Every year JFREJ’s Rabbinic Council hosts rabbis and cantors for an annual Yom Iyyun as an opportunity to delve deeply into Torah and connect that learning to work for racial and economic justice. We are very excited to announce this year’s JFREJ Rabbinical Council Yom Iyyun on “Caring Communities and Caring Economy: Torah and Action.”

We will start with an intensive morning text study with Rabbi Shai Held and Jess Belasco on disability justice, care and workers rights.

Jess Belasco is a disability activist and a teacher of Torah. She is a rabbinical student at JTS, a current Wexner Graduate Fellow. She is also an alum of Yeshivat Hadar, the Dorot Fellowship in Israel, and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. She strives to create Jewish communities and Torah conversations in which disability voices are centered and honored. For more on her work and experiences, you can read her article “Are These Sufferings Dear To You? My Disability, Its Isolation and My Journey.”

Rabbi Shai Held is President, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at Hadar. He served for six years as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar in New York City, and taught both theology and Halakhah at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He also served as Director of Education at Harvard Hillel. Rabbi Held has written two books: Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence in published 2013 and The Heart of Torah published in 2017, and is currently at work on a book about the role of love in Jewish theology, spirituality, and ethics.

In the afternoon we will look at how the Caring Majority is taking action to create a caring economy. We will hear from seniors, care workers, and family caregivers who are organizing together for universal care in the home and dignified working conditions for homecare workers.

Text study and light breakfast will begin at 9am, vegetarian lunch will be provided at 1130, and panel discussion will be from 12-130pm. Suggested donation is $18-72.

The issue of how we create accessibility and care for those in need is alive in our shuls and Jewish institutions. We are so looking forward to learning together about how we build a caring economy and communities.

Yom Iyyun for Rabbis & Cantors: Caring Communities and Caring Economy