Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide by Ruth Braunstein

Author:Ruth Braunstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520293649
Publisher: University of California Press

INTERFAITH

Organizing for Collective Action: Power through Solidarity

It was already dark when I arrived at Father O’Donnell’s Westside parish for a public accountability action that the congregation’s local organizing committee had been planning for the past few months. Their goal was to convince city officials to demand that a delinquent landlord make legally required repairs to a building on their block. Although local in scope, the task ahead of them was complex: they desired to hold the landlord accountable for his failure to meet his legal obligations to his tenants and to the community in which he was a property holder; but lacking sufficient power to do so as tenants and neighbors, they also sought to persuade their public officials to fulfill their responsibilities as regulators in the public’s interest.

As I approached, I saw one of Interfaith’s staff organizers shivering outside a side entrance hanging flyers. She looked exhausted but smiled warmly and pointed inside. “They’re downstairs,” she said. “I think they’re running behind.” This was unusual, I thought. I made my way down to a large basement, which looked like a cafeteria with rows of folding chairs set up facing a long table. The front of the table was adorned with a long blue banner with “Interfaith” printed in large gold letters. Name tents were set up to identify each of the invited guests: two city council members; three mid- to high-level officials in the city’s housing department; and the owner and managing agent of the property in question.

Although the meeting was scheduled to begin any minute, no one was sitting at the table. I wondered if none of the invited guests had shown up. Some members of the audience were seated, others milled. I realized the organizers were stalling. I checked in with Nora, Interfaith’s executive director, whose young son was entertaining a small group of onlookers with yo-yo tricks. He was one of the few children present, even though it was early evening on a weeknight. Then I looked around for Helen, the active Jewish leader I had gotten to know through Interfaith’s health-care working group. Although her synagogue was not formally involved in this action, she made an effort to attend as many of the other congregations’ events as possible and had emailed me that afternoon to make sure I was coming, too.

Helen lived in Hillside, a gentrifying neighborhood halfway between Westside and Riverside. Although her synagogue was more racially diverse than most, its membership was nonetheless predominantly white, as well as highly educated and upper-middle class. But as a congregation they were committed to social justice—and not just as an extracurricular activity in which some congregants participated; after attending a handful of worship services and other events there, I saw that the pursuit of social justice was woven into every aspect of their community’s life, from worship services to social gatherings. So, too, was their interest in cultivating diversity. Participating in Interfaith was a natural extension of these efforts, and their charismatic female rabbi was a high-profile supporter of Interfaith’s work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.