NYJA As A Political Home: Programming And More
Webinars: On the Agenda and Navigating Complexity
It is vital for our core constituency to be well-educated about the critical issues we are tackling. To that end, we launched our On the Agenda webinar series in 2020, featuring a diversity of speakers, including politicians, academics, and Jewish thought leaders. Then in 2023 and 2024, we hosted a series called Navigating Complexity specific to the post-October 7th landscape.
Our series of webinars have responded to issues of import to our community of liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers, and range from rapid response–including our first event focused on the COVID-19 response in NY, featuring City Councilman (now Comptroller) Brad Lander, Lieutenant Governor (now Governor) Kathy Hochul, and Congressman Jerry Nadler–and broader conversations that are wider in scope, such as the webinars we’ve held in the wake of October 7th aimed at helping our community navigate the complexities of this moment, featuring NYJA co-founders Rabbi Rachel Timoner and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and area experts from the New Israel Fund, Alliance for Middle East Peace, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Haaretz. Please sign up for our email list here to be notified of future webinars, events, and to receive other NYJA communications.
Engaging Young Leaders
NYJA aims to be a political home for liberal and progressive Jewish New Yorkers, where they can bring their full political selves as it relates to domestic and local politics, and Israel/Palestine. This is an urgent need across our community, but for young people especially given how fraught this moment has become for those grappling with and coming of age in a different political reality than previous generations. To do this, we are convening learning cohorts, social gatherings, and other events.
Thought Leadership
NYJA provides our community with content that is of interest and that meets their needs at this complex and divisive time. This includes our regular NYJA Insights & Updates newsletter, which collects news from the US and New York, in addition to Israel and Palestine, and the launch of our NYJA Substack, which will feature writing from NYJA Leaders and other key voices from our broader community on a regular basis.
Ongoing NYJA areas of focus
Legislative Advocacy
NYAJ engages on advocacy on city, state, and federal legislation around key issue areas such as addressing the migrant crisis in a fair and just manner; fighting antisemitism while emphasizing nuance and pushing back on its weaponization by illiberal actors; criminal justice reform; ensuring that all children in New York receive the education they deserve, including those attending ultra-orthodox yeshivas, and more.
Our legislative advocacy largely takes place at the grasstops level through direct advocacy and advising of allied city, state, and federal elected officials on the issue areas above. As it relates to specific legislation, our advocacy takes two main forms; championing pieces of legislation as one of its key Jewish organizational advocates, or working in coalition with other organizations, leaders, and elected officials to support or oppose legislation. We also organize Jewish communal leaders and clergy in our network to support bills that are aligned with our shared liberal Jewish values when it can help garner broader support for or help ensure the passage of a bill.
Rapid Response
The NYJA network’s readiness to respond quickly and decisively when critical issues arise lies at the heart of our organization’s mission. With the depth and breadth of our connections across New York, we can mobilize a meaningful response to breaking news quickly. You can see examples of this rapid response work in the 450+ rabbis we organized to sign a statement in favor of COVID-19 public health compliance when protests broke out in Borough Park, and the letter we wrote to Governor Cuomo with over 100 Jewish organizations urging him not to undo the state’s bail reform law. Additional rapidly-organized sign on letters include those to legislative leaders in support of hate crimes legislation and yeshiva regulations. In addition to these public actions, our rapid response work oftentimes takes place behind the scenes, and includes providing counsel to Jewish and non-Jewish elected officials on their responses to issues that affect the Jewish community, bringing organizational leaders and elected officials together with representatives and experts from the liberal and progressive Jewish community when crises arise, and more. We also rapidly put together briefings for our community both on and off the record, to help leaders and allies respond.
A Nuanced Approach to Fighting Antisemitism
NYJA works to ensure that New York leaders understand and take antisemitism seriously, combating it with nuance and avoiding its weaponization by illiberal actors. We know that zero-sum stances that don’t take context and intent into account oftentimes result in the mischaracterization or mishandling of potentially antisemitic incidents, having the adverse effect of not countering–or even promulgating–antisemitism in our city and state. In contrast, we work with NY leaders to better understand the question of what is antisemitic in such a way that effectively combats it. NYJA looks to inject this nuanced approach across the political spectrum, including fighting its co-optation by the right, as well as where it shows up in Israel-Palestine discourse on the left.
Local Focus Areas: 2025
Criminal Justice Reform in New York City and State
NYJA works to advance a vision of a more fair and just criminal justice system in our city and state. The key items on our agenda are the closure of Rikers Island as mandated by law, supporting related initiatives such as increased Justice Involved Supportive Housing (JISH), and helping pass legislation that helps put our social justice values into action in the criminal justice system. In 2024, we supported the NYC City Council’s efforts to pass the How Many Stops Act, increasing police transparency.
NYJA is also a founding member of the New York Jewish Coalition for Criminal Justice Reform (NYJCCJR), and currently serves on the steering committee. We have played a pivotal role in shaping the coalition’s work on advocacy and education. The coalition recognizes the need for systemic changes to a discriminatory system rooted in racism that denies equal justice under the law to persons based on race, gender, ethnicity or economic status, and we are committed to achieving those systemic changes; currently, the NYJCCJR is focused on ensuring that Rikers island closes by 2027, as mandated by law. You can read more about the coalition’s work and upcoming events here.
Protecting Undocumented, Refugee, and Migrant New Yorkers
NYJA works to protect our undocumented, refugee, and migrant neighbors in New York through our coalition and legislative work. As part of our focus on addressing the migrant crisis and welcoming our newest neighbors, NYJA is a member of the Synagogue Coalition on the Refugee and Immigrant Crisis (SCRIC). We support initiatives aimed at promoting social justice for refugees, asylees, and undocumented immigrants.