Racial Justice: Advancing the Human Project

Temple Micah is continuing to work to understand and confront racism in our building, in our community, and in our world.

We began the Jewish year of 5784 learning from Eric K. Ward, executive vice president of Race Forward and a longtime civil rights organizer. Here is the link to his Yom Kippur talk,  “Somebody Must Be Blamed”: Antisemitism, the Equal Opportunity Ideology.  

In October, Rachel Beanland visited Micah to discuss her recent historical novel, The House is on Fire, based on the true story of a 1811 theater fire in Richmond and its racial repercussions. You may recall that Rabbi Zemel invited Ms. Beanland to Micah after a Florida Jewish Community Center canceled her talk because it focuses on slavery. 

Starting in November, we will dive into Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. This is a familiar title to some of you, as we discussed portions of it in 2022. Now, Micah member Gayle Wald, a George Washington University professor of American Studies, will lead us in a deeper exploration of the book, which combines poetry, essays, scripts, and images to probe issues of citizenship, microaggressions, and anti-Blackness.

  • Each of three sessions will use a different part of Citizen as a touchstone for conversation.  

  • The sessions will be cumulative. We will build on what we learn, continually deepening our ideas.

  • At the end of our study, we will consider what we want to do with the knowledge we have gained. How can we use insights gleaned from Citizen to make our Micah community a space of belonging? To become better citizens of our own communities, including our city or states and our nation?

When are the sessions?

We will meet in person at Temple Micah on:

  • Thursday, November 30 at 7 p.m.
  • Sunday, January 14, 2024 (morning)
  • mid-March 2024 (date TBD)

Why are we revisiting this text? 

We chose Citizen because it is engaging and enlightening, because it straddles literary genres, and because it consists of short, probing pieces that will inform our discussions. Please join us even if you don’t have time to read the entire book. 

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