Striving for Social Justice in Our Community
by Jane Gomez
The Community Relations Committee (CRC) is the public policy and advocacy arm of Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest. The CRC works within the Greater MetroWest area to collaborate, educate, and communicate with members of the broader community on shared interests. In the past, the CRC has focused its energy on responding to issues and events such as the crisis in Darfur, Israel advocacy, human trafficking, and combating hunger and food insecurity. To this end, CRC committee members and professionals meet with elected officials and faith leaders to discuss and advance issues of mutual interest and to create stronger ties between the many diverse communities within New Jersey. Most recently, the CRC has considered how it might work to build alliances and forge relationships for the betterment of our local community.
Currently, Linda Scherzer, Director of the CRC, is creating a Task Force to address social justice issues in our community. She explained, “The pillars of CRC are social justice and relationship building.” And she continued by stating, “We [the Jewish people] need to remember our history and our struggle. If we stand in solidarity and be a voice for social justice in our communities, they will be the voice for us.”
The idea for this new Task Force was born out of the Women’s Philanthropy recent Civil Rights Journey that sent women on a mission to Atlanta, Georgia, and the Alabama cities of Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma. Over the course of this trip in March, women learned about the Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights struggle in America. This experience proved to be very inspirational. On her experiences, Lisa Friedman wrote, “My participation in the Civil Rights Mission inspired me to get more interested in the work of our Federation. The women who participated shared a common goal of wanting to learn more about the struggles during this important part of history and the work left for us to do today. I was inspired by their level of passion for helping others and this motivates me to learn more about other possibilities in our Federation community.”
Several weeks after returning from the Civil Rights Journey, many of the women who attended remained eager to build upon the lessons they had gleaned from their trip. In response, Linda Scherzer organized a reunion event with keynote speaker Cornell William Brooks, the president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most widely respected grassroots-based civil rights organization.
On his visit, Brooks told the women, “This is not an indifference moment,” and he prioritized the need to address policies that disproportionately affect minority populations in the community. Brooks outlined a call to action for the Task Force that included supporting voter rights, resisting biased voter registration policies, and supporting criminal justice reform.
The Task Force formed at this meeting is growing. It already has attracted 20 volunteers from the Women’s Philanthropy Civil Rights Journey reunion. If you are interested in joining this Task Force or want to learn more about becoming involved in the CRC, please reach out to Linda Scherzer at (973) 929-3087 or LScherzer@jfedgmw.org.