Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep. 83: Beyond the Brisket: Creating a Liberatory Passover Practice

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As we approach Passover 5782, we’re thinking about the tension inherent in commemorating a moment of acute urgency with practices that require a lot of time, intention, and planning. The Passover story contains multiple moments when our ancestors and predecessors displayed both faith and radical imagination, but when ritual becomes rigid, it can limit beliefs and imagination. April and Tracie investigate how we can use the Passover holiday, ritual, and greater awareness, to nurture and apply our own radical imagination toward liberation.

Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep. 82: Showing up for justice when life gets hard (LIVE)

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This week, we’re bringing you our conversation from our live event on March 23. If we’re being real here (which we ALWAYS are), we know that many of us (especially in the Jewish community) are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and hurt by the state of the world. April and Tracie (and a couple of amazing community members!) give us some helpful framings and tips for processing and moving through our hurt, process our emotions, and get through to the other side. And spoiler alert: you don’t have to suffer in order to powerfully show up for justice!

Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep. 80: Cookies, Impact, and False Competition

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Inspired by the holiday of Purim, April and Tracie use the practice of giving mishloach manot or Purim baskets, to unpack the difference between intention and impact. (Who knew you could learn so much from fruit-filled cookies?) They also interrogate the relationship between Vashti and Esther, and use them as a metaphor for differently-positioned Jewish Leaders of Color today. The megillah (Scroll of Esther) positions them as competitors, but we imagine what it would look like if they recognized they have more to gain by working together and rejecting the externally-imposed division between them.

Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep. 79: On Purim, Joy, and Liberation

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April and Tracie think about some of the lessons of Purim: hidden identities, the power of 'no,' the power of being in the right place, the importance of joy, and the links between joy and liberation.

Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 71: Tu B’Shvat and MLK Day: Deepening the Roots of Racial Justice

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As MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diagnosing and healing the root causes. And, they think about what we can do to genuinely honor Dr. King’s legacy.

Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 56: Simchat Torah, Essential Letters, and Why ALL of Our Life Curricula is Needed

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In this week’s episode Tracie and April discuss some of the traditions related to the holiday of Simchat Torah (lit. “Joy of Torah”). The symbolism of the holiday--appreciating the totality of the Torah and starting the cycle anew--illuminates for ways we can do the same with our own life and racial justice curricula.

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Reflections from April: What We Can Learn from the Sukkah This Year

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Sukkot is one of the sweetest times of year because it possesses so much wisdom. We could fill a lifetime fully unpacking, living into, and savoring the profundity and power of Sukkot’s insight! (and, that’s certainly what we are doing!).

As I mentioned in my latest conversation with Tracie, I haven’t built a sukkah of my own yet. And while I won’t likely be building nor spending time in a traditional sukkah this year 😔, I’m thinking a lot about the lessons we can take from the physicality of the Sukkot experience, especially as we’re moving forward into this shmita year of release.

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 55: Sukkot, Shelter, and Sacrifice

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In this week’s episode, April and Tracie mark Sukkot and discuss themes around shelter, safety and security, and sacrifice, and the trade-offs that exist which this holiday helps to illuminate for us.

Content warning: descriptions of animal slaughter/sacrifice

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 54: Yom Kippur and the Importance of Process

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In this week’s episode, as we mark Yom Kippur, April and Tracie discuss the big concepts and ideas that can frame Yom Kippur and give some practical tips for how to work through our collective and individual yearly accounting of our souls by finding the joy in the process.

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Jews Talk Racial Justice - Ep 53: Yom Kippur, T’shuvah, and the Load-Bearing Beam

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As Yom Kippur approaches, April and Tracie reflect on T'shuvah. We specifically dig into what Jewish tradition teaches us about what to do when “return” requires us to ask how much of ourselves we are willing to dismantle, especially when it comes to perpetuating white supremacy and racism.

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