| Together, we are shifting the center of gravity in Jewish communities away from politics and practices of fear, surveillance, and militarism and towards a vision of “Safety through Solidarity” for all! Can you help support our work in 2026? |
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| Hope you’re finding connection and community in these harrowing times. We need each other more than ever. We’re writing to celebrate with you the big moves we’ve made in 2025 and to ask for your support as we pivot towards our next phase in 2026. Any and all of your contributions – financially and/or with your time, skills and relationships – are critical for our collective visions. Since releasing our 130+ page guide this spring, over 500 people have downloaded this groundbreaking resource. The guide has received glowing reviews from leaders across our abolitionist, community safety, and Jewish Left movement. Scholar-activist and Distinguished Professor of U.S. History Robin DG Kelley, who called the guide, “an urgent and necessary program, not just for Jewish communities but for all of us,” which “turns self-defense into a path toward liberation.” Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg uplifted the guide as a resource for “an incredible gift to communities who are committed to safety and justice, across a wide spectrum of political commitments and religious expressions.” After the years of research and writing that led to the creation of the guide, we’ve shifted our focus towards outreach and activation. The guide was designed as an organizing tool, an experiment in implementing what we’ve learned through relationship-building and organizing within and beyond Jewish communities. Over the course of 2025, our small-but-mighty team engaged dozens of organizations and hundreds of people through 3 in-person launch events, 7 trainings/workshops for organizations practicing or interested in community safety work, 1 shareback and strategy session with our research partners and peer reviewers, and 4 online office hours sessions to offer practical support for safety planning. This work is more pressing than ever with the rise of authoritarianism and fascism under the Trump administration, and the explicit (mis)use of Jewish fears to further criminalize immigrants, activists and targeted communities. This past summer we built on our 2024 campaign against the Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) to release a historic letter decisively rejecting the 2025 program guidelines, which require grantees to cooperate with ICE and prohibit them from engaging in DEI programming or constitutionally-protected boycotts in support of Palestinian rights. The letter has been signed by 70 Jewish and other faith communities and over 130 spiritual leaders nationally, who have all committed to halt or withdraw their applications to the NSGP until these conditions are removed. Our campaign against the NSGP garnered significant media attention (Religion News Service, Jewish Currents, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, CT Mirror), highlighting how the program’s repressive new conditions “lay bare the dangers of materially linking communities’ security to federal law enforcement” (Wilder, 2025) and uplifting this key moment for Jewish communities to turn away from the politics of isolation and “Safety through Surveillance.” Our organizing efforts came at a critical time and politicized a program long ignored by progressive forces, forcing the mainstream Jewish institutions to respond in real time to our calls for divestment in the name of collective safety and freedom for all. Our work to build High Holiday safety teams was also featured in Truthout this year, and two of our team members were interviewed on the Jewish Currents’ On the Nose podcast, widening the conversation about “Safety through Solidarity” beyond narrative framing and towards grounded application. As 2025 comes to a close, we’re continuing to generate resources that help communities utilize our research and implement their own community safety strategies, based on feedback and requests from our outreach. We’re developing accessible handouts and other materials for study/chevruta groups, and piloted our first study group at Makom Triangle during the High Holidays. Our team continues to organize community safety plans and teams locally in our home communities, including Los Angeles, Durham, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, Boston and Western MA. As we scale up this work in a time of rising authoritarianism and increasing threats to all marginalized communities, we’re focused on growing multifaith collaborations and organizing beyond Jewish communities to protect those most at risk, building relationships with local faith organizations, marshalling teams, deportation defense networks and beyond. Turning towards 2026, we’re taking intentional time for reflection, documentation, and strategic goal-setting for the next stage of our work. We need your support for our in-person team retreat in January, which will bring our 8 team members together (for the first time in 3+ years!) to take stock of our successes and challenges and ensure that we’re aligned in our priorities moving forward. We’re committed to archiving our research process so that other projects and groups can use what we’ve learned as a model, as well as print a short run of hard copies of the guide as a movement resource for years and decades to come that can withstand digital security threats. In a year when grant funding is incredibly scarce due to federal funding cuts, we’re relying on the support of our networks more than ever. Thank you for helping us to wrap up the research, writing, and launch phase of our guide with integrity and to envision the next steps forward in this vital work. Together, we can shift the center of gravity in Jewish communities away from politics and practices of fear, surveillance, and militarism and towards a vision of “Safety through Solidarity” for all. |
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2025 Review
Community Safety Campaign 
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