“In detention centers and prisons, in Rafa and Massafer Yatta, in Sudan, in refugee camps and houseless tent camps, God hears the cries of the oppressed, relates to it as prayer, and stands, as it were, for crushing those who cause those cries. We are commanded to reject Phara‘oh’s callous refusal and to follow God’s model, relating to the cries of the oppressed as sacred speech, running toward them in solidarity. These are the politics of the prayerful life, and they shape our obligations in halakhah.” — Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein in this week’s dvar Torah

This week’s dvar Torah by Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein discusses the prayer recited over Bikkurim, which we analyze every year at the Seder. He observes that the prayer seems to imply that the cries of the oppressed are heard as prayer to Hashem, whether or not they are intended that way. He then draws out how it is our duty to hear the cries of those who are suffering, and to intervene to help them, just as Hashem does.

This past week we released our Tishrei 5787 reader, including essays on Rosh Hashana, Tzom Gedalya, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. Limited print copies are still available to be ordered below!

We also had several events this past week in Chicago, including a Yom Iyyun with Rabbi William Friedman and Dr. Rachel Havrelock, the recordings of which you can catch on our Youtube Channel, as well as a powerful discussion this past Thursday on Jewish power, safety, and solidarity with NIF NewGen and IfNotNow Chicago.

ALSO BELOW: next book club meeting registration, Protect the Harvest deadline approaching, and become and HL member!

Our 5787 High Holiday reader is here!

Our Tishrei reader is now available to read online! You can also check out additional format options for printing at https://www.halachicleft.org/torah

The reader includes essays from Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rana Bickel, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, Rabbi David Polsky, Ya’aqov Lawrence Shenkin, and Prof. Daniel Boyarin!

We still have limited printed copies available for Pre-Order! Get them quick while supplies last. Thank you to all who already ordered print copies for helping us support our writers!

$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)

To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.

CHICAGO Halachic Left Yom Iyyun: Reckoning with Jewish Power

Watch the recordings from our latest Jewish Reckoning with Power learning series!

Rabbi Will Friedman: “‘Legitimate’ Violence and Its Costs: Limits to and Consequences of Self-Defense and War”

Individual and communal self-defense (”war”) are widely accepted in both secular and Jewish ethics as legitimate uses of violence, as long as they stay within defined limits. A careful reading of traditional Jewish texts, however, reveals a discomfort even with these “legitimate” uses of violence. Through an examination of halakhic sources on self-defense and aggadic reflections on violent Biblical narratives, we will expose an alternative ethical universe that recognizes the extraordinarily high price of killing and may even hope to eschew it entirely.

Dr. Rachel Havrelock: “The Joshua State: National Religion in Contemporary Israel”

Building on events that follow publication of The Joshua Generation, we will look at how militarism has both displaced Judaism in Israel and how it has transformed it.

(You can also watch recordings of previous events on Halachic Left’s YouTube channel.)

External Opportunities

Deepen your Jewish justice fuel tank in the Avodah Justice Fellowship in Chicago and New York City! Through 7+ months of evening and weekend sessions, you’ll build purposeful relationships with Jewish social justice professionals and activists, deepen your justice analysis, and develop a Jewish framework for justice work. If you’re in your 20s or 30s and engage in justice work in a personal or professional capacity, we’re looking for you! Applications are due September 8th, though we’ll accept late applications as space allows. Our Chicago director is Halachic Left member (and author of this week’s Dvar Torah) Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein, who is happy to discuss it further with you. abernstein@avodah.net. Learn more and apply at: avodah.net/fellowship

HL Book Club: Here Where We Live is Our Country, Part 2

Sun 8/30, 6pm EDT via Zoom — register here

Join the HL Book Club on Sunday 8/30 for part two of our discussion on Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. Molly Crabapple’s new bestseller reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message— that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment. Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Become a member of Halachic Left!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.

What your support gets you:

☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity

🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings

👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt!

💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift!

Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!

Dvar Torah: Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein on Parshas Ki Tavo:

“The cries of the oppressed are prayer. Hearing them means intervening to end their oppression. Non-hearing means callous disregard of their suffering. Hearing the cries of the oppressed as prayer is an ongoing, existential characteristic of God’s behavior.”

Read the rest here!

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

Registration deadline extended to August 31!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

HaYom Te’amtzeinu features ten new essays from

• Prof. Daniel Boyarin

• Prof. Sarah Wolf

• Rabbi Will Friedman

• Rabbi Vincent Calabrese

• Laynie Soloman

• Rana Bickel

• Ya’aqov Lawrence Shenkin

• Rabbi David Polsky

• Binya Koatz

• Noam Weinreich

on holidays from Rosh Hashanah to Simchas Torah! 🍎🍯🐐🍋🌿💃📜

Edited by Yavni Bar-Yam, Rabbi Lexie Botzum, Max Buchdahl, Rebecca Kleinbart, Caroline Morganti, and Noam Weinreich.

We hope you find strength and meaning in these essays as you enter 5787.

“Therefore, the mandate of the Jewish people within this prophetic framework is to stand as champions of the oppressed across all nations, while drawing a line in the sand between ourselves and all oppressive forces, regardless of kinship status. It is our duty to reclaim the prophetic mantle—the voice of the Torah and Navi—to deliver an unyielding voice of rebuke against those who have chosen to follow the paths of Ammon and Edom, while standing in solidarity among marginalized peoples with the very same sacred purpose.” — Ben Neriyah in this week’s dvar Torah

This week’s dvar Torah by Ben Neriyah (pseudonym) examines the parshah’s treatment of five different nations (Ammon, Moab, Edom, Egypt, and Amalek) as a lesson that nations are judged by their actions rather than their origins. He reminds us that this idea applies to us too: we have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, while (carefully) rebuking to those in our own community who have chosen the path of Ammon and Edom.

We’re hoping to make some tiny progress toward that goal on Sunday at our yom iyyun in Chicago (and over Zoom!) with Rabbi Will Friedman and Dr. Rachel Havrelock! And then on Thursday at another event on Jewish power, safety, and solidarity with NIF NewGen and IfNotNow Chicago.

Other news: we were featured in the Jewish Liberation Fund’s newsletter this week! Watch the recording of JLF interviewing co-Directors Noam Weinreich and Caroline Morganti below.

And don’t miss the release of our High Holiday/Tishrei reader on Sunday! We’re still taking pre-orders for printed copies (US addresses only), if you would like to have HL Torah on your bookshelf for years to come. 💜

ALSO BELOW: new book club meeting announced, Protect the Harvest, and become and HL member!

CHICAGO Halachic Left Yom Iyyun: Reckoning with Jewish Power

THIS Sunday, August 23 at SketchPad, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM CDT — Kosher dairy lunch served! Please RSVP so we know how much food to order!

In-person registration / Zoom registration

Come to our latest event in our Jewish Reckoning with Power learning series. We’ll be learning with Rabbi Will Friedman and Prof. Rachel Havrelock!

Rabbi Will Friedman: “‘Legitimate’ Violence and Its Costs: Limits to and Consequences of Self-Defense and War”

Individual and communal self-defense (”war”) are widely accepted in both secular and Jewish ethics as legitimate uses of violence, as long as they stay within defined limits. A careful reading of traditional Jewish texts, however, reveals a discomfort even with these “legitimate” uses of violence. Through an examination of halakhic sources on self-defense and aggadic reflections on violent Biblical narratives, we will expose an alternative ethical universe that recognizes the extraordinarily high price of killing and may even hope to eschew it entirely.

Dr. Rachel Havrelock: “The Joshua State: National Religion in Contemporary Israel”

Building on events that follow publication of The Joshua Generation, we will look at how militarism has both displaced Judaism in Israel and how it has transformed it.

Each event in the series will be livestreamed/recorded in order to allow everyone to watch speakers in other cities. (You can watch recordings of previous events on Halachic Left’s YouTube channel.)

ALSO CHICAGO: Thursday 8/27: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment?

7:00 PM Private home in Ravenswood, address provided upon registration. Kosher food options will be available.

RSVP Here

Join NIF NewGen, IfNotNow Chicago, and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity”, without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

The Jewish Liberation Fund interviews Halachic Left!

Halachic Left co-Directors Noam Weinreich and Caroline Morganti sat down with the Jewish Liberation Fund (JLF, of which we’re a grantee) to talk about our work. This was featured in the JLF newsletter earlier this week, and we’re sharing the video with you below!

Noam and Caroline talk about HL’s origins (an event with Peter Beinart in January 2024), how we’ve grown, and our current work. They explain the challenges and rewards of talking openly about one’s views on Israel/Palestine within frum communities, and how small wins add up, especially once you discover you’re not as alone as you think you are.

"When people are talking around the Shabbos table, when people are giving speeches in their shul or at their day school, they know that there are Halachic Left members in the room. You can't just pretend the community speaks with one voice, because it doesn't." — Noam Weinreich

Pre-order printed copies of our High Holiday reader!

After a successful first printing run of our Pesach reader, we’re doing it again with our upcoming High Holiday/Tishrei reader. Get a nicely bound copy (or five!) to put on your shelf, give to friends and family, leave around shul somewhere where someone might pick it up… 😏

Confirmed writers include Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rana Bickel, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, Rabbi David Polsky, Ya’aqov Lawrence Shenkin, and Prof. Daniel Boyarin!

PRE-ORDER DEADLINE: THIS Sunday, August 23 — this is the same day we plan to release the reader for free online so you will have a day to decide whether you want to order printed copies.

• Pre-order guarantees your copies, we will order extra printed copies available for purchase on a first-come, first-serve basis.

• Purchasing printed copies helps cover the cost of writer honoraria. Thank you for helping us pay our writers!

$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)

To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.

HL Book Club: Here Where We Live is Our Country, Part 2

Sun 8/30, 6pm EDT via Zoom — register here

Join the HL Book Club on Sunday 8/30 for part two of our discussion on Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. Molly Crabapple’s new bestseller reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message— that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment. Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Become a member of Halachic Left!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.

What your support gets you:

☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity

🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings

👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt!

💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift!

Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!

Dvar Torah: Ben Neriyah on Parshas Ki Teitzei:

“Accordingly, the nations mentioned in this Parasha are not fixed categories that bind people to certain inherent qualities. Rather, they serve as legal and behavioral archetypes for distinct moral conduct.”

Read the rest here!

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

Registration deadline extended to August 31!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

“Leadership is hard, it is supposed to be intentional and generative, ideally it is unselfish... Influence is valued over authority, leading by example is a pre-requisite, humility and walking humbly with G-d and sharing G-d's teachings is the first and most important step.” — Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein in this week’s dvar Torah

We're bringing that spirit of accountable leadership into practice with two Chicago events in the coming weeks, where we'll dig into hard questions about Jewish safety, solidarity, and our own implication in structures of power and supremacy.

We also just launched a membership program! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work, on a sliding scale starting at just $5/year. We’re also taking pre-orders for our High Holiday/Tishrei reader!

CHICAGO Halachic Left Yom Iyyun: Reckoning with Jewish Power

Sunday, August 23 at SketchPad, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM CDT — Kosher dairy lunch served! Please RSVP so we know how much food to order!

In-person registration / Zoom registration

Come to our latest in our Jewish Reckoning with Power learning series. We’ll be learning with Rabbi Will Friedman and Prof. Rachel Havrelock!

Rabbi Will Friedman: “‘Legitimate’ Violence and Its Costs: Limits to and Consequences of Self-Defense and War”

Individual and communal self-defense (”war”) are widely accepted in both secular and Jewish ethics as legitimate uses of violence, as long as they stay within defined limits. A careful reading of traditional Jewish texts, however, reveals a discomfort even with these “legitimate” uses of violence. Through an examination of halakhic sources on self-defense and aggadic reflections on violent Biblical narratives, we will expose an alternative ethical universe that recognizes the extraordinarily high price of killing and may even hope to eschew it entirely.

Dr. Rachel Havrelock: “The Joshua State: National Religion in Contemporary Israel”

Building on events that follow publication of The Joshua Generation, we will look at how militarism has both displaced Judaism in Israel and how it has transformed it.

Each event in the series will be livestreamed/recorded in order to allow everyone to watch speakers in other cities. (You can watch recordings of previous events on Halachic Left’s YouTube channel.)

Become a member of Halachic Left!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.

What your support gets you:

☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity

🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings

👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt!

💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift!

Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!

Pre-order printed copies of our High Holiday reader!

After a successful first printing run of our Pesach reader, we’re doing it again with our upcoming High Holiday/Tishrei reader. Get a nicely bound copy (or five!) to put on your shelf, give to friends and family, leave around shul somewhere where someone might pick it up… 😏

Confirmed writers include Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rana Bickel, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, Rabbi David Polsky, Ya’aqov Lawrence Shenkin, and Prof. Daniel Boyarin!

PRE-ORDER DEADLINE: Sunday, August 23 — this is the same day we plan to release the reader for free online so you will have a day to decide whether you want to order printed copies.

• Pre-order guarantees your copies, we will order extra printed copies available for purchase on a first-come, first-serve basis.

• Purchasing printed copies helps cover the cost of writer honoraria. Thank you for helping us pay our writers!

$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)

To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.

Dvar Torah: Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein on Parshas Shoftim:

“Moshe’s most important quality is his humility. The very doubts and angst he expresses at various points indicates that he knows fully well that his position is not about power, but something quite different. This is what Ramban wants us to understand – this is not about doubt or hesitation regarding the task of leadership, but rather an acute understanding of the gravity it holds.”

Read the rest here!

CHICAGO: Thursday 8/27: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment?

7:00 PM Private home in Ravenswood, address provided upon registration. Kosher food options will be available.

RSVP Here

Join NIF NewGen, IfNotNow Chicago, and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity”, without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

“It’s easy to label each other as trustworthy and untrustworthy, deserving or undeserving, good or bad; much easier than coalition-building and choosing to be in community even when there are very real disagreements. But Jewish tradition has never required the absence of disagreement. Disagreement is sacred when we engage from kindness and curiosity — when it’s machloket l’shem shamayim, argument in the name of Heaven.” — Zohar Hodkin in this week’s dvar Torah

That’s a lesson we’re trying to live out as we approach Elul. We have two events in Chicago in the coming weeks where we’ll flex our muscles of communal disagreement, digging into difficult questions about Jewish safety, solidarity, and our implication in structures of power and supremacy.

Also, in case you haven’t heard, we just launched a membership program! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work, on a sliding scale starting at just $5/year. We’re also taking pre-orders for our High Holiday/Tishrei reader!

CHICAGO Halachic Left Yom Iyyun: Reckoning with Jewish Power

Sunday, August 23 at SketchPad 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM CDT

In-person registration / Zoom registration

Come to our latest in our Jewish Reckoning with Power learning series. We’ll be learning with Prof. Rachel Havrelock (“The Joshua State: National Religion in Contemporary Israel”) and Rabbi Will Friedman (topic TBA)!

Each event in the series will be livestreamed/recorded in order to allow everyone to watch speakers in other cities. (You can watch recordings of previous events on Halachic Left’s YouTube channel.)

Become a member of Halachic Left!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time! Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.

What your support gets you:

☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity

🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings

👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt!

💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift!

Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!

Pre-order printed copies of our High Holiday reader!

After a successful first printing run of our Pesach reader, we’re doing it again with our upcoming High Holiday/Tishrei reader. Get a nicely bound copy (or five!) to put on your shelf, give to friends and family, leave around shul somewhere where someone might pick it up… 😏

Confirmed writers include Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Rana Bickel, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, (and iy”H a few more!)

PRE-ORDER DEADLINE: Sunday, August 23 — this is the same day we plan to release the reader for free online so you will have a day to decide whether you want to order printed copies.

• Pre-order guarantees your copies, we will order extra printed copies available for purchase on a first-come, first-serve basis.

• Purchasing printed copies helps cover the cost of writer honoraria. Thank you for helping us pay our writers!

$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)

To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.

Dvar Torah: Zohar Hodkin on Parshas Re’eh:

“The reasoning here is understandable. ‘The shemittah is soon. The year of release is coming. Perhaps the circumstances will change. Perhaps the need is temporary. Patience can solve this problem.’ But the possibility of a better future doesn’t absolve us of responsibility to each other in the present.”

Read the rest here!

CHICAGO: Thursday 8/27: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment?

7:00 PM Private home in Ravenswood, address provided upon registration. Kosher food options will be available.

RSVP Here

Join NIF NewGen, IfNotNow Chicago, and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity”, without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

Become a member of Halachic Left!

We’re excited to announce that we’re launching membership at Halachic Left for the first time. Join as a member or supporting ally to help sustain our work. Dues are on a sliding scale: you choose your own amount monthly or annually, starting at just $5/year. Gifts of any size are welcome, but for those who can give more, we invite you to give at a level that feels meaningful to you.

What your support gets you:

☝️ First priority for events with limited capacity

🤓 Access to info sessions and organizing trainings

👕 For those who give over $10 / month or $54 / year, get a free piece of HL swag -- your choice of tote bag, short-sleeved t-shirt, or long-sleeved t-shirt! 

💜 Free HL sticker for any level gift! 

Please see https://www.halachicleft.org/membership for more info!

Pre-order printed copies of our High Holiday reader!

After a successful first printing run of our Pesach reader, we’re doing it again with our upcoming High Holiday/Tishrei reader. Get a nicely bound copy (or five!) to put on your shelf, give to friends and family, leave around shul somewhere where someone might pick it up… 😏

Confirmed writers include Rabbi Will Friedman, Laynie Soloman, Prof. Sarah Wolf, Rabbi Vincent Calabrese, Rana Bickel, Binya Koatz, Noam Weinreich, (and iy”H a few more!)

PRE-ORDER DEADLINE: Sunday, August 23 — this is the same day we plan to release the reader for free online so you will have a day to decide whether you want to order printed copies.

• Pre-order guarantees your copies, we will order extra printed copies available for purchase on a first-come, first-serve basis.

• Purchasing printed copies helps cover the cost of writer honoraria. Thank you for helping us pay our writers!

$15/copy + shipping, order up to five copies via PayPal here for US addresses only (if you’re international, reach out to tishrei-5787-editors@halachicleft.org and we’ll figure out shipping rates)

To give you an idea of what it will look like, below is a photo of our Pesach readers.

RESCHEDULED: CHICAGO: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment?

Thursday, August 27, 7:00 PM * HL x NIF NewGen Chicago x IfNotNow Chicago

Private home in Ravenswood (address will be provided upon registration) / Kosher food options will be available

Join New Israel Fund and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity,” without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

RSVP here!

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email info@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

As we near chatzos on 10 Av, the city Eicha describes as sitting desolate isn’t only an ancient memory. Ami Dube’s dvar Torah this week on justice in urban planning brings that image into the present day:

Downtowns sit desolate, filled with parking lots and straddled by freeway loops. What may look like infrastructure can be a tool for those who wield power to consolidate it.

CHICAGO: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment?

Tuesday, July 28, 7:00 PM

Private home in Ravenswood (address will be provided upon registration) / Kosher food options will be available

Join NIF NewGen, IfNotNow Chicago, and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity,” without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

RSVP here

Ami Dube: “Public Space, Public Health, and the Public Good: A Jewish Perspective on Environmental Justice in Urban Planning”

“The freeways that divide neighborhoods and poison the air are the modern expression of those ancient pits, dug wide and deep by years of discriminatory policy. Repairing them through removal, redesign, or restitution is not only sound planning but a fulfillment of our religion’s core ideas of justice.”

Read the rest here!

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org.

Donate to support our work

Any donation amount is meaningful to us! Your tax deductible donation supports Halachic Left in continuing to educate, build community, and increase support for Palestinian rights in the observant Jewish world. Donate via PayPal here.

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

Download our new collection of essays on kinnot

Halachic Left proudly presents Te’ukal B’Eish Basar (“Consumed by Mortal Fire”), a collection of reflections on selected kinnot commonly recited on Tisha B’Av (in the Ashkenaz tradition). On a day suffused with grief over tragedies past and present, when our own words fail us, we look to the paytanim to articulate our feelings and teach us how to grieve. We hope these personal and scholarly reflections are helpful in setting intentions for this year’s Tisha B’Av and continuing to make these pieces relevant to our contemporary experience.

Download it here.

Last chance to sign up for our online educational programming on Tisha B’Av afternoon!

Thursday, July 23, 3:30-7:30pm EDT — Sign up here!

For our third year, we will be holding online educational programming on the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, including a Gemara shiur from Rabbi David Polsky and a screening of the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest, with a pre-film shiur by Rabbi Lexie Botzum and a post-film community discussion.

Schedule (all times US EDT):

• 3:30-4:30pm: Shiur with Rabbi David Polsky: “‘Would You Like Me to Kill Them All?’: Torah Overcoming Violence in the Churban Narrative”

• 4:30-5:00pm: Pre-film shiur with Rabbi Lexie Botzum (*** REQUIRED to attend film)

• 5:00-6:50pm: The Zone of Interest film screening

• 6:50-7:30pm: Post-film discussion

** Please note that for The Zone of Interest, due to licensing requirements, we need to have an accurate estimate of how many people will be attending. The film will be hosted on a secure platform (not Zoom) with attendees capped at the number of people for which we’ve paid in advance. So please only sign up if you’re reasonably sure you will be able to attend, and let us know if your plans change!

Meanwhile, our partners in Israel and Palestine continue to defend against settler violence in the West Bank and support safety for Gazans. You can join them later this year on our protective presence trip (details below). In this period of the Nine Days, we have moved our highlighted tzedakah opportunities to the top of the newsletter and strongly encourage you to give to support our partners and friends.

As Jesse Elovitz writes in this week’s Dvar Torah,

“The duty to move beyond oneself to care for one’s neighbors forms an essential part of the Torah Israel must uphold while living in the Land. Only through honoring its neighbors can Israel come to understand the full meaning of its own conquest.”

Read the Dvar Torah here

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work. Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

• Donate to help solidarity activists in Masafer Yatta repair vehicles destroyed by settlers. We are a group of anti-zionist Israelis who have been engaged in nearly around-the-clock solidarity presence and accompaniment work in Masafer Yatta for six years. To make this work possible, and to be able to show up to the nearly 30 communities that request our presence in the face of Israeli settler-state attacks and harassment. On the night of Monday, May 11, settlers entered the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and severely damaged two vehicles, one of them belonging to a solidarity activist. The settlers smashed all the windows, slashed the tires, and broke the mirrors of the car. Just in the last year, settlers have destroyed our cars four separate times. We regularly have to change flat tires after settlers leave spikes on the road, repair windows, headlights and doors after settlers throw rocks at our cars, and sometimes need to replace entire vehicles that settlers have torched and completely destroyed.

Upcoming Events:

Sun 7/19: Here Where We Live is Our Country Book Discussion (zoom)

7 PM EDT via Zoom (Time changed due to the Men’s World Cup final!)

Join us this Sunday to discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. Molly Crabapple’s new bestseller reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message— that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

RSVP Here

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Get books here to support us

Thu 7/23: Tisha B’Av Shiurim and The Zone of Interest film screening (zoom)

3:30-7:30pm EDT

For a third year, we will be holding online educational programming on the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, including a Gemara shiur from Rabbi David Polsky and a screening of the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest, with a pre-film shiur by Rabbi Lexie Botzum and a post-film community discussion.

RSVP here

Times are approximate, more details forthcoming!

• 3:30-4:30pm: Shiur with Rabbi David Polsky: “‘Would You Like Me to Kill Them All?’: Torah Overcoming Violence in the Churban Narrative”

• 4:30-5:00pm: Pre-film shiur with Rabbi Lexie Botzum (*** REQUIRED to attend film)

• 5:00-6:50pm: The Zone of Interest film screening

• 6:50-7:30pm: Post-film discussion

*** Please note that for The Zone of Interest, due to licensing requirements, we need to have an accurate estimate of how many people will be attending. The film will be hosted on a secure platform (not Zoom) with attendees capped at the number of people for which we’ve paid in advance. So please only sign up if you’re reasonably sure you will be able to attend, and let us know (or re-submit the registration form!) if your plans change!

Tues 7/28: Jewish Privilege & Responsibility: How do we respond in this moment? (HL x NIF Chicago)

7:00 PM Private home in Ravenswood - address will be provided upon registration. Kosher food options will be available.

Join New Israel Fund and Halachic Left to an event involving text study and conversation around two primary questions: how do we hold the need for Jewish safety, and the principle of “safety through solidarity”, without losing sight of our implication in Jewish power and supremacy? And what is our responsibility for violence against Palestinians being perpetrated in our name?

RSVP here

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics. Email info@halachicleft.org if you’re interested.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“To me, sometimes it feels like the world has turned into one big city of refuge. The Mishnah asks what happens when somebody living in a city of refuge accidentally kills another person living in the same city. The rabbis answer that he is exiled from one neighborhood within the city to another one. They paint a picture of contracting spheres of guilt, exiles that get infinitely smaller, isolation that goes deeper and deeper.”

– Gideon Schwartz

Tonight over 50 of our community members gathered on the Upper West Side for an intra-left dialogue with Peter Beinart on the Jewish tent, building new Jewish institutions, and where we go from here. We’ll have a report back for you from the event in next week’s newsletter. Some things are certain, though. We will continue to stand up for Palestinian rights as proud observant Jews. There’s a lot of things coming up, but while you’re reading our newsletter please consider giving tzedaka to Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza to safer conditions in Egypt. Her niece is in immediate danger of abuse and really needs our help.

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

SPECIAL HL INFO SESSION: Wednesday, July 15, 12:30-1:00pm EDT via Zoom

Register here

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest“ that is bringing individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). There will be multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food, and lodging are all arranged (the cost is a sliding scale with $1600 as the standard rate, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available.) The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, and so we think this could be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians.

While all the cohorts will be able to accommodate Shabbat and kashrut, we are trying to plan at least one HL-specific cohort (likely the last week of October) where we can spend the Shabbosim before and/or after together and coordinate on observance-related logistics.

The lead organizers are hosting a special info session for Halachic Left, to address questions specifically related to halachic observance (Shabbat, kashrut, etc.) this coming Wednesday, July 15, 12:30-1:00pm EDT – you can register here. It will also be recorded.

Tisha B’Av Zoom Programming: Shiurim and The Zone of Interest film screening!

Thursday, July 23, 3:30-7:30pm EDT

Register here

For our third year, we will be holding online educational programming on the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, including a Gemara shiur from Rabbi David Polsky and a screening of the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest, with a pre-film shiur by Rabbi Lexie Botzum and a post-film community discussion.

Times are approximate, more details forthcoming!

• 3:30-4:30pm: Shiur with Rabbi David Polsky:

• 4:30-5:00pm: Pre-film shiur with Rabbi Lexie Botzum (*** REQUIRED to attend film)

• 5:00-6:50pm: The Zone of Interest film screening

• 6:50-7:30pm: Post-film discussion

*** Please note that for The Zone of Interest, due to licensing requirements, we need to have an accurate estimate of how many people will be attending. The film will be hosted on a secure platform (not Zoom) with attendees capped at the number of people for which we’ve paid in advance. So please only sign up if you’re reasonably sure you will be able to attend, and let us know (or re-submit the registration form!) if your plans change!

Halachic Left Community Shabbaton

Friday, Oct 16 through Sunday, Oct. 18, at Pearlstone Retreat Center near Baltimore, MD

Registration is coming in the next few weeks, but for now you can sign up on our interest form.

INterested in our shabbaton? click here!

Gideon Schwartz on Parshas Matot-Masei:

“The blood-avenger, according to the Torah’s understanding, is not just a grieving vigilante. He is performing his own sacred duty. No matter how unintentional his crime, the manslayer must remain in the liminal space of the refuge city, completely separated from the community, if he wants to avoid execution. Only the Kohen Gadol’s substitute death releases him.”

Read it here

Book Club: Here Where We Live is Our Country

Sunday, July 19th at 6PM EDT via Zoom

We’re excited to read and discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple this summer. Dates haven’t been picked yet, but we’ll be discussing it twice.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message— that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Register here

Get the book here to support our work

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“And yet, despite all this, Yirmiyahu doesn’t take Pinchas’s route or abandon his argument. He persists — even when told explicitly that no one will listen! — warning of yet more impending violence without employing it as a tactic himself.”

– Caroline Morganti

It’s now the Three Weeks, when we sit with the fact that warnings often go unheeded and the work continues anyway. That’s this week’s dvar Torah, on connections between the parshah and Yirmiyahu — and it sets the tone for everything below, from an urgent ask to help get our friend Maram’s six-year-old out of Gaza, to a new protective-presence initiative for this fall’s olive harvest, to Peter Beinart in NYC this Thursday.

THIS WEEK (NYC): An Evening with Peter Beinart

Thursday, July 9, 6pm, NYC (Upper West Side)

Join us for nosh and conversation with journalist, author, and first-ever HL speaker Peter Beinart! We’ll talk about the Jewish tent, new Jewish institutions, and where we go from here. The event will be Q&A based, so make sure to submit questions on the RSVP form. Conversation will be recorded and made available afterwards.

Register here

Tisha B’Av Zoom Programming: Shiurim and The Zone of Interest film screening!

Thursday, July 23, 3:30-7:30pm EDT via Zoom | Register here

For our third year, we will be holding online educational programming on the afternoon of Tisha B’Av, including a Gemara shiur from Rabbi David Polsky and a screening of the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest, with a pre-film shiur by Rabbi Lexie Botzum and a post-film community discussion. The Zone of Interest follows the commandant of Auschwitz and his family building an idyllic domestic life just over the wall from the camp — a study in willful blindness that feels suited to the day.

Times are approximate, more details forthcoming!

• 3:30-4:30pm EDT: Shiur with Rabbi David Polsky: “‘Would You Like Me to Kill Them All?’: Torah Overcoming Violence in the Churban Narrative”

• 4:30-5:00pm: Pre-film shiur with Rabbi Lexie Botzum (*** REQUIRED to attend film)

• 5:00-6:50pm: The Zone of Interest film screening

• 6:50-7:30pm: Post-film discussion

Register here

*** Please note that for The Zone of Interest, due to licensing requirements, we need to have an accurate estimate of how many people will be attending. The film will be hosted on a secure platform (not Zoom) with attendees capped at the number of people for which we’ve paid in advance. So please only sign up if you’re reasonably sure you will be able to attend, and let us know (or re-submit the registration form!) if your plans change!

Join us as we provide protective presence to the Palestinian olive harvest this fall!

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest” being launched to bring individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). The plan is to have multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food and lodging are all arranged (the cost will be roughly 1200-1300 dollars, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available). The program will be kashrut and Shabbat friendly.

Halachic Left is helping recruit for this initiative and are looking for a rough number of how many Halachic Left people might be interested in participating. While you can register as an individual, we are also exploring the possibility of putting together a Halachic Left cohort to participate together. The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, and so we think this can be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians. If you’re interested, please reach out to info@halachicleft.org to join the HL x Protect the Harvest WhatsApp group.

Halachic Left Community Shabbaton

Friday, Oct 16 through Sunday, Oct. 18, at Pearlstone Retreat Center near Baltimore, MD

Registration is opening in the next couple of weeks — sign up on the interest form to stay in the loop!

Shabbaton Interest Form

Weekly Dvar Torah: Caroline Morganti on Parshas Pinchas and the Three Weeks:

“But Yirmiyahu’s answer was never to give up, but rather to keep making his case. I don’t have a confident theory of when persistence actually works. We’ve failed and continue to fail, badly and repeatedly, most recently and most gravely in Gaza. But I don’t think that failure tells us that all hope is lost, or that the people around us are incapable of hearing us. Only that this is slower, less certain work than either burning it all down or walking away.”

Read it here

Book Club: Here Where We Live is Our Country

Sunday, July 19th at 6PM EDT via Zoom

We’re excited to read and discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple this summer. Dates haven’t been picked yet, but we’ll be discussing it twice.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message— that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Register for the Zoom here

Buy books here to support our work

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“If we set aside the Rabbinic criticism of Bilaam for a moment and look merely at the text, we are left with a prophet who communes with God, is paralleled in his zeal and dedication to Avraham during the Akeidah, and can see and confirms the Godly blessing that has been passed down from Avraham through the generations. This Bilaam is far from the hyperbolic villain the rabbinic tradition imagines, instead serving as a combination of Moshe and Avraham to the non-Jewish nations…”

— R’ Leead Staller

All of a sudden our calendar is packed with opportunities for learning and doing. Check out our upcoming events, including our protective presence trips to the West Bank this fall. While you’re checking out all the opportunities here, please consider giving tzedaka to Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza to safer conditions in Egypt. Her niece is in immediate danger of abuse and really needs our help.

Upcoming Events

Conversation with Peter Beinart: Thursday, July 9, 6pm, NYC (Upper West Side)

Join us for nosh and conversation with journalist, author, and first-ever HL speaker Peter Beinart!

RSVP here

Here Where We Live is Our Country Book Club (Zoom): Evening of July 19th, eastern time

Details below.

Tisha B’Av Programming (Zoom): Afternoon of Thursday, July 23

Join us for shiurim, a film screening, and discussion! Schedule and registration info forthcoming.

Halachic Left Community Shabbaton: Friday, Oct 16 through Sunday, Oct. 18 at Pearlstone Retreat Center near Baltimore, MD

Registration is coming in the next few weeks, but for now you can sign up on our interest form.

Interest form

We’re going to the West Bank this fall

There is a new initiative called “Protect the Harvest” being launched to bring individuals from around the world to do protective presence in solidarity with Palestinian villages during this coming year’s olive harvest season (after the chagim, mid-October through mid-November). The plan is to have multiple week-long cohorts, where the logistics, food and lodging are all arranged (the cost will be roughly 1200-1300 dollars, plus airfare. Financial assistance will also be available). The program will be kashrut and Shabbat friendly. There will be an info session on this Sunday, June 28 at 12pm EDT – register here.

Halachic Left is helping recruit for this initiative and are looking for a rough number of how many Halachic Left people might be interested in participating. While you can register as an individual, we are also exploring the possibility of putting together a Halachic Left cohort to participate together. The initiative is also aiming to be as broad-based as possible, and so we think this can be an excellent opportunity to bring along those in our communities and shuls who are broadly supportive of Israel, but are deeply disturbed by West Bank violence against Palestinians. If you’re interested, please reach out to caroline@halachicleft.org to join the HL x Protect the Harvest WhatsApp group.

R’ Leead Staller on Parshas Chukas-Balak:

“Even in the literal biblical campaign for the land of Israel itself, genocide and wiping any remnant of other nations off the land was never the goal. In fact, it is only once the Jewish people internalize this message of respecting these different cultures– as evidenced by the naming scene at the end of Bamidbar– do we begin to see descriptions of the actual campaign to conquer the land.”

Read it here

July-August Book Club

Evening of July 19th, eastern time.

We’re excited to read and discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple this summer. Dates haven’t been picked yet, but we’ll be discussing it twice.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message—that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Buy books here to support our work

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence. Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work.

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“There is a strong current that encourages yiras shamayim and hashgacha pratis as a transactional system of reward and punishment. And yet, we know this is fundamentally false. Bad things happen to good people. Righteous people die young and warmongers live long and in luxury.”

– Nechoma Moss

Save the date: upcoming events!

• NYC (Upper West Side): Conversation with Peter Beinart: Evening of Thursday, July 9 — Join us for nosh and conversation with journalist, author, and first-ever HL speaker Peter Beinart!

• Zoom: Tisha B’Av Programming: Afternoon of Thursday, July 23 – Join us for shiurim, a film screening, and discussion! Schedule and registration info forthcoming.

Nechoma Moss on Parshas Korach:

“HaShem is with us in all things. I may recoil from the punishment of Korach and its implications for the suffering of innocents, because there is another way: Even in the lowest pit of hell it is possible to draw oneself closer to God, because He is to be found there too.”

Read it here

Bnei Avraham Fundraiser

Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence.

Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work.

Part of HaSmol HaEmuni (The Faithful Left), Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

As violence in the West Bank continues to escalate, this work has never been more urgent. Bnei Avraham has grown to more than 150 activists working in ten communities across the West Bank, and both the need and the demand for this work continue to grow.

Your donation helps cover the practical costs that make protective presence possible: transportation, fuel, food, safety equipment, and volunteer coordination.

Donate here

Learn more about Bnei Avraham

U.S. tax-deductible donations are processed through the New Israel Fund in support of Smol Emuni and Bnei Avraham.

July-August Book Club

We’re excited to read and discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple this summer. Dates haven’t been picked yet, but we’ll be discussing it twice.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message—that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Get books here to support our work

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“There’s something incredibly neat and compelling about the notion of leaders who bear the full weight of a community’s sin. The notion that blame can be isolated to the authorities in whom people put their trust; that while the “whole community has sinned,” it is only the leaders who are culpable. But the story of the meraglim doesn’t allow quite so comfortable a siloing.”

– R’ Lexie Botzum

R’ Botzum goes on to explore the meaning of dissenting voices within the kahal and how our testimony and moral courage shapes communal responsibility. We are the members of our communities who can speak with clarity and expertise in challenge to the indoctrination of the status quo in religious communities. We offer an alternative that is grounded in Torah, and our perspective is crucial in changing the minds of our broader communities. Our recent yemei iyyun have been a part of this work, and you can watch and share all the shiurim on our YouTube channel!

R’ Lexie Botzum on Parshas Shelach:

“Most of these qualifications boil down to a similar point: blame can only be placed solely on the leadership if they were a united front, invested with legitimate authority, and the community had no exposure to dissenting opinions–no way of possibly knowing the falseness of the court’s ruling… In this story, the people ultimately bear less culpability; while the scouts die immediately, others might live to see another thirty years. But the fact that their leaders led them astray does not divest them of responsibility.”

Read it here

Bnei Avraham Fundraiser

Please support the recently launched fundraising campaign for Bnei Avraham, a religious Jewish activist movement working alongside Palestinian communities in the West Bank through protective presence.

Their initial goal is to raise $50,000 to sustain and expand this vital work.

Part of HaSmol HaEmuni (The Faithful Left), Bnei Avraham brings together Haredi, Orthodox, Masorti, and other religious Jews who believe that faith calls us not only to prayer and study, but also to moral action. These religious activists accompany Palestinian farmers to their lands, stand with families under threat, and help prevent violence, harassment, and displacement on the ground.

As violence in the West Bank continues to escalate, this work has never been more urgent. Bnei Avraham has grown to more than 150 activists working in ten communities across the West Bank, and both the need and the demand for this work continue to grow.

Your donation helps cover the practical costs that make protective presence possible: transportation, fuel, food, safety equipment, and volunteer coordination.

DONATE

Learn more about Bnei Avraham

U.S. tax-deductible donations are processed through the New Israel Fund in support of Smol Emuni and Bnei Avraham.

July-August Book Club

We’re excited to read and discuss Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple this summer. Dates haven’t been picked yet but we’ll be discussing it twice.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message—that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Get books here to support our work

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Help our friend Maram get her six-year-old niece out of Gaza: Our friend Maram was able to leave Gaza last September to pursue a master’s degree in Ireland. Now she’s trying to raise money to pay for her niece to leave Gaza for safer conditions in Egypt.

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“What should we do based on the conclusion that it is time for messianic redemption? We should listen for God’s voice — acting morally and in accord with halachah, loving our fellows, protecting the vulnerable, as we always must. Messianic movements are dangerous when believers conclude that bringing about the ultimate redemption supersedes other ethical, halachic and practical concerns. At any given moment — and may the moments that seem especially auspicious motivate us the more — we have to evaluate what is the right mode of acting in the world to bring about redemption. But crucially, it may well not be the most direct-seeming route to the promised land or to the prophesied future.”

– Yavni Bar-Yam

Reflecting on our Yemei Iyyun so far

You can watch the recordings from the previous events on our YouTube channel!

Eliana Sisman reflects on our event in LA: “I was honored and delighted to organize the Halachic Left Yom Iyyun in Los Angeles. Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller spoke about the history of moderate religious Zionist thinkers like Moshe Avigdor Amiel and Yehuda Amital, and the need to speak out against the growth of militarism and worship of the state in religious communities. Aryeh Cohen spoke about Rabbi Tamares, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and advocate for non-violence who said that the rejection of violence and oppression is the heart of Judaism, and Alona Weimer spoke about Jewish, Black and Palestinian perspective on reparations. All the speakers were great and it was wonderful to come together in learning and community.”

Yavni Bar-Yam on Parshas Beha’alosecha:

“What if we entertain the premise that the modern period really does carry all the signs of being the moment for the messianic redemption? After all, plenty of older and wiser scholars than I of the last few generations have been convinced of its soundness (even if others have not), and they knew very well every source and historical precedent that I could cite against their arguments.

Then we can ask: mai nafka mina? What practical consequence follows from the conclusion that our current moment fits into our prophesied expectations of the end of days?”

Read it here

BOSTON: Crisis and Conversation: An Evening with Protective Presence Activists Or Sivan, Maya Mark, and Roei Kleitman

Presented by NewGen Boston, co-sponsored by IfNotNow Boston and Halachic Left, Sunday, June 7 at 7pm, Havurat Shalom (113 College Ave., Somerville, MA 02144)

Register here!

On Sunday, June 7, in Somerville, IfNotNow, Halachic Left, and NewGen Boston will be hosting a delegation of protective presence activists.

By placing themselves between soldiers, settlers, and villagers in the West Bank, these activists—Or Sivan, Maya Mark, and Roei Kleitman—help to shield Palestinian communities from violence, and document injustices that are crucial to the work of Israeli human rights organizations.

We look forward to having an in-depth conversation with Or, Maya, and Roei as they share their stories, discuss their work, and share ways to support their efforts.

We hope to see you there!

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Zoom RSVP

Get books here to support us

Read the book free online here

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“Think about how untruths spread like wildfire in our own lives and how rumors that are unfounded become hard-wired truth. Further, look at the way institutions can be used to excuse and even ignore the need for accountability on the part of perpetrators of injustices. Again, we are confronting this reality daily in our own lives.”

– Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein

We’ve been exploring this intersection of Judaism and power from lots of angles in our series of yemei iyyun. You can join the conversation in LA this Sunday, May 31, and watch the recordings from the previous events in DC, Philly, and Boston on our YouTube channel!

Jewish Reckoning with Power in LA (and Zoom!)

Sunday, May 31 from 1-5pm PDT (4-8pm EDT), IKAR Event Space, 1729 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035

In-person registration

Zoom registration

(light lunch served, please sign up so we can estimate food quantities!)

We’ll be learning with sessions from:

• Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller: “Power, Morality and the Future of Zionism”

• Rabbi Aryeh Cohen: “The Powerlessness of Power in the Thought of R. Aharon Shmuel Tamares”

• Alona Weimer: “Reckoning with Repair: Reparations Frameworks in Rabbinic Thought”

Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein on Parshas Naso:

“How do we take these messages to heart? By working with and in groups such as this one, we are engaged in the intentional work of figuring out what to do when life comes into conflict with Jewish theoretical frameworks. How do we address… this regarding other groups in our lives as “observant” Jews adhering to a system that asks us to be and do better? Do we look at the purpose and thinking behind what we read and learn? How do we apply this to other teachings that may be antithetical to living a life of purpose, intention and Mitzvos?

Read it here

BOSTON: Crisis and Conversation: An Evening with Protective Presence Activists Or Sivan, Maya Mark, and Roei Kleitman

Presented by NewGen Boston, co-sponsored by IfNotNow Boston and Halachic Left, Sunday, June 7 at 7pm, Havurat Shalom (113 College Ave., Somerville, MA 02144)

Register here!

On Sunday, June 7, in Somerville, IfNotNow, Halachic Left, and NewGen Boston will be hosting a delegation of protective presence activists.

By placing themselves between soldiers, settlers, and villagers in the West Bank, these activists—Or Sivan, Maya Mark, and Roei Kleitman—help to shield Palestinian communities from violence, and document injustices that are crucial to the work of Israeli human rights organizations.

We look forward to having an in-depth conversation with Or, Maya, and Roei as they share their stories, discuss their work, and share ways to support their efforts.

We hope to see you there!

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Read the book free online

Get books here to support our work

Zoom RSVP

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“While [our] cause is rightfully headed by Palestinian activists, we ourselves must also take leadership roles in our communities. This crown of leadership must be backed up with the crown of Torah, with a oneness to Hashem. This crown is merited not in the selective use of Torah towards our material ends, but rather in our love for it which parallels Hashem’s love for us.”

– Atira Chaya in this week’s dvar Torah

As we get ready to receive the Torah on Shavuos, Atira reminds us of how crucial it is that we keep ahavas Torah at the center of our identities and our activism. When so many are working to conflate yiddishkeit and support for genocide, Atira points out that our power as frum left activists comes from our relationships with Hashem. As we enter Shavuos, take some time to strengthen your Torah learning and your morality. That’s what we all need for the work ahead.

Sefira has been full of learning for us, and we are jumping right back into it with our Los Angeles yom iyyun on Sunday, May 31 and our next book club on Sunday, June 7.

You can watch the recordings from the previous events in DC, Philly, and Boston on our YouTube channel!

Jewish Reckoning with Power in Los Angeles (and Zoom!)

Sunday, May 31 from 1-5pm PDT (4-8pm EDT), IKAR Event Space, 1737 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035

In-person registration (light lunch served, please sign up so we can estimate food quantities!) • Zoom registration

We’re continuing our learning series on Jews and power at the fourth city, Los Angeles! You can also listen via Zoom if you’re not local, and watch recordings of previous events in the series on our YouTube channel (subscribe!)

In LA, we’ll be learning from:

• Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller: “Power, Morality and the Future of Zionism”

• Rabbi Aryeh Cohen: “The Powerlessness of Power in the Thought of R. Aharon Shmuel Tamares”

• Alona Weimer: “Reckoning with Repair: Reparations Frameworks in Rabbinic Thought”

Atira Chaya on Shabbos Shavuos:

“Yet on Shavuos, Hashem draws us close and asks “What do you need?” Our lives today are filled with ratzo—the chassidic connotation being the performance of material praxis fueled by spiritual insights. We should not be blind to the fact that these works grow hollow when we run low on spiritual inspiration. The genius rhythm of our calendar brings us Shavuos, a time for shov—the counterpart of ratzo, the stirring of our souls upwards towards Hashem.”

Read the rest here!

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Zoom RSVP

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Read this classic free online here or buy a copy from our reading list to support our work.

Register for the Zoom

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

Donate to support Halachic Left’s work!

Donations help us with events, admin costs, and more. Your support at any level is greatly appreciated!

“When we reflect on who is counted in the Jewish people, and what values we emphasize with those decisions, Bamidbar can remind us to uplift those in our community with a more expansive and sustainable view of the future — one built on religious conviction and faith, with the wisdom to rely not on our own military strength, but instead on God and on our tradition.”

– R’ Shira Botzum

We’re looking forward to learning with you in person or over Zoom for our upcoming yemei iyyun in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, (You can watch the recordings from the previous events in Boston and Philly on our YouTube channel!) and at our summer book club in June!

Yemei Iyyun: Jewish Reckoning with Power in DC and LA (and Zoom!)

Washington, DC, Sunday, May 17 from 1-5pm EDT @ the Festival Center; Light lunch from David Chu’s served

In-person registration • Zoom registration

We’ll be learning with sessions from:

• Rabbi Avigayil Halpern: “What do we mean when we say ‘Halachic Left’?”

• Professor Sam Shuman: “Of Mice and Hasidic Men: The Populist Revival of Reb Shayale and Its Lessons for the Left”

• Rabbi Amelia Wolf : “‘The Nile is Mine, I Created It’: Higher Governance and Changed Nature in the Sefat Emet”

For shiur descriptions, go to the Eventbrite page.

Los Angeles, Sunday, May 31 from 1-5pm PDT

In-person registration • Zoom registration

We’ll be learning with sessions from:

• Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller: “Power, Morality and the Future of Zionism”

• Rabbi Aryeh Cohen: “The Powerlessness of Power in the Thought of R. Aharon Shmuel Tamares”

• Alona Weimer, topic to be announced!

R’ Shira Botzum on Parshas BaMidbar:

“It is true that the group originally counted, and the group counted again in the second census, are the segment of B’nei Yisrael with military capability, and that God/Moshe/the text are implying something about the importance of that capability with this choice. However, the events of the rest of the book remind us that this group — those who held the most societal power and were considered the most physically capable and useful in battle — did not ultimately have the spiritual strength, faith, and resilience to be entrusted with entering the land and building a new society.”

Read it here

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Read the book free online

Buy the book here to support us

Zoom RSVP

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

“The Torah is not static, and our interpretations hold truth-making power. In a real sense, the spirit of the Jewish tradition is opposed to slavery, because we have called forth the texts, memories, and attitudes that render it an abomination.”

– Dan Grossman

Look further into how we render our tradition through interpretive power at our upcoming yemmei iyyun!

May Yemmei Iyyun: Jewish Reckoning with Power comes to Philly, DC, and LA (and Zoom!)

After a break for Pesach, we look forward to seeing you in person or over Zoom for upcoming events in our yom iyyun series. (You can watch the recordings from the first event in Boston on our YouTube channel!)

Next up is Philadelphia THIS Sunday, May 10 from 5-9pm @ Old Pine Community Center

In-person registration • Zoom registration

(bring your mom after Mother’s Day brunch!); Dinner from Bar Bombón served

We’ll be learning over dinner with sessions from:

Rabbi David Greenstein: “Halakha, Gender, Power, and Choice”

Laynie Soloman: “Becoming Halakhically Ungovernable: Halakha as a Site of Resistance”

Netanel Zellis-Paley and Zohar Hodkin: “‘Mother, can I trust the government?’: A Jewish Approach to Fighting Power”

For shiur descriptions, go to the Eventbrite page.

Then Washington, DC on Sunday, May 17 from 1-5pm EDT @ the Festival Center; Light lunch served

In-person registration • Zoom registration

We’ll be learning with sessions from:

Rabbi Avigayil Halpern: “What do we mean when we say ‘Halachic Left’?”

Professor Sam Shuman: “Of Mice and Hasidic Men: The Populist Revival of Reb Shayale and Its Lessons for the Left”

Rabbi Amelia Wolf : “‘The Nile is Mine, I Created It’: Higher Governance and Changed Nature in the Sefat Emet”

For shiur descriptions, go to the Eventbrite page.

And Los Angeles on Sunday, May 31 from 1-5pm PDT

In-person registration • Zoom registration

We’ll be learning with sessions from:

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller: “Power, Morality and the Future of Zionism”

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen: “The Powerlessness of Power in the Thought of R. Aharon Shmuel Tamares”

Alona Weimer, topic to be announced!

Dan Grossman on Parshas Behar Behukosai:

“Rabbi Sacks and Rav Nachum Rabinovitz articulate the core value that the Torah opposes the unjust exercise of power, but by evading a full encounter with otherness, the apologetic narrative replicates the blind spot it claims to have overcome. Likewise, the failure to reckon with why the Jewish tradition upheld slavery for so long parallels the tendency to avoid asking difficult questions about the present.”

Read it here

Newsworthy

• Our very own Ami Dube published an op-ed in the Forward last Friday! I’m an Orthodox student in NYC. I’m grateful Mamdani vetoed the school buffer bill “Hunter is capable of promoting free expression and dialogue, along with security measures to protect students when necessary. There’s nothing to gain from imposing heavy-handed restrictions on my university and my classmates that would suppress their speech. And there’s much to lose. Hunter is a bastion of free thought, somewhere my classmates and I can immerse ourselves in different perspectives, and learn through dialogue and debate. It’s somewhere you can espouse unpopular opinions, as long as you have the ability to defend your argument… Encountering ideas that differ from your own should be thought-provoking, even thrilling. It should be what college is all about.”

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Zoom RSVP

Buy the book here to support our work

Read the book free online

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org

We are also fast approaching our Philly, Washington DC, and Los Angeles Yemmei Iyyun, so remember to RSVP to those!

TONIGHT! Jews Demand: ICE Out! National Day of Action

Thursday, April 30 – various locations across the US

Halachic Left is joining a broad coalition led by T’ruah and Bend the Arc for the “Jews Demand: ICE Out!” National Day of Action. Find an action near you!

On Thursday, April 30, Jews around the country will gather to demand ICE out — anchored by a mass action in New York City. We stand with immigrants and reject ICE brutality and violence. We want ICE out of our schools and workplaces, our parks and streets, our places of worship, and our communities everywhere. Grounded in our sacred teachings, we will make the moral case that this system is both a policy failure and a failure of conscience — and that it does not have to be this way.

Join us to send a clear message: the Jewish community rejects any immigration system that treats human beings as less than human.

Jewish Reckoning with Power in Philadelphia! (and DC and Los Angeles)

We look forward to seeing you in person or over Zoom for upcoming events in our yom iyyun series.

Next up is Philadelphia on Sunday, May 10 from 5-9pm (bring your mom after Mother’s Day brunch!)

We’ll be learning over dinner with sessions from:

• Rabbi David Greenstein on gender power dynamics in halacha

• Laynie Soloman on halacha as a site of resistance to empire

• Netanel Zellis-Paley and Zohar Hodkin on the halachic obligation to fight tyranny

Register to attend in-person via Eventbrite (helpful so we can estimate food!) or register to attend over Zoom.

You can also register for future sessions in DC and Los Angeles!

• Washington, DC: Sunday, May 17, 1-5pm EDT @ the Festival Center (In-person registration / Zoom registration)

• Los Angeles: Sunday, May 31, 1-5pm PDT (4-8pm EDT) (In-person registration, Zoom registration)

• (more dates and locations forthcoming!)

And you can watch the recordings from the first event in Boston on our YouTube channel.

Parshas Emor:

“The Torah on many occasions describes how the sinful actions of the Jewish people will lead to the Holy Land becoming impure. In particular, at the end of a section describing doing justice to murderers, we read וְלֹא תְטַמֵּא אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם יֹשְׁבִים בָּהּ אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי שֹׁכֵן בְּתוֹכָהּ כִּי אֲנִי יְהֹוָה שֹׁכֵן בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל - do not defile the land that you are dwelling upon, that I have placed you within, for I am Hashem who dwells among Bnei Yisrael (Bamidbar 35:34). Religious anti-Zionist thinkers of the 20th century believed that when the Land is filled with sin, its holiness is replaced with impurity, and one is better off staying far away from it. The law of the kohen offers another model for thinking about this impurity.”

Read it here

Summer Book Club

Sunday, June 7 at 7 PM EDT

Join Zohar and the rest of the book club to read All That’s Left to You by Ghassan Kanafani: the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family.

Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose.

Familiarity with the text is encouraged, but anyone with an interest in the subject, even without reading the book, is invited to join.

Zoom RSVP

Get the book here to support us!

Read the PDF for free!

Tzedakah Opportunities

• Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT”A: Founding DC’s 1st Black Jewish Shul: Help our friend Rabbi Shais Rishon (also known as Ma Nishtana) build a traditionalist Modern Orthodox synagogue for African American and Caribbean Jews and welcoming to all!

• Help Beth Israel of Jackson, MS rebuild after arson. Join the Jewish Federations and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in supporting the oldest shul in Mississippi.

• SupportSydney.com – dedicated to supporting the Sydney Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting. Thank you to Nathan (whose sister lives in Sydney) for sharing.

• Khalil Abu Yahia Gaza Solidarity Fund Khalil believed unwaveringly in solidarity and friendship. Honor his memory by giving to his brother’s project in Northern Gaza.

• In Memory of Hayim Katsman z”l Give to support building a community center in the Bedouin city of Rahat.

• Help our sick friend Maram and her family!

Want to write a dvar Torah for us?

The HL Torah team is incredibly excited to continue our weekly dvar Torah series. We would love to have as many participating authors as possible! Please fill out this form to apply to write a dvar Torah! If you have any questions please email nechoma@halachicleft.org