May 21st at 11am ET – May 22nd at 12noon ET
5/21 at 11am NYC
Prayer, Protest, & Study Toward Liberatory Judaism
Rabbi Margot Meitner, Student Rabbi Hadar Ahuvia, and Student Rabbi Noa Baron
In this workshop session, Rabbis for Ceasefire members will lead an exploration of liberatory Judaism and how we can practice, embody, and lead Jewish life that is nourishing, compelling, and centers liberation of all people. We will put this into practice by creating a microcosm of liberatory Judaism through singing together, engaging in Talmud study, and sharing stories from recent organizing. We will reflect together about and the role of both prayer and protest in creating change. We aim to support participants to explore the connections between their own spiritual life and participation in movements, and how all of it – rituals, communal practices, study, and collective action – can help us build a Judaism and a world grounded in diasporism, hereness, racial justice, collective liberation, and solidarity with oppressed communities including Palestinians.
5/21 at 12noon NYC
Ahl al-Kitab:
SWANA Jewish Print Cultures and Zinemaking
Emanuel Ovadia
Participants will learn how to fuse SWANA Jewish print cultures, research skills, and radical DIY practices to launch or further their zinemaking journey.
5/21 at 1pm NYC
Aid Not Arms: Gaza Update, Policy Landscape & Advocacy Training
Hassan ElTayyab & Hani Almadhoun
Join us for an update about conditions on the ground in Gaza, a talk on the latest U.S. Gaza policy developments, and a hands-on lobby training. We will share about the UNRWA Emergency Restoration Act, Block the Bombs, and other legislation. We will break down the current congressional landscape and identify real opportunities to advocate for free flowing aid and a cessation to state violence. We will walk through proven strategies for persuading congressional offices – so you leave ready to advocate with confidence. No prior experience necessary.
5/21 at 2pm NYC
Exploring Diasporism, Embracing Statelessness
Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg
Diasporism is currently being defined and redefined, wrestled with, embodied and embraced in our time, as a theoretical framework that can help us explain what we’re doing that’s not Zionism. Join Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg and hopefully some special guests to look at key texts and concepts in fleshing out what Jewish diasporism means in this time, what we want it to mean, how we can live it. We’ll explore how Jews in other time periods embraced statelessness, and how we can continue to build such a movement in our time.
5/21 at 3pm NYC
From Here Forward It’s Only a New Moment if Things Change
Mattan Berner-KAdish
If it really is a new reality for how Jewish institutions and leaders are going to engage with Palestine/Israel, what would that actually look like? Where are we now? What would we be engaging with?
5/21 at 4pm NYC
Where Do The Dollars Go?
How American Jewish Institutions Fund The Israeli Military
This workshop aims to demystify the landscape of US-based Jewish communal institutions and the often opaque ways that funding flows through them to Israel and the Israeli military. Our goal is to equip participants with the tools to understand where donations to major Jewish organizations are directed, to engage with family and community members about how their giving can become disentangled from the Zionist project, and to organize for greater accountability within institutions like Federations.
The workshop builds on a broader ecosystem of work focused on divestment strategy, financial transparency, and skill-sharing.
This workshop will include:
- A practical crash course in how to read 990’s to understand where grantmaking dollars are spent
- A case study of how one family’s campaign against their local Federation inspired community members to realign their giving with their values
- A brief historical overview of how support for Israel became closely integrated with American Jewish institutional life
- Insight into opportunities to fund Jewish communal life in non-Zionist and non-nationalistic ways
5/22 at 5pm NYC
The New World Struggles to be Born:
Paths to Libratory Judaism
Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Jamie Beran, Rebecca Vilkomerson, & NadAv David
What are the obstacles and opportunities of this moment to realize liberatory Judaism as a vibrant, viable alternative to Jewish supremacy? How do we grapple with Jewish communities’ entanglement with Israel and its defenders while also building a new future for Jewish life? How do we as an American Jewish community have the tough conversations we need while navigating threats to our safety and the safety of so many communities? Join Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Jamie Beran, Nadav David in a conversation moderated by Rebecca Vilkomerson to explore paths toward this new world we are all building together.
5/22 at 6pm NYC
“Prison Without A Lock:”
Herem and the Ethics of Boycotts
Rabbi Allen Lipson
For a millennium, politically disenfranchised Jewish communities have looked to herem, the social boycott, as a source of nonviolent means of compelling consent, particularly in cases of violence and public endangerment. In this session, which will include chevruta study, we’ll consider herem’s relevance to the current BDS discourse; explore some medieval rabbinic objections to the use of social coercion, even for nonviolent ends, especially concerns over collective punishment; and analyze a recent application of herem as a remedy for violence against civilians in the West Bank by R. Ya’akov Epstein, a religious-Zionist decisor. You’re welcome to join no matter your text background– all texts will be in Hebrew and English.
5/21 at 7pm NYC
The Torah of Money:
Aligning Wealth with Values
Jewish Investor Network
Come learn with JIN about strategies to deploy your assets (including retirement funds) individually and collectively to support movement work. Learn how to avoid investing in corporations profiting from ICE, the genocide in Gaza, private prisons, and climate disaster (to name a few). We’ll demystify financial language so you can learn where you’re invested and how to take action!
5/21 at 8pm NYC
Abolition Judaism and Ruth:
Covenant, Solidarity, and the World to Come
Rabbi Andy Kahn + Dania Rajendra
We will investigate the Book of Ruth, the traditional reading on Shavuot, whose story of belonging across lines of people and place offers a Jewish model of solidarity grounded in covenant rather than ethnonationalism. We will draw on leftist thinkers to ask what it means to recouple Jewish culture with the political work of liberation. Alongside these thinkers we will hold the prophetic vision of olam habah as this world transformed, and examine how Ruth’s response to Naomi, and the various responses to her from the Israelites, along with her being the grandmother of King David, models the trials and tribulations inherent to a solidaristic covenant that refuses the false promises of “Judeo-Christian values” now being used to bind American Jews to genocide.
5/21 at 9pm NYC
Havurah Movement –
Building Judaism Beyond Zionism
Sarah White
With Sarah White from the ACJ Affiliates Network, Hartford Jewish Organizing Collective. Come learn with left/anti-zionist havurot on the growing movement to build lay-led Jewish ritual spaces.
5/21 at 10pm NYC
Understanding Christian Zionism
Jonathan Brenneman and Rabbi Alissa Wise
Explore the specific consequences of Christian Zionism, and the harm that plays out when any religion marries itself to empire. Together, we will imagine a world free from empire, and ask how we can build collective power to resist religious nationalism in all its forms.
5/21 at 11pm NYC
Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein and Hans Kohn:
Letters from Jewish Binationalists
Rabbi Brant Rosen
Our workshop will present letters written by prominent 20th century Jewish figures who fiercely opposed the creation of a political Jewish nation state in historic Palestine. We will explore their ideas in the context of their time as well as their continued relevance for us today.
5/22 at 12am NYC
Protective Presence in the West Bank:
Myth and Reality
Sydney Levy
As internationals and Jews, what does it mean to put our bodies and privileges on the line in the West Bank? What works and what doesn’t? What are the risks and the benefits?
5/22 at 1am NYC
Kabbalah for this Mystical Night
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
What does Kabbalah teach about times of strife and controversy such as ours? How can we make compassion flow and hearts open? We will look at Zohar and other ancient mystical texts (J. Gikatilla, M. Cordevero, R’ Nachman) to strengthen us and clarify our resolve to bring the rain (of love and care) back to the world, ending with a guided meditation to open to the mystic realms of revelation.
5/22 at 2am NYC
From Jerusalem to Gaza:
Mutual aid and solidarity in the face of fascism and genocide
Tal
What does solidarity look like right now, from Jerusalem to Gaza?
This workshop will share stories of street activism and mutual aid organizing on the ground in Palestine-Israel since the start of the genocide, and will reflect on the meaning of community building, faith, and resistance in fascist society.
5/22 at 3am NYC
Decolonize Your Hebrew – The Workshop
Charlie Halstead, This Is Not An Ulpan
This interactive workshop invites participants to actively explore the deep-seated ties between modern Hebrew, Zionism, and state militarism to imagine a linguistic future beyond the national project. By tracing the historical processes that “streamlined” Hebrew into an instrument of the state, we will uncover the diverse expressions that were marginalized in favor of a standardized identity. Moving beyond theory, we will engage in hands-on practice with specific words, phrases, and linguistic structures to give a tangible taste of how a non-nationalized Hebrew can look and sound in daily life. Together, we will work to disentangle our speech from militaristic frameworks, reclaiming the language as a space for connection, creativity, and a life of its own.
5/22 at 4am NYC
Make My Altar From What You’re Made Of
Rabbi Robin Podolsky
I propose to crack open a text from Shmot featuring the mizbach Adamah, the first concrete command we get following the aseret hadibrot.
When we look at the rabbinic texts derived from these verses, we get rabbinic Judaism, a tradition of praxis. We see how our Rabbis gave us a new method for making meaning. They gave us Judaism, turning from a localized sacrificial cult to a people whose homeland is our texts, our prayers, and our relationships with HaShem and one another. That is how we became what our enemies despise; a people whose skin runs to all the colors of the human and spoke many vernacular languages, who have lived for centuries with no borders and no army of our own.
And we derive all of that from Exodus/Shmot 20:21,22.
5/22 at 5am NYC
Seventy Faces of Torah:
A Practice in Perspective
Rabbi Lizzie Horne Mozes
What might it mean to take seriously the rabbinic idea that Torah has “seventy faces”? In this interactive, text-based workshop, we’ll explore classical sources that imagine revelation as multiple, layered, and contradictory. Then, we’ll experiment with giving visual form to different “faces” of Torah. This session invites participants to engage with Torah not only through textual interpretation, but through creative practice, as a way of encountering experiences beyond our own.
5/22 at 6am NYC
Thou Shalt Not Bulldoze Thy Neighbor’s House
Susan Landau
This workshop is an invitation to reclaim, affirm, and reconsider the moral clarity of Jews of Conscience who, from the late nineteenth century through and beyond 7 October 2023, have expressed opposition to establishing and maintaining a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine.
Lifting these Jewish voices centers Judaism’s ethical tradition, allowing a clear critical distinction between Zionism and Judaism to emerge. This history of dissent to Zionism sets the call for Jewish safety in a new light – one with a focus on building an intersectional movement for collective liberation, rather than an ethno-nationalist state.
Selected quotes from my book, ‘Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By,’ Jews of Conscience on Palestine* will be presented via Power Point to introduce a range of poignant prophetic voices of Jews of Conscience. These will form the basis for facilitated individual and group participation in text study, reflection, and connecting conversations designed to inspire, strengthen, and mobilize today’s movement for collective liberation.
*‘Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By,‘Jews of Conscience on Palestine by Susan Landau is available to order, or to read online or download at no charge.
5/22 at 7am NYC
Modesty, Dignity, and Universal Solidarity
Rabbi Xava De Cordova
What does covering our hair and wearing a kippah have to do with the fundamental value of human life, and the end of all wars? Find out in this workshop! We’ll be exploring fundamental texts on the Jewish ideas of modesty and how they connect to a systematic analysis of agency and freedom for all.
5/22 at 8am NYC
Moving from Fear to Dignity
Dove Kent & Fadi Quran
Fadi Quaran and Dove Kent will each talk about the transformation that American Jewish communities can and must make from a position of fear to an orientation of dignity.
5/22 at 9am NYC
Stories of Asian Jewish Political Consciousness (Working title)
Dean Gottesman-Solomon
Four stories of different Asian-Jewish experiences & identities and how they came to political consciousness & the fight for Palestinian Liberation. The program will include a Q&A at the end.
5/22 at 10am NYC
Jewish Safety Beyond Bombs:
The Case for Blocking U.S. Weapons to Israel
Sarah O’Connor
This workshop will explore our experiences and fears of antisemitism; process the failure of protecting and arming Israel at all costs as a strategy to keep Jews safe; and introduce ways to take action to stop the endless flow of weapons as we build a Jewish future rooted in the values of equality, justice and safety for Palestinians, Jews and all of our neighbors.
5/22 at 11am NYC
Sing a New Justice Song:
Singing from Jews For Racial and Economic Justice’s Song Book Project
Emma Alabaster & Avi Fox-Rosen
Join Emma Alabaster, Avi Fox-Rosen and other member-organizers from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice’s Song Book project as they teach and sing many gems from this ongoing activist song project. We’ll share movement songs used in recent actions, songs collected from our Jewish diasporic roots including repertoire in Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, and Hebrew. And we’ll sing many of our contemporary “tradaptations” setting new words and translations to traditional repertoire. You’ll leave with new songs to share in the places you need them!