This week, Jews across the country are lighting our Hanukkah candles and telling stories of resistance, resilience, and ritual.

When we light the hanukkiyah in the month of Kislev, we’re continuing generations of Jewish tradition. As we light our candles here at Bend the Arc, we rededicate ourselves to investing in the future we each deserve and need, a future our rabbis dreamed of and the Movement for Black Lives is putting into motion: one where we are all safe, we no longer rely on prisons and police, and our communities are healthy and thriving.

Read on for Hanukkah resources and highlights from our national call earlier this month. 

Our 2022 Hanukkah resource

Hanukkah is an opportunity to dream big and rededicate ourselves to the fights ahead.

One example of “dreaming big” we’re proud to support this Hanukkah is the BREATHE Act, a visionary legislative framework introduced by the Movement for Black Lives in 2020, which calls for the divestment of our taxpayer dollars from brutal and discriminatory policing and invests in a new vision of public safety. The BREATHE Act offers us a new path forward — and new possibilities for ourselves and future generations.

It’s in that spirit that we created our new Hanukkah Text Study resource to help ground your Hanukkah rededication, including:

• an offering for Hanukkah blessings
• a resource on the BREATHE Act
• an explanation of the chevruta (partnership) method of learning
• two text studies to explore

Highlights from our national call

On December 11, our movement came together for Looking to 2023 and Beyond: A National Bend the Arc Call to discuss what it would look like to live in a country where no one is afraid — and what it will take to get there. We focused on how we build a movement towards collective safety and liberation and why Bend the Arc is working to build Jewish political power for that purpose.

We learned so much from this discussion with Bend the Arc staff and board leadership, and we're excited to share these highlights from the call: 

“Kislev is the month of dreams. It’s a time in which we get to dream big…It’s a portal that’s happening for everyone, including the right.”

Graie Hagans, Senior Advisor, reminds us that just as we are dreaming about a liberated future, so too is the right dreaming about a white nationalist, Christian nationalist country — which is why we must keep fighting to keep our hope in each other.

Ginna Green, Bend the Arc Board Co-Chair and Partner at Uprise, speaks powerfully about how we can combat attempts to spread fear and divide us by sharing each other’s stories. “The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend toward justice. It bends toward those who are pulling the hardest.”

"There’s this perception in the Jewish community that no one’s going to be there for us...It’s not understanding who the “us” actually is, and it’s not understanding who our movement partners are, who the rest of the people who care about justice in this country are."

Bend the Arc CEO Jamie Beran shares why we all have a stake in the fight for a more liberated future.

Building people power “to span election cycles is critical for us to move beyond believing that politicians are going to fix things for us.” Rachèl Laforest, Chief Programs Officer, explains why we must deepen our relationships beyond just election seasons — and why we cannot ignore the movement that's growing on the right.