JLF April Newsletter: Interview with Cleveland Jewish Collective

In northeast Ohio, Cleveland Jewish Collective is building something rare: a Jewish community that holds progressive politics, radical welcome, and deep spiritual practice together without apology. Noa Barash spoke with CJC's Rabbi Miriam about how the community weaves justice and Judaism inseparably, and what it looks like to create belonging for Jews who've been pushed out everywhere else.

Noa Barash: Cleveland Jewish Collective has become a lifeline for Jews in northeast Ohio who've been marginalized elsewhere due to their identity and/or politics. How does CJC embody progressive Jewish values through intentional inclusion and radical welcome?

Rabbi Miriam: We aim to be welcoming to everyone from the moment they arrive – our Community Care Team runs a Welcome Table at many of our events, keeps an eye out for new people during events who could use help integrating into the community, and also has 1:1 meetings with new and prospective members to welcome them and answer questions. We intentionally offer a variety of modalities and also sizes of events (Chanukah is roughly 100 people but a Shabbat hike might only be 5-10 people), so that there are a variety of entry points for people with different preferences and needs. We also offer affinity spaces for people with various identities, including through our partnership with JOC:Cleveland. Our Access Team is charged with continuously improving accessibility at our events. Based on the access needs within our community, we have been prioritizing masking, wheelchair accessibility, scent-free gatherings, and sensory spaces at larger events. We center the experiences of trans/nb and queer people by offering blessings with different genders and names for God, learning Torah and Talmud from queer perspectives, and having queer-themed events such as Drag Purim. 

Noa Barash: From pay-what-you-can dues to your Core Teams model for shared decision-making, how does CJC's horizontal leadership approach reflect your values and enable what traditional synagogue structures don't?

Rabbi Miriam: We use consensus decision-making within a hub-and-spokes governance model, which empowers each spoke/team to have agency over their area, while facilitating communication and coordination between teams. All members are invited and encouraged to join team(s), and larger decisions are made democratically by the whole community, thus empowering all members to feel ownership and to invest in the community. This governance structure empowers all members to be part of decision making, while enabling us to remain nimble and agile. Giving agency to our Core Teams (spokes) helps avoid micromanaging and burnout. The combination of our hub-and-spokes model with community-wide democratic meetings allows us to move quickly with integrity and communal buy-in, for example with our Ceasefire Statement that we released in early 2024.

Noa Barash: You maintain collaborative relationships with other Jewish communities while staying grounded in progressive values around Palestine solidarity, trans liberation, and accessibility. How do you navigate these partnerships while holding your ground?

Rabbi Miriam: Long standing relationships, trust, and deep conversations between the leadership of different communities enable us to stay in relationship through disagreement and to find compromises that work for each community. We have a few red lines that we are not willing to cross – for example no Israeli flags on the bimah – and other areas where we can be more flexible and creative. For example, we do not use armed security guards at our own events, but some of the communities we collaborate with are not yet ready for this and said that security was a red line for them. We continue to have conversations about community safety and the harm armed guards can cause. In the meantime, we have compromised for our monthly joint Kabbalat Shabbat by having a security guard who is not employed by Jewish Federation but rather by a Black-owned security company, and who is stationed in the back office monitoring the building’s cameras, where he can respond in the case of an emergency, but is not at the front door profiling people and deciding who can enter the building. Our rabbi also offers herself as a resource to leaders in other communities when they have questions about accessibility or how to support the trans community, and has taught Trans 101 classes to help members of other communities better understand trans identity and the threats trans people currently face. We will only collaborate with communities that understand CJC’s purpose and values, and where our members can show up with the fullness of their identities and politics – institutions do not need to agree on everything, but we will not censor ourselves or put our members at risk of harassment in order to collaborate. Ultimately we believe that showing up in diverse communal spaces and continuing to be in relationship and conversation with other Jewish leaders and communities will expose people to new ideas and ways of being, and push the Overton window of what identities and politics are accepted within Jewish Cleveland to the Left.

Noa Barash: CJC approaches justice work through a movement ecology lens, providing spiritual nourishment for activists while building coalition power. How do you balance creating sanctuary space with mobilizing for action, and what does it look like to interweave Judaism and justice inseparably?

Rabbi Miriam: We are always trying to find the right balance for this, which can be tricky. Our goal is for justice to feel authentically integrated into our spiritual life, so that we aren’t spiritually bypassing or insulating ourselves from reality, but we also aren’t frying our nervous systems even more. As one member put it, “CJC doesn't feel disconnected from the world, but rather it feels like there’s a mesh screen at CJC that keeps me safe, so that I can fuel up and go back into the world.” We do this in a variety of ways: holding prayer spaces that acknowledge the pain and injustice of the moment without dwelling on it, to provide healing and nourishment for the work ahead; offering grief and rage spaces to help metabolize our emotions and allow us to move forward; integrating justice issues into our holiday celebrations, for example by having a Drag Purim Shpil while Ohio is trying to criminalize drag performances, or lighting our communal menorah with Palestinian olive oil at our Chanukah Party and collecting tzedakah for Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank. Additionally, our annual multifaith multicultural solidarity Mimouna celebration is a chance for the whole Cleveland pro-Palestine coalition to come together for a day of community care and learning, in order to deepen relationships between activists from different coalition partners, provide spiritual and material nourishment to help counter burnout, and deepen our shared analysis.

In addition to this cultural and spiritual work, members of our Justice Team are directly involved in organizing around Palestinian solidarity, trans rights, and immigrant rights. They make sure that CJC members know how to plug in with various local political organizations and campaigns. In conjunction with our coalition partners, we participate directly in protests and actions, and push for concrete actions at local city and county council meetings, such as divesting from Israel bonds, and providing legal counsel for immigrants detained by ICE.

Noa Barash: Your mutual aid fund has distributed over $2,000 in the past year and a half for everything from rent assistance to gender-affirming care. How does mutual aid function as both community care and political practice at CJC?

Rabbi Miriam: We emphasize the communal aspect of mutual aid – that it is rooted in a community of care, rather than being transactional or even directly reciprocal. Someone who cannot drive may never be able to offer a ride in return for receiving a ride, but they can do something else for someone else in the community, and through a thick web of care we can meet the diversity of needs within our community. We also emphasize the Jewish history and anti-capitalist nature of mutual aid. This is how Jewish communities and other societies functioned for generations before capitalism twisted our relationships in ways designed to isolate and exhaust us, and force us to pay for the support that used to be provided by our communities and networks.

Noa Barash: You intentionally experiment with diverse Jewish traditions. Tell us more about this work, and how this commitment to diasporic, place-based Judaism challenges the narrative that authentic Jewish life requires ties to the Israeli state?

Rabbi Miriam: We follow the “doikayt” (here-ness) principle of the Jewish Labor Bund, looking for ways to connect with the local land and seasons. We believe in rooting and connecting deeply where we are, just as the ancient Israelites rooted and connected deeply in the land where they lived. We also follow Mordecai Kaplan's teaching to focus on the function of Jewish traditions and rituals and then reconstruct them to better fulfill that function within the current place and moment. One example is that we do seasonal outdoor “attunement” rituals that are loosely based on the shachrit service, and which allow us to notice and connect with our local changing seasons as well as with Jewish time (Summer Attunement = Rosh Chodesh Elul, Fall Attunement = Shemini Atzeret, Winter Attunement = Tu b’Shvat, Spring Attunement varies between Rosh Chodesh Nisan, Rosh Chodesh Iyar, and Shavuot depending on how the Jewish calendar fits with the seasons that year). Another example is that we studied the four species of the lulav and came up with local alternatives, based on the characteristics of the traditional species. One of our members was inspired by this and researched the 7 species from Israel, identified 7 local species, and created a zine with original art and the names of each species in multiple languages including Waⁿdat, one of the indigenous languages of our region. We also lift up folk practices from across the diaspora as sacred and worthy of reclamation, such as Mimouna, Prekante (a Sephardic cleansing folk ritual from the Greek Isles traditionally practiced on erev Rosh Hashanah), and creating soul candles (an Ashkenazi Elul folk practice).

Noa Barash: For progressive Jews—especially in conservative communities—who feel isolated or pushed out while trying to live their values, what would you say? How can people learn from or replicate what you're building?

Rabbi Miriam: If you’re feeling completely isolated and there isn’t already a Lefty Jewish community near you, I would start by finding at least a couple other Jews who share your values, and doing Jewish things with them, whether that’s in your homes or in public or Jewish communal spaces. This will help you feel less alone and isolated, remind you that Judaism can be a source of goodness and justice in the world, and help you feel connected to Judaism. So many of us feel alone and also betrayed by and angry at Judaism, and it’s important to create Jewish spaces of belonging and integrity where we can reclaim Judaism as a religion of meaning-making and justice. Even two friends having Shabbat dinner together can be this space.

From there, I would recommend talking to everyone you know, getting coffee or ice cream or going on a walk, and asking everyone you know who else you should talk to – using community organizing skills to find other Jews who live nearby and are values aligned. Through these conversations, hopefully your network of values-aligned Jews will grow and, if you want, you can start to co-create a Jewish community or organization rooted in your shared values. The specifics of what you create will depend on the local context and needs.

Noa Barash: How can people get involved with your work?

Rabbi Miriam: You can follow what we’re doing on our website (www.clevelandjewishcollective.org/), social media (www.instagram.com/cleveland_jewish_collective/ and www.facebook.com/ClevelandJewishCollective/) or by subscribing to our email newsletter (www.clevelandjewishcollective.org/contact-us/)

If you live in northeast Ohio or are passing through, come to an event! Almost all our events are open to the public and we would love to see you!

If you want to support our work, whether or not you live nearby, you can donate here: www.clevelandjewishcollective.org/donate/