On June 24th, around 200 people gathered to celebrate our 15 graduating Jewish Organizing Fellows at our Siyyum Graduation. The evening was a beautiful gathering to support our graduating 2018-2019 Jewish Organizing Fellows, with family and friends coming from far and wide, as well as alumni from all eras of JOIN’s history showing up in full force. See photos from the evening here (and please tag yourself!), and watch each of our Fellows tell a story from their year as a Jewish Organizing Fellow below. You can read Karla’s opening speech here.
The theme, Blessings on Becoming, was chosen by the fellows. In the Fellows’ own words:
“To bless is to join our ancestors in the art of compressing attention… As a cohort this past year, we have both re-imagined old blessings and created new ones…Blessings for leaving a job, for haircuts, for action and song. We have disagreed. We have argued. We have struggled to find clarity or consensus. Amidst all of the tension, we have chosen to honor and celebrate our splintered process through the practice of blessing.
Tonight, as we each share our stories, we continue our collective blessing tradition. We bless our work from this past year to forge a community and a movement that can hold us all. We bless the frustration and the transformation, the mundane and the blissful. We bless the moments of learning and laughter, strategy and surprise….As we share and remember the year behind us, we ask for you to bless us back. Witness our stories, our work, our becoming-in-process, and mark it sacred alongside us.”
~except from our Siyyum Program book, Blessings on Becoming
https://youtu.be/xjkBW8Vo-pk
https://youtu.be/yi73wa1sLDQ
https://youtu.be/xdmBm9r7j-E
