement in Israel bore no weight. Our
Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center took up her cause. The case
is still in the courts, which keeps her from being deported. Happily,
her daughter married an Israeli, so she has some protection, although
the authorities check every year for four years to make sure they are
really married.

I’m also dismayed by the xenophobia, prejudice, and ignorance
displayed by some government leaders. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, head of the
Shas party, asserted that women wearing a tallit at the Western Wall should be burned in their tallit! Other officials have called for the imprisonment of women who pray and read Torah at the Wall as men do.

Then, because of the fear that foreign, non-Jewish workers and
their children will dilute the Jewish State, in 2009 the Interior
Ministry decided to deport the children of such workers, even though
they were born in Israel, go to Israeli schools, speak Hebrew, and see
Israel as their home. Many Israeli Jews are sensitive to this issue
because they well remember being stateless refugees and don’t want to
see anyone else treated this way. Public outcry has been loud enough to
get the prime minister to postpone implementation of the decision, but
it has not been rescinded.

I especially like how we Israelis acknowledge the sanctity of
life on Memorial Day. Every Israeli knows someone who’s died or lost a
loved one. When the two-minute siren goes off at 11:00 a.m., cars,
buses, and trucks stop in the middle of the road. People get out of
their cars to stand quietly at attention.

Many people will later visit military cemeteries. Our kibbutz
cemetery has a military section where 19 Gezer members and nine
soldiers are buried, all of whom lost their lives on June 10, 1948,
during Israel’s War of Independence. I know some of the widows and
children of those who died. Each gravestone tells a story: the person’s
name, his/her parents’ first names, the country from which he/she made
aliyah. Ours is a true “ingathering of the exiles”: Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Romania, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen….

Michael Marmur: I love feeling so at home here. Even
when I feel alienated, my alienation feels at home here. I also like
the ease of life and the feeling of freedom. And there is a directness
and informality here which suits me fine.

This week, the Union for Reform Judaism signed onto an amicus brief for the upcoming Supreme Court case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. This case began when the University of California-Hastings School of Law denied formal recognition to the Christian Legal Society (CLS), a student-run group, because it discriminates in who can become voting members and attain leadership roles.

While CLS allows any and all students to participate in their activities, they restrict their voting members and leadership to those who adhere to conservative Christian values as they define them. In particular, they exclude those who engage in “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” including “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.”

The University maintains a policy that only clubs that do not discriminate can get recognition from the school. With this recognition comes certain privileges, including the use of message boards and university space, as well as a small allotment of funding. The Supreme Court is considering whether the school’s action constitutes a violation of the students’ First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

The URJ signed onto an amicus brief coordinated by the American Jewish Committee in favor of the respondent (University of California-Hastings College of the Law). The brief argues that the 9th Circuit’s holding that the University’s decision to allow restrictive, discriminatory groups access to the University campus, but not to funding, did not violate the students’ First Amendment rights and should be affirmed.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 19th, 2010 and issue a decision before the end of the term in June

The decision to move critical health insurance reform toward passage by means of reconciliation may constitute a victory in the fight to preserve access to abortion services in reform. The Senate bill contains anti-abortion language that (though imperfect) is far less onerous than the Stupak Amendment in the House bill. Because the House will only have the opportunity to vote on the Senate legislation, the Stupak Amendment is, by all accounts, effectively dead.

For the last year, the Religious Action Center and other organizations which support reproductive rights have worked to pass meaningful and critical health insurance reform which does not constitute a further assault on a woman’s right to choose. We worked toward “abortion neutrality” in the legislation – language that would not advance or further limit reproductive rights. With 47 million Americans currently without health insurance, health reform should never have become mired in the controversial yet important issue of reproductive freedom.

Of course, the best laid plans did not work out as such. After months of debate, numerous votes, much advocacy, and deal-making on all sides, the House-passed bill included the onerous, anti-choice “Stupak Amendment” and the Senate-passed bill included the less-burdensome but still deeply flawed “Nelson Compromise.”

Now, the plan to pass desperately-needed health insurance reform is for the House to vote upon the Senate bill despite the reservations of more liberal members of the former and for any amendments to be made through the budget reconciliation process. However, because this process can only be used for budgetary measures, it appears that Stupak-style language (which failed in the Senate already) cannot be included in the ultimate form the legislation takes. A victory, of sorts.

The Nelson compromise language does constitute some restriction on access to abortion services. However, when measured against the myriad benefits of necessary reform, they cannot undermine our moral and religious obligation, our mandate to ensure the health and well-being of as many of the vulnerable members of our society as possible.

If you have questions or would like more information, please contact me at 202.387.2800 or at [email protected].

In this blog series, based on the Focus story “Israel by Israelis,” in the Spring 2010 edition of Reform Judaism Magazine,
you will discover what it’s really like to live as a Reform Jew in
Israel from the personal stories of 18 Jews who champion our Movement
in the Jewish state.

Israeli Reform Jews–some born in Israel, some via aliyah–share their stories about the agony and the ecstasy of living in this still young and struggling Jewish state.

Today, participants will respond to two questions, listed below.

Has Reform Judaism become more accepted among Israelis?

Rich Kirschen: Maybe it is me, but wherever I go these days in Israel, whenever I mention that I am a Reform rabbi, people say, “Kol ha kavod!” “Good for you!” When I gave a series of lectures on Reform Judaism to my army platoon, they loved it. I am optimistic about Reform Judaism taking root here, but it will take time. Remember, Reform Judaism had a late start in Israel. We weren’t here in 1948. It took us until the ’70s to start building institutions that eventually sowed the seeds of today’s Reform Israeli Movement.

David Forman: The Reform Movement’s inroads into Israeli society have been marginal at best–and I believe that we have erred greatly in trying to garner support among our Diaspora brothers and sisters by telling them how dreadful Israel is in respecting the rights of non-Orthodox Jews. We have basically turned off many North American Reform Jews to Israel.

The truth is, the cup is half full. Our Reform settlements–Kibbutz Yahel, Kibbutz Lotan, and Har Halutz (a free-enterprise community in Northern Israel)–would never have been founded or maintained had it not been for Israeli government subsidies. Our educational institutions receive government aid as well: The Ministry of Religion subsidizes our HUC-JIR seminary in Jerusalem as a yeshiva. The Ministry of Education disburses funding to the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, and its sports center was partially built with moneys from the national lottery.

It’s time we start telling these positive stories instead of blaspheming Israel.

Levi Weiman-Kelman: One measure of Reform acceptance in Israel is its depiction in Israeli popular culture. In the Israeli sitcom Avodah Aravit (Arab Labor), the main character sends his kid to a Reform Movement nursery school. In the TV drama Serugim (meaning knitted kippot), about young Ortho­dox Israeli women, one character has a date that turns into a sleepover. Her date didn’t bring his tefillin, so she goes next door and asks her neighbor, a female Reform rabbi, to borrow a tefillin. We have become part of the religious and social landscape.

Miri Gold: While my daughter was in the army, I participated in a television show that was aired just before the Pesach seder. She received numerous calls from friends who didn’t know that her mother is a rabbi. She had never told them. She felt that it was too hard to explain the idea of a woman rabbi, since in her mind it was unheard of among her peers. Even when she filled out forms asking her mother’s profession, she wrote “teacher.” She is still self-conscious about her mother being “different.” I think this stems from the fact that Reform Judaism is still unknown to or unappreciated by a great part of Israeli society. Israeli haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) often accuse Reform Judaism of dividing the Jewish people; they’d prefer that Jews be non-observant than Reform. Other traditional Israelis consider Reform as “watered-down” Judaism and judge Reform Jews as lazy or wishy-washy because we choose our level of observance; they don’t understand that Reform is rooted in prophetic, ethical, and moral Judaism. As for non-observant Israelis, many will go to an Orthodox shul when they need a sanctuary for a bar mitzvah, wedding, or funeral. They have had little or no exposure to the Reform Movement and simply assume that the Orthodox hold the patent on how to be Jewish. Some of them find women leading services or putting on tefillin shocking or distasteful.

That said, once Israelis are exposed to a Reform bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, or wedding, a great many are pleasantly surprised to have had such a meaningful and enjoyable experience. Women who resent sitting in a balcony gallery or behind a wall or curtain are pleased to be counted as equals, and both women and men appreciate being able to sit together as a family. Often women are emotionally transformed by participating in the ritual. Only then do they realize that Reform Judaism is a legitimate, powerful alternative for people who would never choose an Orthodox lifestyle.

Matthew Sperber: The Reform Movement’s hope to create a framework in which secular Israelis would feel comfortable with a Jewish lifestyle has been achieved only partially. Yet, I remain an optimist. I believe that after we make peace with the Palestinians, Israelis will deepen their search for a clearer understanding of Jewish identity, and the Israeli Reform Movement will come into its own as it provides answers.

How is the experience of living as a Jew different in Israel than in your former country?

Dalya Levy: When I was seven, I was playing with a friend in her yard in Anniston, Alabama when she told me that I had killed Jesus. I responded that I hadn’t killed anyone and, anyway, I didn’t know anybody named Jesus.

Levi Weiman-Kelman: Once, when shopping at a supermarket in Madison, Wisconsin, the check-out clerk asked me why I was wearing a pot holder on my head.

Nancy Reich: Growing up, ours was the only Jewish family in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in New York. We celebrated the holidays with our relatives and congregation, and there was a gastronomic angle to our Judaism, but it wasn’t enough for me…for years I wanted to be like my friends who celebrated Christmas and Easter. I often went to church with my friend from next door, and we used to role play taking the blessed sacrament: We cut out circles of American cheese in lieu of the wafer, and “the priest” put the wafer on my tongue. It was the only time I could receive the sacrament, since obviously I couldn’t line up with all the Catholics in church. The fact that I made it through adolescence and chose to be Jewish was a major triumph.

Michael Livni: In 1962 I served as intern on the psychiatric ward at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. Late one night I was summoned to see a 15-year-old African-American girl who was confused, sobbing, hysterical. In those days it was termed “adolescent situational state.” I sat with her for 15 minutes before she was capable of speaking. Her story was simple: She had been gang-raped for over an hour. I realized that this girl was perfectly normal. It was the society around her that was sick. That experience was pivotal in crystallizing two life decisions. First, psychiatry was not a route to my tikkun olam, repair of the world. Second, I needed to make a difference, to actively participate in the creation of a different type of society. I chose to live on a kibbutz in Israel in the belief that our Jewish heritage has the potential for creating a society which will reflect the words of the prophet Micah: “Do justice, love goodness, walk modestly with your God. Then will your name achieve wisdom…” (Micah 6: 8-9).

Has Israel realized this vision? Absolutely not! Does this fact absolve us from continuing the attempt? Absolutely not!

“It is not for you to finish the task, nor are you free to desist from it” (Pirke Avot 2:16).

At our L’taken seminars, I do an activity with participants in which they take on the identity of a new person and attempt to find enough food to feed them and those for whom they are responsible for one day (they can go to the food stamp office, the grocery store, or an emergency money station). Their new “characters” each have a specific income but, after they work out their expenses, realize that for each day, they have a minimal amount left over to spend on food – somewhere between $1 and $9. When we talk about the simulation, many are surprised that a person’s income does not always correlate to the amount of cash left over after housing, medical and family expenses were deducted.

The truth is that most government programs determine eligibility based on “cash income,” a system that has been in place since 1960. The system operates on the assumption that a family will spend 1/3 of their income on food; this has been tagged to inflation, and the measure now stands at about $22,000 per year for a family of four. The problem, as the Center for American Progress points out, is that the amount a family spends on food “now amounts to around one-seventh [of total costs] as the costs of housing, childcare, and health care have all risen disproportionately.” As a result, the “poverty threshold has fallen far behind the actual cost of meeting basic needs, and while “when the measure was first instituted, a person living at the federal poverty line earned about 50 percent of the average American’s income; today that proportion has fallen to approximately 28 percent.”

In short, as Peg Chamberlain writes, our current system is “woefully inadequate in helping assess levels of poverty in America today.” The good news is that the federal government also has gotten the message, announcing earlier this month that it would begin producing a new, supplemental measure of poverty to go alongside the traditional cash-income formula. The new measure, which is set to be released in the fall of 2011, will be complicated, but will attempt to identify a particular income level that is required to accommodate basic needs such as food, housing, and clothing as the new threshold to measure who needs government assistance and who does not. As the New York Times points out, the new measure will also seek “to calculate the value of in-kind benefits, like food stamps, and whether homeowners have a mortgage.”

Of course, simply measuring poverty in a different way will do little to bring people out of poverty. However, as my L’taken participants can tell you, strictly income-based qualification levels do not reflect the true costs of living that force many families – including those with a cash income above the federal poverty line – into poverty. The better we are able to understand who needs help, the better positioned our government can be to provide services. As New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

The Hill is buzzing today as we get closer and closer to a House vote on health insurance reform legislation. Families USA announced release of a sign-on statement of support for reform this morning, signed by more than 200 national organizations including the Union for Reform Judaism. The statement is also printed in today’s Capitol Hill papers including Roll Call, Politico and The Hill. Check out the statement and its signatories.

The House vote later this week will be decisive in the fate of health insurance reform this year. Contact your Representative NOW to urge him/her to vote “yes” and move reform forward. You can send an email or call the Capital switchboard at 1-888-210-3678. Be sure to take a look at some example talking points!

With less than 40 days until the 40th annual Earth Day, the news on climate and energy is not good: despite recent White House meetings on energy, Congress is still stuck on health care (though we are hopeful for a vote this week!) and public opinion on the urgency of addressing energy and environment actually declined in 2009.

The poll numbers aren’t promising, but they don’t tell the whole story. Many attribute the falling public interest in climate change (and legislative solutions) to poor poll design, failed messaging, and industry attempts to fight climate science akin to the smoke & mirrors efforts of the tobacco industry to disprove the danger of smoking decades ago. The bottom line: experts still agree that climate science remains solid and the need for action has never been more urgent.

So what can we do to turn the tide and get things moving? First off, the faith community is continuing to bring new voices to the table. We are emphasizing that our shared environment is not a political fight but a social justice and distinctly Jewish issue (learn much more in this recent B’nai B’rith magazine cover story). The recent recommendations from the White House Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships stress the need to make this an issue about people by strengthening green jobs and international climate change resilience programs, and ensuring that our houses of worship become model green communities. (Read the full recommendations from the Environmental Task Force, chaired by Rabbi Saperstein.)

Business leaders, veterans, and Administration officials remind us that the climate challenge is not just an environmental issue, but a critical economic and national security concern. And a growing coalition of environmental, labor, civil rights and faith groups recently launched the Earth Day Revolution campaign, featuring a daily countdown of 40 reasons why we need an Earth Day Revolution (conveniently packaged as tweets), the Declaration of Energy Independence, and myriad ways to get involved.

We still have the time and capacity to turn things around. So here we are, less than 40 days from the 40th Earth Day, and at a critical moment in the fight for our climate and energy future. How will you get involved?

This week I’ve been privy to some frustrated mumblings and postal woes. Though snail mail is normally a topic far from my email-centric universe, this week is different – it’s Census Week – well, kind of. You see, many people are a little confused, or perhaps perturbed is more appropriate, about the census arriving not once, but twice – again, kind of.

Last week, 120 million households across the country received an “advance mailing” from the Census Bureau. A seemingly redundant letter, the mailing informed recipients that they would soon receive the actual census mailing. More specifically, it warned them that they would receive their census in the coming week and that it was important they fill it out. This mailing cost the Census Bureau a total of $57 million and was sent to 120 million (90%) households across the country.

With unemployment hovering around the double digits and an economy in need of intensive care, taxpayers are understandably perplexed by this use of their dwindling dollars. Intrigued by their queries, and yet convinced of an unseen strategy, I channeled my inner Sherlock and began my hunt for answers.

It turns out that this year’s decennial census may cost as much as $14 billion ($45/person) to complete. Around $300 million ($1/person) of that budget will be spent on advertising to raise awareness among the estimated 45% of the population that doesn’t know the census is even taking place. Whereas a census form returned through the mail costs $0.42 (postage stamp), every household that fails to respond costs $57 (human census taker).

Based on statistics collected from the Census Bureau’s first advance mailing, which took place in 2000, the warning letter increases the mail-in response rate by 6-12%. The Census Bureau estimates that for every single percentage point increase in the mail-in response rate, they save $85 million. At the conservative estimate of a 6% response rate increase, that’s $510 million! The $57 million spent on a warning letter no longer seems so wasteful. In fact, it’s pretty genius in a nerdy, budgety, penny-pinching taxpayer kind of way.

In an ideal world, we’d receive, respond to, and return the census by mail. No pre-warning, no post-visit. However, since a hearty chunk of the American populace (over 25%) fails to carry out this civic duty, we are blessed with not one, but two mailings and in many cases a follow-up by a human version of the census, a census-taker.

This year, in this economy, let’s use our common census. Fill it out and send it back by April 1, 2010.

Massive blow-up census in front of Union Station, Washington, DC

In this blog series, based on the Focus story “Israel by Israelis,” in the Spring 2010 edition of Reform Judaism Magazine, you will discover what it’s really like to live as a Reform Jew in Israel from the personal stories of 18 Jews who champion our Movement in the Jewish state.

Israeli Reform Jews–some born in Israel, some via aliyah–share their stories about the agony and the ecstasy of living in this still young and struggling Jewish state.

Today, participants respond to the question, “What does it mean to you to be a Reform Jew living in Israel?”

Levi Weiman-Kelman: Being a Reform Jew in Israel is
sometimes a struggle. I remember arriving at an army base to begin my
month of reserve duty in the early ’90s. Later that week I was
scheduled to officiate at the wedding of two members of my
congregation, and I was anxious about getting that day off.
Unfortunately, the officer in charge was embroiled in a nasty conflict
with some reservists; he cancelled all leaves and refused even to speak
to any reservist. I enlisted my congregation, family, friends, and, of
course, the couple to be wed to use all the protectzia (clout) at their
disposal, but still the officer wouldn’t budge.

When I finished guard duty the morning of the scheduled wedding, I went right to the officer’s office and waited at the door. Hours went by. The base commander went in and out a few times and couldn’t help but notice me. He asked what was up, I told him, and he took me into the officer’s office. By now the whole base had heard what was going on and everyone crammed round to see the standoff.

The officer was in his 20s, Orthodox, and of Iraqi Jewish descent. I saw a pile of faxes on his desk sent in by my supporters. He asked me to state my case. He listened and then said, “I don’t understand. What does it mean that you are a Reform rabbi?” I struggled to explain what Reform Judaism is to an army career man who had only a high school education. I emphasized egalitarianism and the fact that my sister was the first woman ordained in Israel. Some of the crowd started teasing him, saying he should attend my sister’s congregation. It was not going well. Finally he blurted out, “I don’t understand! What is the difference between you and my Orthodox rabbi?” I answered, “Your rabbi wouldn’t have to get permission from his commanding officer to officiate at your wedding!” The room burst into applause, and he stamped my pass to leave the base. I felt the rush of victory as he handed it to me. Then he said, “You’re just like that cult in Waco, Texas, right?”

Avraham Melamed: Being a Reform Jew in Israel means engaging in an ongoing struggle to persuade secular Israelis that there is more than one way to be Jewish; that Orthodoxy is but one among other legitimate alternatives; that identifying Judaism as Orthodoxy in Israel is mistaken and harmful; and that rejection of the Ortho­dox way should not mean a rejection of Judaism altogether.

David Forman: Even many of the non-religious Israelis who go to soccer games on Shabbat still observe all the major holidays and go to shul once in a while. I like explaining to them that they are really Reform Jews.

Stacey Blank: To be a Reform Jew in Israel is to feel discriminated against, an experience I was spared growing up in the U.S. The local municipality of Ramat HaSharon doesn’t list our congregation in the online directory of local synagogues. My congregation had to fight for 15 years, including appearing before the Supreme Court, to gain the right to build a synagogue, while Orthodox synagogues are built with public funds. Though 90% of our city’s residents are secular, the mayor dances with the Chabad community in the main square on Simchat Torah and has not accepted our invitations to visit. I am here in the Jewish homeland to fulfill a dream of our people, but achieving it as a Reform Jew requires overcoming many obstacles.

Paula Edelstein: When our older son married, our congregational rabbi was only able to officiate at the wedding ceremony because a good friend, who is an Orthodox rabbi, agreed to perform a joint ceremony. The state does not recognize the legitimacy of marriages performed by non-Orthodox rabbis. As civil marriages performed in other countries are recognized, 20% of Israeli couples marry outside of Israel. Hundreds of these couples later choose to have a Reform or Conservative wedding in Israel.

Evan Cohen: I received my training at a cantorial school in which 98% of the students were Orthodox men. Near the end of the school year, one of my fellow classmates asked if I’d found a job as a cantor and I responded that I’d be at the synagogue where I lead services every week. Impressed because in Israel there are only a handful of congregations (of all denominations) that have regular cantors, he asked where it was located. “But that’s a Reform congregation,” he whispered. I said, “So what?” “But you don’t look Reform!” he responded astoundingly. I then proceeded to remove my kipah, rubbed my hand on my head, and said, “Hey look, no horns!”

Matthew Sperber: At Kibbutz Yahel the struggle has been a creative one. For 32 years we’ve been trying to integrate Reform Jewish values into how we relate to the land and into our business decisions: how we interact with our employees, how we run our hotel business on Shabbat, and how we milk our cows. Early on, for example, we concluded that solving the problem of the Torah’s work prohibitions on Shabbat by employing non-Jews was not acceptable to us as a principle for religious observance in a modern Jewish state. We understood that once we had decided to operate a dairy business, to grow vegetables in the desert, and to run a small guest house–all businesses which would require us to work on Shabbat and holidays–the best we could do would be to define limitations on these labors. In our guest house, for example, we could limit the services we provided to guests on Shabbat, even though meals would still have to be served and broken air conditioners fixed. In our farm operations, we decided not to tithe our fields, but rather to tithe their profits, by funding social action projects that we initiated.

This has made my life in Israel as a Reform Jew exciting, meaningful, and special in a way that could not happen anywhere else.

It is rare for a Supreme Court Justice to grant a reporter an exclusive interview.  In fact, it is rare for a Justice to make any press statements at all. But, Jeffrey Toobin clearly has the clout and respect necessary to get through those (metaphorically, if not physically) locked marble doors. The March 22nd, 2010 edition of the New Yorker, features a lengthy Toobin piece, profiling Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. The piece balances a retrospective on Justice Stevens’s time on the Court with some of his current reflections on his tenure, the state of the Supreme Court, and his future.

While court-watchers have been more-or-less convinced that Justice Stevens will retire this summer, Toobin’s article reintroduces uncertainty as it quotes Stevens saying “I have my options open still . . . I’ll have to decide soon.” Justice Stevens confirms that he will retire within the next three years, but indicates that he has not yet made a final decision about whether he will hang around for another term.

Clearly, this statement will not deter those who are preparing for a vacancy from continuing to do so, but it does add some excitement (anxiety?) into the mix. Instead of simply waiting for an announcement of retirement, we are left on the edge of our seats, wondering whether that announcement will actually come.

Aside from the understandably-distracting assertion that Stevens is unsure about his retirement, the profile is an interesting and engaging survey of Justice Stevens’s life experiences and their impact on his jurisprudence. I highly recommend taking time to learn from Toobin about the “Court’s senior Justice, in every respect.”

The White House has been pulling out all the stops in an effort to see health insurance reform pass in the House this week. A vote is planned for some point between Thursday and early next week, with most betting on Saturday as the big day.

This afternoon, there was a widely publicized, but off the record briefing from the head of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Valerie Jarrett. Last week, the White House offered up David Axelrod for a briefing as well. The faith community was a key audience for both calls, thanks to our position at the forefront of reform efforts. The message on the calls was the same: reform can’t wait, both for moral reasons and financial reasons. In fact, reference was made on today’s call to a faith letter to the President, signed by the Reform Movement among others, references a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

After so many months of negotiations, votes, successes and setbacks, we have to fight against any sense of complacency or exhaustion. We must act now, and encourage our Representatives THIS WEEK to support passing the Senate health insurance reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). Send an email to your Representative or call the Capitol Switchboard at 1-888-210-3678.

“Wondrous God, in ancient days You led our people from bondage to freedom; redeem us now out of our exile from one another, making all Israel one united people!” –From the liturgy for Rosh Chodesh 

Each Jewish month begins at the time of the new moon. In ancient times, after the new moon was sighted, someone would go to the top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem with a long pole of wood. He would set the end of his pole on fire and wave it around until he could see someone on another hilltop waving his own pole. The second person waved his pole until he could see a third person waving, and so on until the message reached Babylonia. 

Israel is the new frontier of Reform Judaism. Since the 1990s the number of Progressive/Reform congregations and minyanim has doubled from 15 to 30, many of them served by native Israeli rabbis ordained at our Movement seminary in Jerusalem. Five thousand families send their children to Reform-affiliated schools, and last year a record 50,000 Israelis attended Progressive High Holy Day services throughout the country.

In this blog series, based on the Focus story “Israel by Israelis” in the Spring 2010 issue of Reform Judaism Magazine, you will discover what it’s really like to live as a Reform Jew in Israel from the personal stories of 18 Jews who champion our Movement in the Jewish state.

Israeli Reform Jews – some born in Israel, some via aliyah – will share their stories about the agony and the ecstasy of living in this still young and struggling Jewish state.

Today, participants respond to the question, “What does it mean to you to be a Jew living in the State of Israel?”

Rich Kirschen: Here in Israel, being Jewish isn’t one window on your computer identity screen–it is the whole operating system.

Years ago, when I was a rabbinic student in Jerusalem, a friend of mine, a sabra who was serving in the army, claimed to me that he was Jewish because he spoke Hebrew, served in the Jewish army, and lived in the Jewish land – and that was enough. I was always pointing out that he was completely ignoring the religious component of our identity. One day, as we sat in his kitchen, we saw a long line of ants crawling on the floor. I immediately said, “What is this, a stampede?” That word, stampede, was my first instinct, having grown up with cowboy movies. What did my friend, the anti-religious Israeli say? “Ma zeh, Yitzitat Mitzrayim?” “What is this, the Exodus of Egypt?” Even the most secular Israeli is far more connected to Jewish religious tradition than Americans often realize.


Levi Weiman-Kelman: It means feeling part of Jewish history, every day.

Hannah Yakin: When I was in Holland years ago, I saw a bearded talmudist exchange his skullcap for a baseball cap each time he went outdoors. That’s 60 years after the Holocaust. Five hundred years after the Spanish Inquisition, I saw a Jew in Barcelona nail his mezuzah to the inside frame of his front door instead of the outer frame where it belongs. So, what does it mean to be a Jew in Israel? It means not fearing to be who you are.

Dalya Levy: Despite the external threats, there is no place where I feel so completely safe and at home as a Jew as I do in Israel. I don’t have to apologize or hide or think twice about being Jewish, and that’s a luxury that doesn’t truly exist anywhere else on our planet.

Matthew Sperber: Israel is a place that takes its Jewishness for granted. While shopping in the supermarket at Chanukah time, it’s not unusual to hear someone use the loudspeaker to recite the blessing for lighting the menorah and then sing “Maoz Tzur.”
Paula Edelstein: Being a Jew living in Israel means that the radio announcer wishes you “Shabbat Shalom” and the television stations display pomegranates and “Shana Tova” as backdrops on Rosh Hashanah. It means my children studied the Bible in Hebrew starting in second grade. It means never having to feel uncomfortable explaining to an employer why I need to take off work for the Jewish holidays. It means that I get to personally contribute to an amazingly important enterprise – building the still young and struggling Jewish state.

Nancy Reich: Ironically, perhaps, I’ve found that living as a Jew in Israel requires more of a commitment to personal religious observance. Because the national “rhythm” of Israel – the calendar, language, etc. – are all Jewishly based, it is easy for secular Jews to assimilate. One truly has to ask oneself: Am I a Jew or an Israeli?

Rich Kirschen: Last winter we had a flood in our basement. The plumber examined the crack in the foundation wall, looked at me, and said, “Water is powerful…it’s like Torah.” Only in Jerusalem will you call a plumber and get a Torah lesson in your basement.

Tamara Schagas: Being a Jew living in the State of Israel is first and foremost a blessing. Many generations of our people could only dream of coming back to the land of Israel. Our sovereignty gives Israel the right and the responsibility to fully take action in the course of our destiny, and gives us the chance to fulfill our potential as a people.


Daniel Chinn: I am presently saying Kaddish for my father. Last week, I found myself in Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Mall for the day, and I needed to find a minyan. I walked up to the security guard and asked him for advice. He gave me directions to the closest minyan and the times it started. The minyan was filled with security guards, cleaners, partners in law firms, and shoppers. It reflected the society in which I lived; it was not outside of it. That, for me, is the essence of living as a Jew in Israel.

You can click here to learn about the participants. Tomorrow, check out the next entry in this blog series, in which participants will answer the question, “What does it mean to you to be a Reform Jew living in Israel?” For any inquiries or comments about Reform Judaism in Israel, feel free to contact me!

In a move that proves that, when pressed, Congress can act quickly, both houses of Congress passed legislation aimed at relieving Haiti of its debt. The Haiti Debt Relief and Earthquake Recovery Act (HR4573) was passed by the House of Representatives last week, after the Haiti Recovery Act (S2961) was passed by the Senate on March 5th. Both bills, as this Huffington Post article describes, instruct the Secretary of the Treasury use American influence “at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)…to accomplish the debt forgiveness” for Haiti. In a press release from JubileeUSA, Deputy Director Melinda St. Louis noted, “the passage of both debt relief bills in Congress shows that our leaders on both sides of the aisle can respond quickly when the call for justice is heard loud and clear.” Even after receiving initial debt cancellation in 2009, Haiti still has $1 billion of debt to pay off, much of it “for loans granted to Haiti’s dictatorships, especially the brutal and corrupt Duvalier father-son dictatorship,” according to JubileeUSA.

Though images of devastation in Haiti are no longer on the front page of every newspaper and website, the rebuilding process is just now getting off the ground. Meeting with Haitian President René Préval Wednesday, President Obama pledged “to remain committed to providing financial assistance and humanitarian relief,” though the number of military personnel stationed in Haiti is steadily decreasing. As Haiti prepares to release its rebuilding plan, US officials are taking a look at how to help in the coming months. Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has said that the US will likely “pick several areas on which to concentrate, probably including agriculture, health, security and energy,” mainly based on the Haitians’ own rebuilding plan.

While Haiti appears to be on the road to debt relief (and it has been a long road – read up at Jubilee USA’s website to learn more about Haiti’s history with debt relief), many other countries also need debt relief to get back on their feet as well. The Jubilee Act (HR4405) would expand debt relief eligibility to 65 countries. The Jubilee Act encourages government transparency – countries receiving relief must make policy decisions democratically – and frees up much needed funds for social services: the bill Act requires that 20% of a relief-receiving country’s funding must go towards poverty alleviation. Urge your Representative to co-sponsor the Jubilee Act and break the chains of debt!