CBST stands on the shoulders and alongside Jews of all colors and generations who have taken to the streets, the buses, and the airwaves to protest institutional racism, targeting and violence.
This month, the Muslim-American community and allies have rallied against NYPD's surveillance of Muslim communities, student groups, and mosques in New York and throughout the northeast. CBST has joined community leaders in calling for the NYPD to build, not disrupt faith , and for an investigation of the violation of American Muslim’s civil liberties through systemic targeting and Islamophobia .
This year past January, ...
On Valentines Day, February 14th, a group of homeless youth, service providers, and advocates from New York City and around the state converged on Albany to meet with state legislators. The trip, organized by The New York City Association of Homeless and Street-Involved Youth Organizations and Empire State Coalition of Youth and Family Services (ESC), was in response to a 50% cut in the 2011 state budget for Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) services, funding which has not ...
On Tuesday, February 14, Shelter of Peace advocates woke at the crack of dawn and got on the bus to Albany, joining our voices with those of currently and formerly homeless young people, clergy, and youth service providers from around the state. Our contingent met with aides from Senators Tom Duane and Diane Savino’s offices, as well as a representative from Assembly Member Amy Paulin’s office. Both Savino and Paulin serve as chairperson of the Children and Families Committee for their respective legislative bodies.
Building off the Shelter of Peace Weekend of Prayer and Learning, which engaged congregations
across the city to raise awareness on this issue, Shelter of Peace and Koleinu are going to Albany on Valentines Day to lobby for love in action: enough beds to ensure that none of our youth are on the street. Strengthen our voice in Albany, sign our petition calling on the Governor to fund vital shelter beds for the 4,000 youth on our streets every night, and it you've already signed send it to five friends!
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Adrian St. Vincent calls the faith community to action, as a transgender youth, as someone who has been homeless, and as someone deeply hurt by the faith community. The Koleinu LGBT Rights Action Team answers his call. Building off the Shelter of Peace Weekend of Prayer and Learning, which engaged congregations across the city to raise awareness on this issue, Shelter of Peace is going to Albany on Valentines Day to lobby for love in action: enough beds to ensure that none of our youth are on the street.
Strengthen our voice in Albany, sign our petition calling on ...
Creating Change, a national LBGTQ movement building conference hosted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force took place in Baltimore this past week, and I was lucky to be able to represent CBST as part of the Practice Faith, Do Justice track, as well as a participant in the Jewish Movement Building working group. A few brief dispatches from a conference in three steps: reflect, teach and build together.
Step 1 - Reflection: We are part of a broad and deep movement for justice, both racial justice & queer liberation. On the agenda? Access ...
On Friday, January 20, CBST's Shabbat service kicked off the Shelter of Peace Weekend of Prayer and Learning. That Friday night, we welcomed many of our partners from the Campaign for Youth Shelter. We heard moving words from Rabbi Kleinbaum on our connection to homelessness and diaspora as Jews and our responsibility to take action. We also invited Jeremiah Wright, an Ali Forney Homeless youth advocate, to the bima to share some words of inspiration. He sent us home with the message to “keep spreading the love,” and to keep signing the petition!
Across across the ...
Parsha Vayechi, is the last parsha of Genesis. I find this parsha interesting, because it continues and ends the story of the families of our tradition…largely dysfunctional. I consider this good, because it reflects real life, and gives us a lot to discuss. Some of this is reflected in Vayechi, as well as forgiveness and destiny.
I want to focus on something else in the parsha.
Vayechi, means “he lives”… referring to the fact that Jacob lives in Egypt. What is interesting is that much of what is discussed in the parsha is the deaths of both Jacob and Joseph. Jacob asks ...
This past December I had the pleasure of attending the World LGBTQ Youth Leaders Summit, hosted by Israel Gay Youth in Tel Aviv. This was the first summit of its kind, a conference to focus on young (20 to 30 years old) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth from all around the globe. We shared our personal advocacy experiences, participated in workshops, watched a debate about whether courts or legislatures were the best course for advancing LGBT rights, and met members of the Israeli government at several different levels, including the Mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Ron Huldai, who hosted ...
I am a physician, and for several years in the mid-late 1980's, I volunteered in the evening walk-in clinic of the
Community Health Project (now Callen Lorde) at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, as it was known at the time. While I was there, the HOTT program was initiated, a project which provides medical care to youth ages 18-21. The Community Health Project had a van, and two doctors, and a social worker who drove around the ...
