Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Perhaps Leonard Cohen was thinking of his lyrics to the song "Anthem" in 2010, when he donated $10K to support Road to Recovery — an organization of volunteers who transport Palestinian patients to and from border crossings for essential medical treatment at Israeli hospitals.

Road to Recovery began in 2006, through connections between Israelis and Palestinians who have lost close family members to the ongoing violence. A bereaved Palestinian man, whose brother needed transport for cancer treatment, reached out to a bereaved Israeli man for driving assistance. Hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian volunteers, patients and families have come together since that time on a lifesaving journey of healing and hope.

At least four Road to Recovery volunteers — Adi Dagan z"l, Eli Or-Gad z"l, Tammy Suchman z"l, and Vivian Silver z"l — were killed on October 7th. Four more Road to Recovery volunteers lost close family members to the attack. Two volunteers, Chaim Peri and Oded Lifshitz, are among the hostages still held in Gaza. Volunteer Yocheved Lifshitz, Oded's wife, was among the first hostages released.

Yet Road to Recovery volunteers continue to transport patients to and from West Bank checkpoints for lifesaving cancer treatment, organ transplants and kidney dialysis.

How can WE help bring in more light through the cracks of these shattered times? *

WAYS OF PEACE was born out of a previous time of Israel/Palestine conflict, during five years in Haifa and Jerusalem that included the 1991 Gulf War and the first Intifada.

Our work upholds 1,800 years of spiritual guidance for humanitarian action across many lines of intractable conflict — between different kinds of Jews as well as between Jews and other peoples:

"In cities of diversity...we organize ourselves and our money...and sustain the poor...and visit the sick...and bury the dead...and console the bereaved...for these are ways of peace." (Jerusalem Talmud)

* In our commitment to just-giving, WAYS OF PEACE contributes at least 10 percent of net staff compensation forward to other organizations — like Road to Recovery — that uphold our core mandates of renewing justice and kindness across lines of diversity. During this Festival of Rededication and Letting Light In, we hope you will be generous — and we promise to extend your generosity even further. 

Once again, we mourn the deaths of all whose lives have been cut short by violence and hatred. For all who survive to carry the wounds, we pray for healing and recovery.

The traumas are relentless and overwhelming. We need to grieve; yet we can't afford to be paralyzed by rage, numbness or despair. No matter how heartbreaking the situation, there are always real, practical options for sharing our time and money, for bringing people together across differences to affirm our shared humanity.

As we struggle to find words that can bring us together, there is power in compassionate presence and tangible actions like these:

• Join our renewed interfaith vigil to honor the dead and bear witness to the suffering of the living.

• The life-saving practices of just-giving — simple, flexible, and fair — have never been more urgent. Join us as we put just-giving into action!

In our commitment to just-giving, WAYS OF PEACE contributes at least 10 percent of net staff compensation forward to other organizations that renew justice and kindness across lines of diversity.

Reserve Your Online Spot by Wednesday 10/11!

HOW TO MOVE OUR MONEY: Practicing Reparations as Spiritual Release

Six Thursdays Beginning October 12th

7PM EASTERN • 6PM CENTRAL • 5PM MOUNTAIN • 4PM PACIFIC

"It’s rare to find a space where social justice and money management converge....The workshop is supportive, insightful and inspirational, and it’s empowering to have the tools to move 'just giving' forward. I couldn’t recommend it more highly."

Join the next cohort of this unique nonsectarian course! The powerful practices of HOW TO MOVE OUR MONEY are equally applicable to our crises of wartime violence and displacement, homelessness, environmental justice, immigrant solidarity, gun violence, mental illness, reproductive freedom, and more — regardless of personal income or affluence levels.

For more information or to register, please REVIEW THIS LINK AND REPLY NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11TH.

UNITY WALK ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15TH *

 

"In cities of diversity...we organize ourselves and our money...

to sustain and empower the poor...for these are ways of peace."

Although I am a Manhattan-born New Yorker, my parents raised us north of the city in Rockland County — in part because of the East Ramapo Central School District, then considered one of the best public school systems in New York State. Today the East Ramapo CSD is considered among the worst, due to heartbreaking causes and conditions that make periodic news headlines.

"East Ramapo exemplifies holistic failure. Neither the public school nor the nonpublic school children receive the education they need and deserve; it literally embodies the worst of both educational worlds. The local public schools don't have the resources to provide equivalent education to that of other districts in the county, while many yeshivas in East Ramapo don't teach English, math, science and social studies. Tragically, the public schools and yeshivas are pitted against one another for resources." — We must stop failing East Ramapo's children (Lohud.com)

Many parents of East Rampo public school children are undocumented immigrants. Proyecto Faro / Project Lighthouse is an immigrant-led organizing effort for East Ramapo educational justice and more:

"We are committed to acting as a lighthouse in the midst of the storm, walking hand in hand with all refugees and undocumented neighbors who are navigating hostile waters with the goal of helping all to find solid ground. We are motivated in part by the spirit shared across religious boundaries, that our God commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves."

I will be representing WAYS OF PEACE in the Proyecto Faro Unity Walk on Sunday, October 15th to raise funds for their vital programs. If you are willing to support the walk with a flat donation or per-mile, please visit this link: 

* Proyecto Faro Unity Walk | Regina's Fundraising Page

VISION. LAMENTATION. HOW?

We are approaching the annual Jewish “Sabbath of Vision.” It's a spiritual preparation for Tisha b'Av: our ancient Jewish day of mourning for millenia of hatred, violence, and exile.

On Tisha b'Av itself, we'll read the book called Lamentations in English and Eikha in Hebrew. The readings for the “Sabbath of Vision” also highlight the word Eikha—which literally means “How.”

In painful, troubled times like these—when so many are lamenting what seems like the absence of vision—how we understand the word “How” may be our key to transformation. LEARN MORE

Second Annual Multi-Commemorative Walk at

the Maria Hernandez Park Labyrinth

Sunday, August 6th at 10:45 AM

Maria Hernandez Park Labyrinth. Photo Credit: Matt Green / imjustwalkin.com

Commemoration is an essential part of healing through brokenness. WAYS OF PEACE has been leading regular peace walks at the 9/11 commemorative labyrinth since the 20th anniversary of tragedies that shook our city, our country and our world. Last week we led our first remembrance walk to commemorate 160 years since the rarely-acknowledged NYC lynchings of 1863. LEARN MORE

On Sunday August 6th — known internationally as Hiroshima Day — we will hold our second annual multi-commemorative remembrance walk at Maria Hernandez Park. Through each section of the park labyrinth, we will bear witness to different historical manifestations of ongoing violence — most of which occurred between August 6th and August 9th:

• The 1989 killing of neighborhood activist Maria Hernandez — one block southwest of the park that now bears her name

 

• The 1930 lynchings in Marion, Indiana that galvanized the writing of “Strange Fruit”

 

• The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

 

• The 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

• The ancient and contemporary challenges of Tisha b'Av, which often falls during these days

 

• The theft, exile and destruction of Native American lands, families, and cultures

Step by step, we will support each other as we renew

our commitments to healing and justice for ALL.

The Maria Hernandez labyrinth walk will take place rain or shine, but space is limited. Please reply to waysofpeace.org@gmail.com NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, AUGUST 5TH to confirm your participation, receive any last-minute updates, and get directions.

 

The Equal Justice Initiative / Community Remembrance Project partners with community coalitions to memorialize documented victims of racial violence throughout history and foster meaningful dialogue about race and justice today. The Community Soil Collection Project gathers soil at lynching sites for display in haunting exhibits bearing victims’ names. PHOTO CREDIT: Mickey Welsh / Montgomery Advertiser via USA Today Network

Thursday, July 13th will be 160 years since the New York City lynching of William Jones and others — most of whose names we may never know — in the infamous "Draft Riots." The trailblazing Colored Orphan Asylum was also looted and burned to the ground that day, although staff managed to escort its 233 children to safety.

Very few New Yorkers are aware of this most murderous civil insurrection in U.S. history, and to this day there are no commemorative markers.  LEARN MORE

Destruction of the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, NYC "Draft Riots" (NYPL)

If you are NYC-local, please write to waysofpeace.org@gmail.com for information about two commemorative walks to honor William Jones along with countless others named and unnamed. Step by step, we will bear witness to historical and current violence, as we renew our long-term commitments to justice and healing.

Wherever you are, you can join us later on this 160th anniversary for the next online interfaith cohort of

How To Move Our Money: Practicing Reparations As Spiritual Release

Six Thursdays beginning July 13th @ 7PM ET / 6PM CT / 5PM MT / 4PM PT

"It’s rare to find a space where social justice and money management converge....The workshop is supportive, insightful and inspirational, and it’s empowering to have the tools to move 'just giving' forward. I couldn’t recommend it more highly."

The powerful reparations practices of "How To Move Our Money" are equally applicable to our crises of homelessness, reproductive freedom, gun violence, mental illness, immigrant solidarity, wartime displacement and more — regardless of personal income or affluence levels.

Space is limited. TO REGISTER, PLEASE REVIEW THIS LINK AND WRITE TO waysofpeace.org@gmail.com NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY, JULY 12TH.

NAACP flag flown from NYC headquarters until 1938 (Library of Congress, Courtesy NAACP)

Bear Witness. Then Keep Making Choices.

Image Credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York

Creative Commons BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

I'm thinking about one of those days, not long before the killing of Jordan Neely, when — on the same northbound F train line — a disheveled homeless man who had been sprawled out in the middle of my subway car sat up wild-eyed and began ROARING, cursing and glaring. One rider moved to another car, while the rest of us sat and kept our distance in stoic silence. Eventually the man stopped his screaming tirade, stood up as quietly as the rest of us, and shuffled off the train at the next station.

In order to "do no harm," we each need to do what we can. Sometimes, that means sitting in discomfort without escalating a crisis. For some, it means moving to another subway car. For others, it means offering money or food. At our best, "do no harm" involves bearing witness to understand — and then resist — the deadening, deadly process of dehumanization. 

"I didn’t kill Neely. But I didn’t do much to save him, either."
— Issac Bailey, CNN

While I generally don't give money to people begging and don't usually have extra food available, I always try to offer simple human acknowledgement and eye contact — unless I sense that this would not be safe or helpful (as with the man above, whom I simply monitored out of the corner of my eye while he roared).

And nearly 40 years ago, I spent my first of many overnights in faith-based respite shelters for individual homeless people. In the shadows of Jordan Neely's death, I began to sign up for overnights again. Sadly, Neely himself would not have passed the necessary screening for these shelters, given his acute needs and arrest history. Yet respite bed programs can support many others who have not — or not yet — been pushed to the same extremes of trauma and despair. 

Image Credit: Brooklyn Heights Synagogue (bhsbrooklyn.org/homeless-shelter)

A neighborhood-based organization provides single-mattress cots with linen service and blankets to participating houses of worship. Volunteer coordinators schedule and support other volunteers to cook and serve dinner, or to stay overnight on cots in another room and then offer snacks, leftovers or breakfast in the morning. A drop-in center screens and busses 8-10 unhoused fellow human beings to each site in the evening, and picks them up again in the early morning.

It may not be the most convenient or comfortable way to spend the night, but it's one of the most safe, accessible and REhumanizing ways I've found to put my own body on the line. We bear witness — beyond finger-pointing — to our tangled tragedies of homelessness in a way that, however incremental and small, is part of a real solution for real people. Simply by sleeping on a basement cot for one or two nights a year, I become a small but essential part of a greater solidarity network — one that can and does advocate for broader policy changes. Meanwhile, individual homeless people get a decent night’s sleep — which prevents the debilitating foot swelling that comes from sitting up all night in a chair, and increases the chances of moving into permanent housing.

350 Lafayette Street, 1914. Image Credit: Flickr Commons Project, 2011

Another way to bear witness is to to walk up a block or two from the subway station where Jordan Neely was left dead. There stands a building formerly known as 350 Lafayette Street, originally constructed in 1914 as the first free animal hospital in the United States. By the time the crises of NYC homelessness began to attract (affluent) public attention in the early 1980s, the animal hospital had become a central municipal shelter for homeless women. In 1988 the private nonprofit CUCS (now the Center for Urban Community Services) began to operate the site.

The best-practices success of CUCS at 350 Lafayette Street over the next 27 years involved placing more than 1,500 homeless women into affordable housing, working with an average of 55 women annually. That was not enough to prevent their eviction in 2015, when the landmarked building was sold to a major developer of luxury retail stores. For awhile, "upgraded" as 11 Bond Street, the building featured SHOWFIELDS NoHo: "a multi-level store highlighting unique, direct-to-consumer brands in wellness, home & design." Showfields ultimately filed for bankruptcy, and 11 Bond is seeking new upscale retail tenants.

SO HOW ARE WE MOVING OUR MONEY?

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark says he learned principles of "treat people like you want to be treated" and "know when enough is enough" from his 1950s Sunday School teachers, Holocaust survivors Rafael and Rachel Levin. Regarding the second principle, Newmark recently added: "After you have enough, per your own personal values, maybe it's time to share." LEARN MORE

Passover is a traditional time to share. How do we decide what "enough" means for us as the Festival of Freedom approaches?

The only members of their family to survive the Holocaust, Polish-born sisters Dora Benjamin and Hana Citron z"l were loyal members of our Lower East Side discussion group. Both mostly listened as others talked. Yet when Dora did speak she became very animated, more than once affirming the core commitments of her survival — as well as her loving generosity and gratitude:

"I wanted to live. I wanted others to live. One potato, six pieces." —Holocaust survivor Dora Benjamin z"l

Dora died a week before Passover in 2015 . Her legacy of "One potato, six pieces" remains among my primary inspirations for "just-giving": just give, and give justly.

While supplies last, Generous Justice: Jewish Wisdom for Just-Giving is available locally in NYC for 25% discount, without sales tax or shipping charges. Contact WAYS OF PEACE to get your copy!

Generous Justice offers a self-guided process of just-giving — including essential exploration of family money stories, support for emotional literacy around financial issues, and even "healthy money songs." LEARN MORE

Order your copy of Generous Justice today!

Join the Next Cohort of HOW TO MOVE OUR MONEY: Practicing Reparations as Spiritual Release

"It’s rare to find a space where social justice and money management converge....The workshop is supportive, insightful and inspirational, and it’s empowering to have the tools to move 'just giving' forward. I couldn’t recommend it more highly."

Starting Spring 2023 after Passover — Days/Times TBA Based on Participants' Input!

This unique six-week online course is designed for those who accept the basic ethical imperative of reparations — and who seek best practices for connecting that ethical imperative with their own economic privileges. "How to Move Our Money" is also directly applicable to current crises of homelessness, gun violence, reproductive freedom, immigrant / refugee solidarity and beyond.

PLEASE REVIEW THIS FLYER and reply to waysofpeace.org@gmail.com NO LATER THAN SUNDAY, MAY 14TH to have input into scheduling.