Bend the Arc Jewish Action: Bay Area volunteers are organizing for justice at the local, state, and federal levels.
Here’s how:
1. We're standing in solidarity with immigrant communities
When Trump was elected, our chapter members promised to stand in solidarity with the communities most impacted by his hateful agenda.
Last Spring, our chapter members phone banked, lobbied our legislators, and rallied in the streets to help pass the California Values Act, the strongest statewide sanctuary legislation in the country to help protect California's immigrants from Trump's deportation force.
We're also part of Bend the Arc Jewish Action's national Jewish Campaign for Dreamers. We're advocating for a clean Dream Act by mobilizing phone calls to key legislators and taking action in the street. In January, our members joined Let My People Stay, a historic Jewish civil disobedience in our nation's Capitol to demand Congress' action to protect Dreamers.
2. We're fighting for criminal justice reform in California
When we fight for local criminal justice reform, we fight for a California that stops criminalizing vulnerable communities — and we directly oppose Trump and Sessions' regressive national law and order agenda.
For more than four years, we've fought alongside powerful coalitions on the most pressing criminal justice issues of our time, from winning legislation to end youth solitary confinement to historic drug sentencing reform.
Since 2016, we've been working with our partners at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the ACLU, Essie Justice Group, and more to reform California's money bail system — because no one should be imprisoned for the crime of being poor.
Our coalition has bold legislative demands that's igniting a national movement for money bail reform — and our members are bringing the Jewish community to the fight.
3. We're educating our community about racial justice
Bend the Arc: Bay Area members are committed to supporting our community to be advocates for racial justice.
Our Racial Justice team organizes a monthly Jewish space for anti-racism, to offer our community the support and skills they need to have difficult conversations about race and feel prepared to intervene when they witness racism.
We also have a Jews of Color Caucus, self-organized by Jews of Color to build community and support for our Bay Area JOC community.