Communities of Practice
Cultivating & nurturing spiritual, socio-emotional, and imaginative growth within progressive Jewish social justice spaces, bridging a connection for people between activism and tradition, and offering pathways to engaging and enlivening the Jewish traditions we've inherited as a source of anti-oppression healing and transformation.
What is the Jewish Justice Circle: Community of Practice?
The work of supporting anti-oppression and collective liberation capacity building is ongoing work that requires consistent nurturing — we call these Communities of Practice (JJC:CoP.) The Jewish Bridge Project is now supporting ongoing or series-based white Jewish accountability/caucus spaces for SURJ National, Tzedek Lab, JJC:A2W alumni, as well as providing thought-partnership to other white Jewish accountability/affinity space leaders. We have developed a variety of resources including a catalogue of small-group anti-racist growth practices, as well as agenda/curriculum/frameworks for facilitating CoP spaces. We also actively mentor new facilitators to support the longevity and collectivism of the Ongoing Community of Practice work. We’re excited to create a more sustainable pipeline for on-boarding additional community space-holders & facilitators, scale the model we’ve developed and explore the potential of collaborating with other experienced facilitators to serve more nuanced communities who have engaged the Community of Practice potentially including: multiracial Jewish family groups (parents, partners, non-nuclear family systems), Crypto Jewish/Converso/LatinX anti-racist community of practice, Queer Jewish anti-racist Community of Practice, and more.
Who is this space for?
The Jewish Justice Circle: Community of Practice (JJC:CoP) is a monthly working/learning/connection drop-in space for the people who have participated in the Jewish Justice Circle: Awakening to whiteness (JJC:A2W) course, which is 24 hours of in-person/on-zoom collective study plus homework, small groups, and outside chevruta partnerships over the course of 3 months. This space is one dedicated to the alumni of the JJC:A2w.
When does this happen?
We currently meet monthly on the 3rd Sunday of the month for 2 hours starting at 11 am PT | noon MT | 1 pm CT | 2 pm ET.
What if I can’t commit to the whole thing?
This is a drop-in space, so join us when you can!
Is this an accessible space?
Yes!
As a part of our commitment to access we:
- Provide captions for all sessions
- Support different learning styles with varying exercises and activities
- Ask people to be on video as much as possible and understand we all have different capacities for engaging the camera
- Encourage all participants to use visual descriptions of themselves
- Practice using a combination of “chat” and verbal communications.
We craft our space with attention to how people with atypical ways of thinking, communicating, sensing, or moving, can easily navigate this environment, and we want to know about participants so we can adapt to the people in the room. (Thank you to the Never Again Action disability justice team for wonderful teaching and language to support this work.) You’ll see on the application form a place to tell us more about you.
Amelia Mae Paradise 