Rabbi Sandra

YouTube video by Rabbi Sandra Music Hanukkah candlelight blessing #shorts

I have a new YouTube channel just for music youtube.com/shorts/pcxWb...

Is this nightmare finally coming to an end. What do you think?

What It Means to Be Am Yisrael: The People Who Wrestle Jacob is alone at night.

We are the people who wrestle open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...

Jacob became Yisrael not by winning, but by staying in the fight.

That’s our inheritance: a people who show up, who lean in, who keep going. A people who believe that wrestling is holy work.

May we live up to that name.
— Vayishlach

To be Am Yisrael means to be a people who wrestle. We wrestle with fear, with injustice, with the world as it is and the world as it should be. We wrestle not because the struggle is easy — but because our tradition refuses to let us walk away from each other.

Today is #GivingTuesday — and in this moment, #NorthCarolina needs a strong Jewish voice for justice.

If CJJ has inspired you, challenged you, or grounded you, consider supporting our work today.

www.carolinajewsforjustice.org/donate

Jacob’s Ladder is Our Theory of Change. This week in Vayetze (Genesis 28:10-32:3), Jacob is on the run—leaving home, unsure of what comes next, sleeping with a stone for a pillow.

We’re doing the work in impossible conditions—scrambling with too few resources, pivoting constantly, exhausted. And we wonder: does this even count? Can anything meaningful be built on such unstable ground?
But Vayetze tells us: the sacred work happens exactly where you are. shorturl.at/7mYZj

Jacob’s Ladder is Our Theory of Change. Jacob’s Ladder is Our Theory of Change.

Jacob’s Ladder is Our Theory of Change.
open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...

The prophetic tradition I come from has always insisted that the measure of a nation is how it treats the vulnerable, not how fiercely its people defend its borders.

When Power Confuses Equity for a Threat Last week, I was in New York City sitting with two Jewish leaders, talking through the polarization tearing through the Jewish community.

“If you’ve always had power, equity feels like a threat. Change feels threatening, not because anything is being “taken,” but because the ground is finally shifting toward balance.” open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...

When Power Confuses Equity for a Threat Last week, I was in New York City sitting with two Jewish leaders, talking through the polarization tearing through the Jewish community.

“when more people gain access to what was always reserved for a few, it registers as loss rather than correction.
But that discomfort is not harm. That tension is not persecution. That feeling is what happens when the world stops centering you open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...

Picture of Debra Shushan and Rabbi Sandra Lawson

Join us on Nov 17 3pm EST. This will be fun rabbisandra.substack.com

Join us today at Noon EST

www.carolinajewsforjustice.org/november_kib...

Trump Pardons Giuliani and Others Involved in Effort to Overturn 2020 Election

Trump Pardons Giuliani and Others Involved in Effort to Overturn 2020 Election www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...

I’ve come to believe that we need to gather considerable forces and a campaign to demand the removal of face masks by ICE, Border Patrol, FBI and police.

It is a practice in conflict with the principles of transparency & accountability that are central to the concept of democracy.

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

Markwayne Mullin & = @SenMullin X.com Working through the weekend with President Donald J. Trump. It's always an honor to be in the Oval Office— I never take this opportunity to serve Oklahoma for granted.

Sir, Trump is at Mar-a-Lago since yesterday.

Unemployment.

Justice KBJ is a brilliant strategist. She is working the rules to compel timely review of the stay in the SNAP case by both the Circuit Court and by the Supreme Court. This is why knowing which SCOTUS justice has supervision of the Circuit you file in is essential.

www.reuters.com/world/us/usd...

Opinion | Trump Aid Cuts Kill More Christians Than Jihadists Do Murderous attacks on Christians and Muslims alike are a real problem in Nigeria. Cutting humanitarian assistance there is even more lethal.

“If Trump cares about Christians or anyone else in Nigeria, all he needs to do is restore aid and let babies live,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.

This right here 👇🏾

The ADL Is No Longer a Civil Rights Organization. Here’s What We All Lose “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa”—Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.

Vayera reminds us: Abraham opened his tent to all. Today, the ADL is closing its doors to civil rights work. Our safety only exists in solidarity. “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa” — don’t stand idly by. Read more: open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...

The ADL Is No Longer a Civil Rights Organization. Here’s What We All Lose “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa”—Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.

We’re not just fighting for Jewish safety. We’re fighting for a country where dignity isn’t divisible. The Torah tells us to choose the people—all the people. That’s our tradition. That’s our strategy. And that’s our future.
Full essay here rabbisandra.substack.com/p/the-adl-is...

There is no safety in accommodation with authoritarianism. There is no protection in narrowing our solidarity. The same forces that target immigrants and Palestinian rights advocates will always come for Jews—no amount of strategic silence will change that.

White supremacists have always known that Black-Jewish coalition represents an existential threat to their project. They have always worked to fracture that alliance.

Jews are not separate from other marginalized communities. We are Black, brown, queer, trans, disabled, immigrants. When the ADL abandons civil rights work, it abandons these Jews—treating Jewish safety as if it could ever be separate from the safety of all the communities we belong to.

Without a genuine Jewish civil rights organization, we lose more than a national advocacy platform. We lose institutional infrastructure for coalition building. We lose organizational memory of how to show up in multiracial movements.

For Jews, this is not an organizational pivot. It’s an orphaning. Many of us were raised to see the ADL as the Jewish institution that would stand beside our partners in the struggle for justice. With this change, that legacy feels abandoned.

The ADL Is No Longer a Civil Rights Organization. Here’s What We All Lose “Lo ta’amod al dam re’echa”—Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.

The ADL Is No Longer a Civil Rights Organization. Here’s What We All Lose
open.substack.com/pub/rabbisan...