JOIN for Justice

At Friday’s JOI session, fellows revisited the art of the 1:1, paying special attention to the role agitation plays in these intentional meetings. Together with Rabbi Stephanie Kolin, the group discussed what makes a good agitation, including respectful pushing, trust and the ability to tie action to a developing leader’s self-interest. We also read from the Book of Esther, in which Mordecai agitates his cousin Esther to act in her own self-interest and that of her family to defend the Jews from potential annihilation. Agitation can be the tool that turns on the light bulb for people who have accepted powerlessness in their lives or with regard to a particular issue. By changing the way others think about circumstances they have accepted as unchangeable, organizers can begin to build power and develop new leaders.

At this session, Fellows workshopped “stories of self” that they had a week to prepare. Prior to the session, Fellows were asked to reflect on a story that would help its listener to understand why the Fellow was organizing now. At the session, each fellow was given 5 minutes to tell her story to the group, and then the group had a short period of time to respond each story with positive feedback, constructive criticism, and suggestions for improving the story. Through this process, individual Fellows were able to hone their own specific stories, and also work on the more broadly applicable skill of crafting and helping others to craft powerful organizing stories.

This week we started our discussion on how to use stories to articulate values and build relationships. Telling our stories lets us explain why we’re doing this work. Stories can be especially important when coming into a community as an outsider. We shouldn’t be ashamed of our privilege, but we should be able to answer honestly why we’re there. We’re not selfless people, so what’s in it for us? It can also be helpful to bring our own problems to the table at times. Just because we have privilege doesn’t mean we’re flawless.

Learning how to elicit stories from others is also important. It lets us focus future interactions based on the information we gained about the person. By starting with your own story you can set the stage for what kind of conversation you’ll be having and what you expect others to share. Constituents usually haven’t been through the story telling workshops we have, so developing their story can take a whole conversation (or longer) and many thoughtful questions.

Although stories are valuable, they’re more than just commodities. When sharing stories, and especially when listening to others, it’s not just about what we learn from the story and how we can use that information to move people. Sharing stories is a way to connect with another person and reflect on your own life, and we should respect that process in and of itself.

In the first hour we worked with the two values that we are focusing on as a group right now: patience and calmness. Eliza led the group in some breathing and meditation exercises that can hopefully be used to maintain focus in our work when we are tempted to distraction and/or feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. The majority of the session was spent reading and discussing the second chapter of Exodus, (which describes Moses’ birth, adoption by the Pharoah’s daughter, his slaying of an Egyptian slave driver followed by his expulsion as a result of this action and finally, his finally as a result of his wanderings, settling down in the small town of Midian as a sheep herder). Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who is facilitating our sessions on the reading of Exodus, asked us to think about what the text says about leadership, relationship building and action. With this framework our conversation highlighted the following learnings and questions:

1. Many of the key actions in this chapter are played out by actors that are are traditionally and seemingly powerless in the society of the time: women. These women are successful because their actions are subtle, strategic, and because they are dependent on working together with other women with whom they have formed relationships. This is in stark contrast to the actions of Moses, who indeed has much more power, as the adopted son of the Pharoah and a man, but does not use his power in a strategic way and therefore fails. Moses chooses to speak for other people and defend them without first making relationships or asking what their needs are. He acts alone and with an authority that he has not earned from the people. How can we use our privilege in a positive instead of an oppressive manner?
2. Moses names his child Gershon, meaning, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land”. Does Moses’ experience struggling as an outsider in Midian validate his future work as an organizer? Does an organizer need to experience oppression and/or “otherness” before he/she can organize?
3. Moses may have been (according to some) the first organizer, but his actions in this chapter show us that he was not born an organizer. He makes mistakes. He realizes that fighting oppression with violence was not an effective tactic, and next time he sees something that he identifies as “wrong” (a Hebrew hitting another Hebrew), instead of forcing his own beliefs on the situation he asks the question, “WHY do you strike your fellow?” It is important in organizing to let people come to their own conclusions about their actions and choices; it is our job as an organizer to prompt (and agitate!) people to think about these difficult questions.
4. Finally, in the last paragraph of the reading, Pharaoh dies and the Hebrew people begin to moan and cry out. They realize that even though their oppressor died, they are still slaves. Why does God wait until the people have called out to help them? If God is almighty, why does he not step in and save his people from bondage? How can we be careful not to put responsibility on the oppressed to realize and denounce their own oppression, but also be aware that the oppressed cannot fight for redemption until they have done so?

Relationship, Leadership, and Action in Exodus

Following an interactive reflection of the first week, the fellows met with Rabbi Jonah Pesner to discuss two excerpts from the Tanach (Old Testament). Isaiah 58, read every year during the High Holy Days, highlights Isaiah bursting into the congregation beseeching the repenting Israelites to “fast” from oppressing their laborers and other oppressive actions- not just from food for one day. The congregates ignored him. He was not effective as one voice, void of relationships and collective action. We then studied the first chapter of Exodus through a lens of leadership, relationships, and action. In the absence of relationships, the Pharaoh became scared of the Israelites, the other, and looked to weaken them by ordering the Hebrew midwives to kill the male babies. Answering to a higher power, the women resisted and Pharaoh backed down. Perhaps the two midwives mentioned were connected to other resisting midwives and Pharaoh understood it was beyond his power to punish this collective act of defiance.