Tuesdays With Torah: The Jewish Call to Racial Justice

(כז) וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

Genesis 1:27

(27) And God created man in God's image, in the image of God, God created him; male and female God created them.

“We are created in the image of God, if you will, and we are obliged to return the favor.”
-Rabbi Arthur Green

תלמוד ירושלמי נדרים פרק ט: הל' ד

/ה"ד/

ואהבת לרעך כמוך ר' עקיבה או' זהו כלל גדול בתורה בן עזאי אומ' זה ספר תולדות אדם זה כלל גדול מזה .

Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 9:4

Rabbi Akiva taught: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19). This is the major principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him” (Genesis 5:1). This is an even greater principle.

Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men.
But race is the child of racism, not the father.
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

משנה סנהדרין ד׳

(ה) וּמִפְּנֵי שְׁלוֹם הַבְּרִיּוֹת, שֶׁלֹּא יֹאמַר אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ אַבָּא גָדוֹל מֵאָבִיךָ... וּלְהַגִּיד גְּדֻלָּתוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, שֶׁאָדָם טוֹבֵעַ כַּמָּה מַטְבְּעוֹת בְּחוֹתָם אֶחָד וְכֻלָּן דּוֹמִין זֶה לָזֶה, וּמֶלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא טָבַע כָּל אָדָם בְּחוֹתָמוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן וְאֵין אֶחָד מֵהֶן דּוֹמֶה לַחֲבֵרוֹ. לְפִיכָךְ כָּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד חַיָּב לוֹמַר, בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 4

(5) [A single person was created] for the sake of peace among humankind, that one should not say to another, “My father was greater than your father”...Again [but a single person was created] to proclaim the greatness of the Holy Blessed One; for humans stamp many coins with one seal and they are all like one another; but the King of kings, the Holy Blessed One, has stamped every human with the seal of the first man, yet not one of them are like another. Therefore everyone must say, “For my sake was the world created.”

We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And the Murder Of Black, Brown & All Oppressed People
Every 28 hours a black person in the United States is killed by someone employed or protected by the government of the United States. Other communities are also criminalized, targeted, attacked and brutalized. We want an immediate end to state sanctioned violence against our communities.
-Ferguson Action's List of Demands 11/01/2014

"Racism is an evil of tremendous power, but God’s will transcends all powers. Surrender to despair is surrender to evil. It is important to feel anxiety; it is sinful to wallow in despair. "
"Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods."
-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer After Eric Garner
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
Nishmat Kol Chai / Breath of All Life:
Your breath enlivened the first man,
You breathe
the breath of life in each of us.
Today our breath is shortened
as we remember Eric Garner gasping
"I can't breathe," an elbow pressed
around his neck.
Breathe into us
determination to build a better world
where no innocent is killed
by those sworn to serve and protect.
Ignite us toward justice.
Eric Garner was made in Your image.
His six children, bereaved: in Your image.
Every Black man, woman, and child
twenty times likelier to be killed by police
than their white neighbors:
in Your image.
Help us to root out from every heart
the hidden prejudice
which causes police to open fire in fear,
which transforms a child in a hoodie
into a hoodlum, a person into a threat.
Comfort the families of all who grieve.
Strengthen us to work for a world redeemed.
And we say together: Amen.