Through this fellowship, I learned about community organizing and the many challenges involved. Civic engagement is difficult, but this was definitely a great learning experience and made me a more confident community organizer.

On Monday, the FBI released its annual compilation of hate crimes statistics, which summarizes all hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2019. The grim data underscore the alarming power of hateful ideologies.

Democracy doesn’t happen every four years at the ballot box; democracy needs to be affirmed daily by each of us. That happens when we commit to engaging with one another, rather than tuning each other out.

In addressing epidemics, there are a number of provisions of Jewish law directly relevant to challenges we face today. The spirit of these laws and their wisdom speaks across the centuries to us now.

Here’s something we know about this election: Vulnerable and oppressed communities remain vulnerable and oppressed; this election was not a clear repudiation of white supremacy. Marginalized groups continue to be at risk from white supremacists and those who enable them.

Just as the Torah is at the center of Judaism, the ballot is at the core of our democracy. We would not dream of returning the Torah to the Ark without first dressing it. It helps, then, to think of the outer envelope as the ark and the inner security envelope as our ballot’s Torah cover.

As intimate partner violence rates surge, the Senate still refuses to pass a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which has been in limbo for more than a year.

The Reform Movement supports a COVID-19 relief bill that will alleviate economic hardship, which puts tens of millions of Americans at risk of eviction and homelessness.

Typically, Jews have an extraordinarily high voter turnout, said to be the highest of any ethnic group, in a nation in which only an estimated 1 in 2 eligible voters actually vote. But this is a year like no other.